As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes, the end of a series of successes of Croatian technology companies in 2020 was made by the roatian company Microblink with the investment of the Boston investment company Silversmith Capital Partners, which invested 60 million US dollars in Microblink for a minority stake, making the domestic company’s market valuation exceed one billion kuna.
Microblink is a world leader in the field of computer vision based on artificial intelligence (AI), and many applications use its technology to use a mobile phone camera to replace manual data entry.
Their software products are used by several hundred million users in about 70 countries. In 2020, despite the coronavirus crisis, the Croatian company Microblink ended with a 36% increase in sales revenue with an increase in the number of employees, which now numbers more than 100, and with a new investment board with Sri Rao, a Silversmith partner, and Darren Bassman, co-founder of BlinkReceipt, who became the CEO of Microblink.
”The Microblink technology platform enables intelligent use of computer vision such as account scanning (BlinkReceipt), personal documents (BlinkID) and payment data (BlinkCard). BlinkReceipt extracts and identifies data at the level of the SKU (Central Control Unit) from the real-time accounts of hundreds of traders and millions of SKUs. There’s a huge opportunity in this category and we’re going to continue to invest in it,” said Darren Bassman.
As this is the first time that external capital has entered Microblink, and for Silversmith it was the first time they invested in a Croatian company, the general partner in Silversmith, now a member of the Board of Microblink, Sri Rao, revealed to what the plans going forward are.
Why Microblink?
Microblink has brought together one of the world’s leading technology teams focused on data science and computer vision. This talented group has developed a platform that unlocks real-world AI and machine learning applications that are now used by hundreds of millions of end users, who collectively scan billions of documents each year to save time and money. The company is addressing a large, growing market and we look forward to working with a team that continues to develop customer-focused products that solve problems for companies in a variety of industries.
What benefits does partnering with Silversmith Capital Partners bring to Microblink?
Silversmith is focused on partnering with profitable companies like Microblink with high growth, run by their founders. Focusing on products focused on product growth as a market entry strategy allows us to leverage our experience and our networks as a complement to the management teams we support. Microblink has built a world-class engineering organisation and technology platform, and the partnership with Silversmith will help the company accelerate growth in key business areas, including product development, market entry and team expansion. We’re long-term oriented investors and will work with the company to invest in a team, product and market-going organisation to enable sustainable growth in the future.
After the partnership with the Croatian company Microblink, will you start a deeper study of the Croatian IT scene, considering that Microblink is the first Croatian IT company in which you have invested?
We’re always looking for exciting growing companies with market leading products in our key areas of focus. We’re also discovering that there are more and more of them outside of the Silicon Valley, and this is a trend we have long believed in. We enjoy discovering great talents on the Croatian technology scene.
You state that Silversmith’s mission is to partner and support the best entrepreneurs in growing, profitable technology and healthcare companies. We’ve seen that technology, ie digitalisation and digital transformation, and healthcare are the most important industries, which in 2020 experienced additional growth due to the global crisis. How has this crisis affected Silversmith, this investment and results?
2020 was certainly a unique and challenging year on so many levels. In response to the crisis, there has been an acceleration of digital transformation around the world. What would take years to move, happened in a mere few months. We’ve seen this through the prism of our portfolio companies. Some of them were already remote organisations, and others had to move out of the office, while taking care of the health and safety of their teams. The profitable nature of these companies has allowed them to weather the storm, and the need for digital solutions due to the pandemic has allowed some companies to accelerate their growth.
Technology and health will continue to serve as key components of economic recovery even after the end of the pandemic. Our focus on growing, profitable companies means that every business is well positioned to address new opportunities. Across the portfolio in 2020, we saw 43 completed acquisitions, a 20 percent increase in employees, a 30 percent increase in average income, and four investment exits (full and partial).
How many professional investors do you gather together? How much has Silversmith collected since its founding back in 2015?
We have 22 professional investors. Since its inception, we have raised 460 million US dollars in the first fund in 2015, 670 million dollars in the second in 2018, and 880 million dollars in 2020. In the last five years, we’ve invested in 27 companies in the technology and health segment, with an emphasis primarily placed on supporting long-term growth.
What are the goals and plans for 2021?
Our goals for 2021 will be similar to those at the time the company was founded – finding and partnering with the best entrepreneurs in the technology and healthcare sector and working with them to expand and develop their business.
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