Brest, France – March 16,2010. Geensoft, the specialist independent provider of software design tools and associated professional services for embedded systems development, has announced that Ouest Ventures, the highly respected venture capital company based in Rennes (France), has made a significant investment in the company.
Launched at the recent Embedded World exhibition in Nuremberg (Germany), Geensoft was created by a management buy-out (MBO) of the former embedded design tools business of Geensys. The funds raised from Ouest Ventures, the amount of which is undisclosed, will be used as working capital for the ongoing development of the company and its products on an international level. The investment gives Ouest Ventures a 25% stake in Geensoft. The controlling 75% stake in the company remains with the management and employees of Geensoft.
The MBO creating Geensoft was led by former Geensys executives Eliane Fourgeau, Thierry Gueguen and Marc Frouin. Headquartered in Brest (France), Geensoft operates on a global basis with R&D and sales offices in France (Paris, Brest and Nancy) along with sales offices in Germany (Munich) and Japan (Yokohama) supported by a network of distributors, value-added integrators and OEMs throughout Europe, North America and Asia. Geensoft’s extremely experienced executive management team includes Thierry Gueguen as CTO, Michel Hagege as VP of Worldwide Sales and Eliane Fourgeau as CEO.
Internationally recognised, Ouest Ventures specialises in funding companies based in the western regions of France where it has invested in over 25 companies including several technology businesses. The Ouest Ventures investment team provides active support for the companies in which it invests, helping to drive value creation and international expansion. Eric Cozanet, founder of Ouest Ventures, will join the Geensoft Supervisory Board which is headed by Marc Frouin, Geensys’ former President and one of the principal players in the MBO.
Geensoft’s product portfolio includes the award-winning Reqtify, ControlBuild and AUTOSAR Builder tool suites as well as the RT-Builder system simulation tool. Highly successful in satisfying the embedded systems and software development needs of a broad range of industries over the past five years, Geensoft intends to accelerate its worldwide growth potential by capitalising on its existing and demonstrable success, industry-proven track record and respective market-leadership.
“The completion of the MBO has enabled us to focus more clearly and completely on accelerating the market penetration and future growth potential of our portfolio of software tools for embedded systems,” said Eliane Fourgeau. “Ouest Ventures’ funding support will help us to harness this development and achieve further international growth”.
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About Geensoft
Geensoft delivers industry-proven, best-in-class embedded systems development tools and professional services that help engineering teams in the aerospace, Automotive, defence, energy, industrial automation, medical and transportation industries to more efficiently manage their engineering processes as well as design, verify and validate their Model-based embedded systems applications. Privately owned with 60+ employees and headquartered in France, Geensoft has sales offices in Europe and Japan supported by a network of distributors and value-added integrators worldwide. Geensoft’s products include the award-winning Reqtify, ControlBuild and AUTOSAR Builder as well as RT-Builder tool suites. Reqtify provides automated management of embedded systems and software requirements capture, traceability and impact analysis throughout the entire development lifecycle. AUTOSAR Builder enables ARTOP-based design, development, verification and validation of AUTOSAR-compliant automotive electronic systems. ControlBuild is a front-to-back environment for the design, development, validation, deployment and maintenance of control and automation systems and applications. RT-Builder facilitates the modelling, simulation and validation of distributed real-time architectures for multi-processor and multi-bus systems. For further information, visit: www.geensoft.com.
