CMS Supplier Umbraco Acquired by Software Growth Investor Monterro

Swedish firm takes majority ownership, bringing extensive knowledge in CMS to help expand Umbraco’s best-of-breed digital experience marketplace worldwide

Content management system (CMS) supplier Umbraco is poised to expand best-of-breed digital experiences worldwide with operational and financial backing from Swedish software growth investor Monterro. Announced today by both companies, Monterro now owns a majority stake in the Danish open-source CMS vendor. Umbraco CEO Kim Sneum Madsen will continue in his leadership role, while founder Niels Hartvig will leave the company to pursue other opportunities.

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“With extensive CMS experience and a true belief in open-source software, Monterro is a perfect match as we strive to meet increasing demand for best-of-breed DXP solutions that make complex technologies easy to use,” Madsen said. “With Monterro’s valuable guidance and capital, we will continue to work closely with our active open-source community to bring the Umbraco family of user-friendly, flexible and robust CMS platforms to an even greater portfolio of companies in even more countries.”

Founded in 2005, Umbraco offers platforms that include the flagship, open-source Umbraco CMS; Umbraco Heartcore, a headless CMS; Umbraco Cloud; and Umbraco Uno, a one-stop platform for non-technical marketers and creative agencies. With help from its active community of more than 220,000 members, including a large partner network that offers customized solutions that integrate with Umbraco, the company now counts more than 700,000 websites worldwide—the majority in Europe and the U.S.—running live on its solutions. These include those of JP Morgan, Rubbermaid, Scholl, NFL, American Homes 4 Rent, State of New York, Liberty Tax and The Council of the European Union.

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Monterro Brings Extensive Experience in CMS to Help Build the Umbraco Brand

As part of its mission to turn Nordic software companies into global market leaders, Monterro has completed 17 investments and 17 add-on investments since 2012. These include operational experience from successfully developing and running companies such as Pointsec, Orc Software, and CMS vendor EPiServer, now Optimizely.

Monterro CEO Gustav Lagercrantz said Umbraco’s strong open-source model with an extensive community, as well as Monterro’s positive previous experience with the CMS industry, made Umbraco a highly attractive investment.

”As we learned through our involvement with EPiServer, more devices than ever are capable of consuming content, driving demand for solutions and platforms like Umbraco’s,” Lagercrantz said. “We’ve been impressed by Umbraco’s long-standing vision of making the complex simpler. Its best-of-breed strategy with its partner agencies offering customized solutions that integrate with other best-of-breed solutions are another unique selling point. We see a great potential for Umbraco to explore this even further with users worldwide.”

New Possibilities, Same Direction & Familiar Faces

While the structure of Umbraco’s ownership has changed, Madsen affirms that the company’s direction will remain the same.

“Umbraco is in a strong position with a proven product and a highly engaged community,” Madsen said. “Our ambition is to use this position and invest money back into the continued growth of all the elements that constitute Umbraco. We will continue to focus on creating world-class software that produces outstanding value for users and customers.”

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