Telescope Advisory Partners: Pinova Capital Allows Sematell to Achieve Its Next Growth Phase
Increased service expectations by customers, and hence an increased focus on customer centricity by companies is a clear trend, and has become a clear differentiator in any company’s business model. While customer services used to be phone and voice based in the past, new technologies -such as Artificial Intelligence- and changed customer preferences, that is mainly driven by Generation Z and the Millennials, have brought forward the preference of a text-based communication.
Technology can increase the company’s efficiency to handle customer requests as it can route the question to the most relevant respondent, or even provide an automatic answer without human intervention. Software can also be used to collect information requests from a single customer over different communication channels -such as email, mail, chat, and phone- and capture it in a central database to eventually provide the responder with a high degree of visibility on the full communication history. This should all lead to an enhanced service delivery, and hence, an increased customer satisfaction.
Sematell is a provider of intelligent, AI-based contact center or response management software solutions for text-based customer services in the DACH region. The company is a spin-off from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), and has been part of the portfolio of Düsseldorf-based investment company IMCap since 2016. During this holding period, sales have more than tripled. Pinova Capital, a Munich based PE fund that focuses on fast-growing SMEs with technology-driven business models, has now acquired Sematell, and will allow the company to achieve its next growth phase.
“Sematell has grown rapidly in recent years due to its AI-based software solution. The solution is used to meet increasing customer demands in terms of reduced response time to inquiries in the customer center. In conjunction with Pinova, Sematell has the potential to further develop the software and generate growth in the future, also through expansion outside the DACH region.” – says Simon Fischer, Managing Partner at Telescope Advisory Partners.
The Telescope Advisory Partners team advised Pinova Capital with Commercial Due Diligence services on this acquisition.