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Nitro’s acquisition of Belgian-based e-signature SaaS Connective is one of its moves on the European market alongside a new hiring plan for its Dublin team.
Nitro Software is set to acquire Belgium headquartered e-signature SaaS provider Connective in a bid to become one of the world’s top providers of document signing and productivity technology.
The transaction will be funded by a capital raise of $140m. Nitro, which is headquartered in San Francisco, is keen to leverage Connective’s European customer base. The e-signature software company already has offices in London, Dublin, Toronto and Melbourne.
Nitro’s productivity platform includes PDF productivity software, e-signing and analytics. The company has more than 2.8m licensed users and 13,000 business customers in 155 countries.
Connective has more than 1,000 customers across more than 15 countries and a total of 31 e-ID and smart card integrations. Under the terms of the acquisition, Connective will become an indirect subsidiary of Nitro. Its European team of 60 will join Nitro’s team to work on integrating their product offerings for their clients, many of whom work in digital-first industries which depend on automated software such as e-signature functions.
Sam Chandler, co-founder and CEO of Nitro, called the deal a “milestone moment” in Nitro’s growth. “With data privacy and security at a premium, the future of e-signing is built around high-trust e-ID-driven solutions and this acquisition positions Nitro to become a global leader in this space.”
He added that Connective and Nitro together would make “document workflow automation easy, powerful and available to all”.
Nitro has also announced that it plans to grow its Irish team by around 30pc over the next year. Its Dublin branch is its primary product and engineering hub globally, with its CRO and several other key Nitro leaders based there, such as its VP of product, VP of engineering and head of global people.
The company has had a presence in Ireland since 2014, opening an EMEA headquarters in Dublin in 2019.
Updated, 10.30am, 16 November 2021: A previous version of this article said the transaction will be funded by a capital raise of $104m. This was amended to the correct funding figure of $140m.
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