SAP wants to take over supplier fintech Taulia

Created: 01/27/2022, 09:49 am

By: Patricia Huber

SAP plans to acquire Taulia.

© Uwe Anspach/dpa

The software company SAP is planning another major takeover.

This time he is investing in the financial platform Taulia.

Berlin - The software giant SAP wants to build a new mainstay with the takeover of the US supplier fintech Taulia.

“Until now we didn't have a financial platform.

That is very complementary," said company boss Christian Klein to journalists on Thursday about the acquisition, which should be completed by March.

Taulia is to remain an independent company within SAP.

CFO Luka Mucic did not want to comment on the terms of the deal in detail, but revealed that SAP would put less than a billion dollars on the table and acquire around 95 percent of Taulia.

SAP: Taulia offers these services

Relationships between Taulia and the Walldorf-based Dax group have existed for a long time. The company is an SAP partner and former SAP CEO Leo Apotheker holds an interest in Taulia and serves as an independent director. Founded in 2009, the fintech offers solutions that enable companies to pay for deliveries early. Taulia has two million customers who can use the bridge financing to maintain relationships, secure supply chains and take advantage of discounts. Banks such as JPMorgan and UniCredit provide the necessary financing for this, bridging the time until invoices are settled by buyers within the payment period.

After the takeover by SAP, the US bank JPMorgan and company boss Cédric Bru remain as shareholders in Taulia.

It is unclear how much money previous investors have invested and how highly the fintech is valued.

According to data provider Crunchbase, Taulia has earned more than $217 million in the past.

SAP is open to getting more investors on board in the future, but always wants to keep the majority, said Mucic.

SAP has already taken over several companies

In its 50-year company history, SAP has already made several billion acquisitions such as the data analysis provider Qualtrics, which is now listed, or the travel management platform Concur. However, the software colossus found it difficult to integrate the acquisitions and form a unified offer. Klein focused on the transformation of SAP into a cloud company, putting off larger acquisitions and targeting smaller acquisitions such as the Berlin-based software specialist Signavio.

SAP is now making significant progress in shifting its core business to the cloud.

The all-round offer "Rise with SAP" comes to more than 1300 customers.

The program, which started around a year ago, takes companies by the hand to make it easier for them to transform into the cloud.

The aim is for companies to run core processes such as corporate planning (ERP) on external computers via the data cloud.

SAP confirmed the quarterly figures published on January 13, as well as the outlook for the current financial year.

Accordingly, currency-adjusted cloud revenues are expected to increase by 23 to 26 percent to between 11.55 and 11.85 billion euros in 2022.