a new eye on investments

IN THIS EDITION

1Exit Mirror42

Newion acquires stake in Reasult

2, 3 & 4Our team

Interview founders and CEO Mirror42

5Column Erik Brunekreef

PNO Consultants

6 & 7News Flash

8Contact Newion

Newion has exited its shareholding

in Mirror42 through the acquisition of

Mirror42 by ServiceNow. Newion invested

late 2007 in Mirror42. The company grew

with support of Newion to a leading vendor

of cloud-based IT and business intelligence

solutions that provide users with key per-

formance indicator (KPI) driven dashboards

and scorecards.

Patrick Polak, founder and managing part-

ner at Newion Investments states, “I am

personally thrilled and obliged to have

taken part in the first investment round of

this company late 2007, supporting them

during the whole investment period and

now in the exit. The Mirror42 team did an

exceptional job in turning a truly disruptive

technology into great products that they

introduced into the market successfully. At

ServiceNow this technology can even be

further developed”.

Further on in this edition you can read an

interview with the founders of Mirror42

Karel van der Poel and Arjen Pront and CEO

Marcel Smit.

Newion’s Private Plus Fund exits Mirror42 via acquisition by ServiceNow

Businesspark Friesland West 27B

8466 SL Nijehaske

The Netherlands

Luchthavenweg 81, 138

5657 EA Eindhoven

The Netherlands

VISITING ADDRESS:

News on Investments

July 2013

Questions? Call us:+31 513 640 633

Newion II acquires stake in ReasultOn 2 May Reasult, the supplier of real

estate software and Newion Investments

agreed on an equity transaction by which

Newion acquired an interest in Reasult.

Newion acquired the shareholdings of a

number of shareholders in Reasult Holding

B.V. and has thereby gained a significant

minority stake.

Read more about Reasult in the News

Flash.

Our team

Patrick Polak

Managing Partner

Jaap van Barneveld

Managing Partner

Frank Claassen

Investment Director Partner

Erik Aeyelts Averink

Venture Partner

Geert Zanting

Controller

Newion Investments achieved a very suc-

cessful exit with the sale of its interest in

Mirror42. The company has been acquired

by an international strategic buyer, the

US-based ServiceNow - The Enterprise IT

Cloud Company. Mirror42 specialises in

business intelligence software for IT ma-

nagement. Newion used its Private Plus

Fund to invest in the company in December

2007. Together with founders Karel van der

Poel and Arjen Pront, and CEO Marcel Smit,

News on Investments looks back on the

development of the company from when

it first started, the role played by Newion

Investments and the process that resulted

in the acquisition by ServiceNow.

Karel and Arjen originally met in 1993 when

Karel started to work for Prolin, first as a

programmer and later in the area of pro-

duct marketing. Karel dealt with compe-

tition and market analysis and operated

between R&D and Sales and Arjen was of-

ficially his manager but really acted more

as a mentor.

Eighteen months after Prolin was acquired

by HP Arjen co-founded Tornado Insider. A

year later Karel was involved in setting up

Gorilla Park, an investment fund that would

invest alongside Tornado Insider.

Karel: “My role was to find new investment

opportunities for Gorilla Park. That was

when I first came into contact with Patrick

Polak, when we considered a possible in-

vestment together with Newion. When

Gorilla Park no longer had capital for

further investments I left and worked on

several projects in the area of product

marketing. That was how I became

acquainted with Westbury, an HP ser-

vice company formed by people who

previously worked for Prolin. They had a

product known as Report Manager, but

didn’t know how to successfully market it

within their service organisation.

“That was when we first came up with the

idea for Mirror42. We’re talking 2004. In the

positions I held at Prolin and Gorilla Park I

needed KPI dashboards to quantify leads.

With the introduction of COBIT (Control

Objectives for IT) methodology we came

up with the concept of defining KPIs for

IT to measure IT performance. I quickly

brought in Arjen, who was then serving as

a venture coach for Westbury among other

companies.

“I knew from my days at Gorilla Park that

when you are setting up a company you

need someone who is good at networking

and can generate lots of contacts.

“Initially we worked in close collaboration

with Westbury. Mirror42 built the product

and Westbury handled sales to HP custo-

mers.

“Mirror42 was internationally oriented right

from the start. American Water and the data

Newion achieves successful exit with sale of Mirror42 to ServiceNow

portfolio overview

2

Our team

Greetje van Ek

Investment Manager

Anna Tuinenburg

Office Manager

Jochem de Graaf

Investment Manager

Mathijs de Wit

Business Analyst

Nienke Verlaan

Office Manager

aggregation company, ChoicePoint, also in

the US, were our first customers.”

Arjen: “Once we signed Cannon as our

first direct customer and proved that the

Mirror42 product could also be sold out-

side the HP market, we found time to scale

up our operation and seek investors.”

Karel: “When I got to know Patrick while

working at Gorilla Park I thought, if ever

I set up a company and need an investor,

Newion will be the first people I call.

Arjen knew Solid Ventures, so with the

combination of these two investors we had

solid backing. Newion insisted on monito-

ring our developments for three quarters

before proceeding to invest. But once we

proved that we were capable of closing

deals independently, the process rapidly

gathered momentum and the investment

went ahead as planned.”

The funding provided by the investment

was originally intended to be used to in-

crease the company’s sales capacity. But,

when the financial crisis hit in 2008, many

potential customers reduced their budget.

At that point the shareholders unanimously

decided to use the investment to pursue in-

novation and the initiative to develop KPI

Library was approved.

Karel: “This came about because one of our

customers presented us with a list of KPIs

produced by an IT consultancy after six

months of research. We thought we could

do better.

“We set up a website, www.KPIlibrary.com,

and started publishing KPIs. The site quickly

attracted large numbers of visitors, so we

created a registration form. What we nee-

ded to work out was how to turn this into a

profitable enterprise.

“This led to the development of the SaaS

platform KPI Dashboards. The initial ver-

sion aimed at smaller companies was sub-

sequently elaborated for the enterprise

market.”

Arjen: “To begin with we had trouble fin-

ding the right partners. Consultancy and

software suppliers find it difficult to form

partnerships.

“Things finally took off in December 2011

when ServiceNow released the first SaaS

platform for ITSM with open interfaces

for third parties. This enabled us to form

a connection with ServiceNow. It took ap-

proximately six months for the customers

to start working with that version. In May

2012 we had our first ServiceNow customer

in the UK. They were hugely enthusiastic

because the functionality that ServiceNow

lacked was solved by Mirror42. That created

an appetite for more.”

portfolio overview

3

portfolio overview

Karel: “After seven years, that was the point

at which I wanted to pass the baton to a

new CEO who could drive the next phase. A

great deal of execution power was required

for the next phase and Marcel Smit’s expe-

rience meant that he was the right person

in the right place.”

When asked why he agreed to join Mirror42

Marcel says: “My decision was prompted

primarily by the team. I first met Karel and

Arjen when they were at Prolin and I was at

Oracle. When Q-go was acquired by Right-

now, which was then acquired by Oracle,

I realised that I preferred to work within a

smaller organisation. When I spoke with

Karel and Arjen, after introduction by

Patrick who was on the board of Q-go,

there was an immediate chemistry. And

even though Mirror42 is a small organisa-

tion, it has a great deal experience.

“Secondly the product clearly had great

promise and had already proved its va-

lue in small and larger organisations. We

were simply trying to do too much with it.

Wide-ranging functionality is great, but as

a company you can only grow so far with a

product that works across the board. In my

view it’s far better to be a market leader in a

small area. Something I learnt at Q-go that

I applied at Mirror42 is tremendous focus.

You also have to decide not to do certain

things. Sometimes it can be difficult to stop

doing something if you have been inves-

ting energy in it for years.

“We organised a series of strategy sessions

and eventually decided to form a partner-

ship with ServiceNow.

We certainly didn’t expect to be discussing

an acquisition at a high level within the or-

ganisation so soon after we formed a part-

nership. ServiceNow decided to acquire

the company because the functionality of

Mirror42 enables it to meet customers’ ex-

pectations. “The decision to sell the com-

pany came earlier than planned, but it was

a clear decision on our part and we are

delighted with the way things worked out.

“ServiceNow is one of the fastest growing

companies in the US and was floated on

the stock market a year ago. Mirror42 is its

first acquisition.

“We went to a ServiceNow Sales Kick-Off

event, but rather than hiring an expensive

stand, we displayed orange clogs with the

Mirror42 logo, which attracted more atten-

tion than anything else. Mirror42 quickly

reverberated throughout the ServiceNow

organisation.”

Arjen: “Most companies are sold following

the formation of a partnership. I and the

rest of the original Mirror42 team will con-

tinue to do what we do within ServiceNow.

“We made all the right moves on the chess-

board to be able to sell the company. I was

always tremendously appreciative of the

constructively critical and creative attitude

adopted by Newion, because the intention

was always to achieve joint success.”

4

portfolio overview

5% instead of 25% taxes: who would not like that? The lower percentage is related to the

‘Innovatiebox’ and her little sister, the ‘MKB Forfait’. Both are part of three attractive Dutch

fiscal grants to push forward innovative companies.

INNOVATIEBOX BACKGROUND

In order to stimulate long term economic growth the Dutch government has set out to be-

come a top five player in the list of most innovative economies in the World. With the help

of three fiscal instruments the Dutch government focuses on the stimulation of technical

innovations, from the premier initiation development phase all the way through a com-

mercial successful company.

For the first research and development phase there is the WBSO (Wet ter bevordering van

Speur & Ontwikkeling) grant, which offers a fiscal discount on the labor costs for R&D. On

top of that the RDA (Research en Development Aftrek) grant offers an extra fiscal advan-

tage on all other R&D costs and expenditures.

The final phase of innovation is a difficult stage for entrepreneurs in which they need to

commercially make their innovation to a success by making a profit (EBITA). In this phase

the Innovatiebox offers a discount on the corporate tax (vennootschapsbelasting). Besi-

des companies who have patented their technology, innovative companies who use the

WBSO grant are since 2010 allowed to apply for the Innovatiebox grant.

Innovative companies can negotiate an agreement with the Dutch Tax Authorities (Belas-

tingdienst) for the use of the Innovatiebox for a number of years. This agreement will state

which part of the EBIT can be attributed to innovation and can therefore be taxed for an

interestingly low rate of 5%.

THE MKB FORFAIT: A MORE ACCESIBLE INNOVATIEBOX

Besides the Innovatiebox the Dutch Government issued in 2013 a light version of the In-

novatiebox called the MKB Forfait. With this grant 25% of the fiscal profit, to a maximum

of € 25,000 per year, can be taxed at the rate of 5%. For each development the maximum

use of the grant is three years. The net MKB Forfait value can add up to a total net fiscal

discount of € 15,000.

ADVANTAGE

The total innovation process from research and development in the WBSO and RDA grant,

till the commercial exploitation in the Innovatiebox is the principal on which the gover-

nment has based its fiscal policy. The three fiscal grants therefore are strongly related to

one another. The Innovatiebox and the MKB Forfait are the closing ends. In order to realize

maximum fiscal potential, it is crucial to benefit from the relation between all three fiscal

instruments.

The reality is that the Innovatiebox and the MKB Forfait when used correctly will both

result in faster tax reduction. And that dear reader smells like good coffee!

5% INSTEAD OF 25% TAXES – ALSO WHEN YOU ARE NOT STARBUCKS

5

Column

Erik Brunekreef

Business Developer

Team High Tech

PNO Consultants

T: +31 (0)74 246 88 88

portfolio overview

BBC Click shows first glimpse of new UK

extreme virtual reality environment, XVR

E-Semble

BBC Click featured an episode on the 360-de-

gree projection dome ‘IGLOO’, a portable

dome-shaped structure equipped with five

large projectors. These project a full 360-de-

gree visual on the inside of the dome. A team

from E-Semble, Igloo Vision, Team Minerva

and MiddleVR worked together to get XVR

up and running in IGLOO. The episode of BBC

Click also revealed a glimpse of the new XVR

environment created specifically for UK users

by our 3D modellers. The 2013 release will

make the new environment available to all

XVR users.

Software Improvement Group awards

LeanApps Life 3 Stars!

The Software Improvement Group (SIG) re-

cently awarded LeanApps Life a 3 star rating.

SIG is an independent agency that evaluates

the technical quality of software.

“A SIG 3 star rating for such complex soft-

ware speaks highly of the technical stability

and maintainability of the software. This is

achieved by the ‘continuous improvement po-

licy’ adopted by the LeanApps development

organisation: a philosophy that small incre-

mental improvements create a clear upward

trend, which motivates employees to main-

tain and further enhance the quality of the

software.” says Ron van den Broek, Managing

Director of LeanApps.

LeanApps is committed to the technical qua-

lity of its software and is engaged in conti-

nuous improvement initiatives. To ensure that

there is no divergence from quality standards,

LeanApps uploads its entire source code

onto the SIG platform on a weekly basis.

SIG generates trend reports and advises

LeanApps of any inconsistencies, which

enables LeanApps to identify potential

technical degradations and deal with them

proactively. That way, LeanApps secures the

quality of LeanApps Life for its customers.

Collibra launches Data Governance Center

4.0 - a Data Steward focused platform

The launch of Collibra’s Data Governance Cen-

ter is a groundbreaking change in the data ma-

nagement space. Collibra’s Data Governance

Center is a web-based solution for business

and IT data stewards who work together to

control and manage data. As a workflow-

based data governance engine it supports

data management processes and decisions

involving the data steward organization.

Data Governance Center 4.0 consists of a

suite of three seamlessly integrated products:

‘Business Semantics Glossary’, ‘Reference

Data Accelerator’ and ‘Data Stewardship

Manager’. The suite supports key data gover-

nance and stewardship requirements such as

business glossary, data directory, reference

data management, policy management and

compliance, data quality issue management

and monitoring.

Data Governance Center 4.0 is installed and

commissioned in 10 days. This includes instal-

lation, training and configuration to match your

operational model. This guarantees a low TCO

and accelerated data maturity increase.

Vector Fabrics named Cool Vendor in Em-

bedded Software and Systems 2013 by

Gartner, Inc

Vector Fabrics has launched tools to help soft-

ware developers optimize and parallelize their

applications for multicore architectures quickly

and cost effectively.

Why Cool? Vector Fabrics’ Pareon offers an in-

cremental path to transform sequential code

into optimized parallel code that takes full ad-

vantage of the hardware. The unique feature

of Pareon is its ability to optimize any code

written in C/C++ for various multicore archi-

tectures.

This means Pareon can optimize code for

mobile devices, network processing and high-

Newion News Flash 2013

6

January

15

February

27

March

22

April

23

portfolio overview

performance computing and other systems

that use these architectures.

Using a visual, point-and-click interface, Pa-

reon allows the programmer to interactively

explore different forms of parallelism and me-

mory optimizations to get instant feedback on

the potential performance gain. The in-built

analysis engine provides a full view of code

behaviour to allow programmers to perform

parallelization correctly and handle applicati-

ons of millions of lines of code without any

restrictions on complexity.

Newion II acquires stake in Reasult.

On 2 May Reasult, a company that supplies

real estate software, and Newion Investments

agreed an equity transaction in which Ne-

wion acquired an interest in Reasult through

purchasing the shareholdings of several of the

shareholders of Reasult Holding B.V., thereby

gaining a significant minority stake in the com-

pany.

Aart Zandbergen, Managing Director of

Reasult, said he was delighted with the arri-

val of Newion Investments as a shareholder.

“Reasult has built up an important position in

the area of forecasting and analysis software

for the real estate market and wants to ex-

pand this position. Newion Investments’ ex-

perience and professionalism as a software

investor will enable us to achieve further na-

tional and international expansion. This is im-

portant for the development of our business.”

Jaap van Barneveld, Managing Partner of

Newion, said: “We consider our investment in

Reasult to be a valuable addition to our portfo-

lio. Reasult has built up an impressive portfolio

of clients in recent years. The increasing repor-

ting requirements that now apply to housing

corporations and real estate investors mean

that there is growing demand for professio-

nal real estate software. Given this trend and

the opportunities abroad, we anticipate that

Reasult, with its high quality products, will

achieve further substantial growth over the

next few years.”

Newion CTO Agile Workshop

Our portfolio companies often express a de-

sire to meet other companies in the portfolio

with a view to sharing experiences. So Newi-

on organised a CTO workshop on 30 May with

the aim of increasing synergy between its

portfolio companies. The theme of the work-

shop was agile software development.

Agile software development is a software

development method based on iterative and

incremental development, where require-

ments and solutions evolve through collabora-

tion between self-organizing, cross-functional

teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolu-

tionary development and delivery and encou-

rages rapid and flexible response to change.

The workshop was held in Hilversum under

the inspired leadership of Rini van Solingen

and Vikram Kapoor (Prowareness). After a

creative introduction, the 15 CTOs attending

the workshop were asked to rate themselves

based on the level of agile maturity of their

companies and to present the outcome to

their peers. This was the start of a lively dis-

cussion encouraged by the invitation for eve-

ryone to ‘open their kimonos’. The resulting

list of current inhibitors was discussed and

possible solutions were suggested by the at-

tendees. After a walking dinner, Rini van Solin-

gen and Vikram Kapoor presented the do’s and

don’ts of Scrum.

Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile

software development framework for mana-

ging software development.

The workshop ended with drinks and positive

comments from the participants. The general

opinion expressed by the CTOs was that the-

re is a powerful community and that regular

meetings with peers would be helpful. So the

next workshop is already being considered.

Servoy World 2013

On 13 and 14 June Servoy’s eighth internati-

onal conference for developers and Indepen-

dent Software Vendors (ISVs) was undoub-

tedly the largest so far. Attendees gathered

from around the globe in Amsterdam, the ca-

pital of Servoy’s native country, to learn from

the best and brightest and enjoyed the fun and

the best that Servoy has to offer.

As well as the two-day conference, there was

also time for some awesome pre- and post-

conference training classes. ServoyWorld

2013 was an excellent, fact-filled, intense lear-

ning experience enjoyed by all.

The conference began with an opening keyno-

te by Forrester’s Stefan Ried and Servoy’s

founder Jan Aleman.

They provided an insight into trends in the

market and what Servoy is doing to enable

customers to act on them. The programme

included more than 35 sessions with national

and international speakers, experts and practi-

tioners across various areas of (software) de-

velopment. All levels of software development

were addressed, from basic to advanced.

Newion News Flash 2013

7

May

2

May

30

June

13

Businesspark Friesland West 27B

8466 SL Nijehaske

The Netherlands

Luchthavenweg 81, 138

5657 EA Eindhoven

The Netherlands

Telephone +31 (0)513 640 633

Fax +31 (0)513 640 871

E-mail info@newion-investments.com

Contact us

Questions? Call us:+31 513 640 633a new eye on investments