Salesforce consultancy Nextview welcomes second growth investor
Dutch Salesforce consultancy Nextview Consulting has roped in a second investor with the aim of accelerating its European expansion plans – at the same time turning all its employees into mini-shareholders.
Founded in 2009, Nextview Consulting is with over 150 experts one of the larger Salesforce consultancies in the Benelux, serving clients across the Netherlands and Belgium. The firm also has a small number of clients in Germany.
With NIBC Investment Partners now on board, “we will be able to accelerate our European growth ambitions,” said Huub Waterval, the founder and chief executive officer of Nextview Consulting.
“Our first step is to speed up our growth in Germany, so that we can provide high-end digital transformation to even more customers,” said Waterval. This includes adding new members to its team, and expanding the firm’s Design Thinking Centers concept to new hubs in Frankfurt, München and Hamburg.
According to data from analyst firm ISG, Germany’s Salesforce consulting market is one of the hottest in Europe. “More enterprises are adopting Salesforce software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions and turning to the ecosystem for help in implementing them,” explained Andrea Spiegelhoff, an expert at ISG in Germany.
“The market for CRM was already growing fast, said Waterval, quick to add that going forward he expects the momentum to “accelerate even further due to trends in digitisation and of course Covid 19-measures. This urges companies to optimise and digitise their customer interactions.”
Providing further opportunities for specialised players such as Nextview Consulting, Germany’s market is also more fragmented than other mature markets, meaning that alongside the giants in the space (such as Accenture, the Big Four, etc), there is “significant room” for other players to differentiate and manifest themselves.
With the backing of NIBC Investment Partners, and Salesforce Ventures (which provided growth capital in the summer of 2020), Nextview Consulting aims to capitalise on these German opportunities, and follow up on that with expansion into other European markets.
Frans van der Harst, Head of NIBC Investment Partners said: “Nextview has an impressive track record in supporting and guiding corporate clients in their digital transformation and infrastructure. We are excited to see them accelerate in the Netherlands, Germany and of course the rest of Europe and look forward to supporting them in every way we can.”
Every employee = shareholder
Meanwhile, in line with its purpose and people-first principles (Nexview Consulting is a certified B Corp), the firm’s management team have simultaneously rolled out an employee stock ownership model. Waterval: “I think that everyone who has contributed and will contribute to the success of the company should also share in its success.”
Financial terms and conditions of the NIBC Investment Partners deal have not been disclosed. Following closing of the transaction, both NIBC Investment Partners, Salesforce Ventures and the company’s employees will be minority shareholders. The remaining shares are in hands of the management team.