LONDON | June 03, 2020 – Drake Star Partners is pleased to announce the release of its next Drake Star DEAL INSIGHTS publication – an exclusive and fascinating ‘behind the scenes’ Q&A interview with Alejandro Blanes, Pablo Blanes and Joaquin Cuenca; co-founders of Freepik Company (“Freepik”) following their recent majority sale to EQT Mid-Market Europe Partners (“EQT”) announced on 28 May 2020.
In their interview with Eric Ward (Partner) and Kasper Kruse Petersen (Partner) who advised the Company, the three co-founders discuss:
• Why they decided to sell a majority of the company
• What were some of the biggest challenges and surprises they faced
• How they handled the process in the midst of the global pandemic lockdown
• Advice to other founders and entrepreneurs looking to sell their business
• Why they chose to partner with EQT vs selling to a strategic; and finally
• Their experience of working closely with Drake Star Partners
Feepik is a global leader in the micro-stock segment of the Visual Content sector. Founded in 2010, in Malaga Spain, by brothers Alejandro and Pablo Blanes along with Joaquín Cuenca, Freepik has firmly established itself as the “go-to” destination for graphic resources in the industry offering vectors, illustrations, photos, icons and presentation templates.
Through its three complementary and highly successful products, Freepik, Flaticon and Slidesgo, the Company has built a highly loyal customer base of 32 million visitors per month, 20 million registered users and 300,000 subscribers who collectively download over 110 million pieces of content each month.
Drake Star Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor to Freepik and its shareholders on this transaction. The acquisition of Freepik represents a landmark transaction in the broader technology and digital media sectors in Europe and one of the largest European private equity backed technology M&A transactions in 2020. This is particularly notable given the current difficult COVID-19 environment. Drake Star managed a highly competitive process featuring a number of strategic and private equity parties.
About Freepik
Freepik supports approximately 32 million monthly visitors, leveraging consumer demand insights from 5 billion downloads to date, to create over 10 million high quality and curated graphic resources across icons, vectors, photos, and templates. Freepik is a global leader in the fast-growing visual content, online graphic design and digital media space, thanks to a disruptive business model and a unique, data-driven approach to content sourcing and in-house content production, supporting a rapidly growing community of 20 million registered users.
More info:
www.freepikcompany.com
www.freepik.com
www.flaticon.com
www.slidesgo.com
www.stories.freepik.com
www.editor.freepik.com
About EQT
EQT is a differentiated global investment organization with more than EUR 62 billion in raised capital and around EUR 40 billion in assets under management across 19 active funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America with total sales of more than EUR 27 billion and approximately 159,000 employees. EQT works with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership.
For more information, please visit www.eqtpartners.com
www.EQT.COM
About Drake Star
Drake Star is an award-winning global tech investment bank that has completed over 400 transactions since 2003. Drake Star team of over 125 senior professionals across offices in New York, London, Paris, Munich, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berlin, Geneva, Dubai*, and Singapore* focuses on mergers & acquisitions and corporate finance services worldwide in Consumer & Retail Technology, Digital Media, FinTech, Mobility & Sustainability, Software/SaaS, Digital Services, and Industrial Tech sectors.
Drake Star Partners is the marketing name for the global investment bank Drake Star Partners Limited and its subsidiaries and affiliates. In the USA, all securities are transacted through Drake Star Securities LLC. In the USA, Drake Star Securities LLC is regulated by FINRA and is a member of SIPC. Drake Star UK Limited (FRN 942020) is an appointed representative of Kession Capital Ltd (FRN582160) which is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. © 2016 Drake Star Partners Limited.
www.drakestar.com
*Partner Offices
