AOE on Jan. 11, announced a 13 million EUR investment from German private equity firm LEA Partners with its LEA Mittelstandspartner Fund.
The partnership represents the first of its kind for AOE and will help to further accelerate the company’s profitable growth, currently at more than 40 percent year-on-year.
“The introduction of our OM³ Suite, which we first implemented at Frankfurt Airport, marked an important strategic and economic milestone in our company’s history. OM³ has generated an extremely high level of interest in the aviation industry,” commented Kian Gould, Founder and CE of AOE. “In order to meet the demand of airports and airlines for the solution, we will continue to scale our development and operations teams while adding to our global locations. In addition, the capital from LEA Partners enables us to significantly accelerate our product development.”
LEA Partners has established itself as a strong and entrepreneurial-minded partner for growing technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Also in the aviation industry, LEA Partners established a significant global network following successful investments in companies such as BEONTRA, a provider focusing on planning and optimization solutions for airports.
As part of the investment, BEONTRA founder and current LEA Partner’s Managing Director Christian Roth will join the AOE Advisory Board. “We will support Kian and his team in establishing the OM³ Suite as the world’s leading platform for the digitalization of travel retail by leveraging LEA’s global aviation network as well as our experience gained in one of Europe’s largest IT clusters,” Roth said.
Sebastian Müller, Managing Director of LEA Partners added, “We are constantly looking for strong, innovative companies that help their clients digitize existing business models or create entire digitally-based strategies from the ground up. We have been impressed by the drive and passion of the AOE team and their vision and ability to develop and implement such an industry-changing, complex and multifaceted solution in just twelve months from the initial concept phase. The company is well on its way in establishing itself as a true industry leader and we are pleased to support the management team as they enter their next phase of continued growth.”
A
