The private investment arm of Koch Industries, the industrial conglomerate of the billionaire Koch brothers, has completed its $2.5 billion acquisition of a large stake in business software provider Infor Inc.
The investment by Koch Equity Development LLC is intended to boost Infor’s financial muscle as it seeks to compete more effectively with larger software providers in the enterprise space including Oracle and SAP.
KED had announced the investment in November. “The investment will provide Infor access to additional growth capital to accelerate innovation, expand distribution, and continue disrupting the enterprise applications industry,” Infor said in a news release.
Businesses use Infor software to manage inventory, accounting processes, and logistics. The company claims to have more than 66 million users of its cloud applications.
According to Infor, the double-digit revenue growth in its most recent quarter was fueled by a 130% annual increase in SaaS revenue and more half of its software revenues are now derived from cloud applications.
“The fact that business software companies are consolidating at a rapid pace — Oracle just completed its $9.3 billion buy of NetSuite, for example — no doubt helped drive [Koch’s] investment,” Fortune reported.
With the investment, Koch got four of the nine seats on the Infor board. “Infor’s demonstrated capability to help companies across a wide spectrum of industries automate and improve efficiency is relevant to our broad portfolio of invested companies and we look forward to exploring co-innovation opportunities,” Brett Watson, senior managing director of KED, said in November.
Other Infor investors include Golden Gate Capital and Summit Partners.