Advent International to acquire minority stake in spend management leader Medius

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, 16 March 2022 – Advent International (“Advent”), one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors, today announced that it has acquired a minority stake in Medius, a global leader in AP automation, B2B payments, sourcing and procurement software.
Founded in Stockholm in 2001, Medius currently employs more than 500 people and serves thousands of customers from across the globe, managing spend worth more than $180 billion annually. The company’s suite of products automate the process of receiving, handling, approving, and paying an invoice, as well as simplifying the onboarding and managing of vendors.

Advent, along with majority shareholder Marlin Equity Partners, will work with the Medius management team towards a shared objective of accelerating the development of Medius’ core technology, including leveraging AI and ML to deepen its automation capabilities, and further the company’s vision of a touchless invoicing process. Medius’ end-to-end, source-to-pay solution will also be strengthened through strategic business investments and M&A activity in the coming months.

Douglas Hallstrom, Director at Advent, who will join the Medius board as part of the transaction, comments: “Finance professionals are starting to recognize the savings and efficiencies that AP automation can deliver, as well as its ability to reduce costly mistakes and eliminate fraudulent payments. As a result, we anticipate strong growth in this segment of the fintech market. We were also impressed by Marlin’s partnership-oriented culture and success achieved to date and believe Medius is uniquely positioned to become the category defining global business for the mid-market.”

Jim Lucier, CEO of Medius, comments: “Medius has a big, bold vision for the future of the source to pay category, and has the market-leading technology, deep domain expertise and leadership team required to execute against it. We’re delighted to welcome Advent, with the category insights and intelligence its team brings, as an investor in Medius.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Advent as a partner for Medius,” said Jan-Olivier Fillols, Managing Director at Marlin Equity Partners. “The spend management market has an incredible amount of potential and we believe Medius is uniquely positioned for continued success. Both Advent and Marlin share similar values, while having enormous technology know-how and far-reaching operational capabilities. The combination of our teams, as well as our global resources, will drive significant value to Medius customers and further enhance Medius’ strategic value.”

Advent is one of the most experienced software and fintech industry investors in the world. Recent investments in the sector include Planet, a global provider of integrated digital payment services, BigPanda, a leader in AIOps event correlation and automation, and Shift Technology, an AI-powered software business focused on the insurance industry, along with other recent investments in McAfee, Encora, Assembly and Salt Security.