Finance Monthly Deal Maker Awards 2017 Edition

www.finance-monthly.com 41 FINANCE MONTHLY DEAL MAKER AWARDS 2017 FUNDS & INVESTMENTS SANDRINE VERGNORY-MION Principal of Drake Star Partners Drake Star Partners acted as an exclusive financial adviser to cloud delivery platform InterCloud on its EUR 10 million fundraising, led by HI Inov, SNCF Digital Ventures, BPI France and Existing Investors Carphorn Invest and Ventech. The Drake Star Partners team comprised of Marc Deschamps, Sandrine Vergnory-Mion and Romain Stokes. InterCloud’s Cloud Delivery Platform serves tier-one client references (Criteo, Société Générale, Schneider Electric, Veolia) with an innovative business model to deliver cloud services to hundreds of thousands of users globally in partnership with essential Cloud platforms such as Salesforce™, Microsoft™ Azure or Amazon™ Web Services. Pulled by the outstanding growth trend of the Private/Public Cloud computing markets, InterCloud has experienced double-digit growth in a sector where SaaS alone (the largest segment of the public cloud) has grown from $78bn in 2015 to $116bn in 2016. With the leading private connectivity platform designed for the cloud era, InterCloud enables enterprises to take control over their cloud applications in order to shape the right connectivity for the delivery of corporate data anywhere, securely and efficiently. The company had previously raised EUR 5M funding from business angels, as well as an A round with CapHorn and Ventech. “This EUR 10M investment is a new milestone for InterCloud in its ambition to expand internationally, while also extending its innovative cloud connectivity platform“, said Sandrine Vergnory-Mion, Principal at Drake Star Partners. Marc Deschamps, Managing Partner and Co-CEO of Drake Star Partners added: “We have now advised InterCloud on its last two financing rounds. The InterCloud team is making huge leaps forwardwith significant client signings and a compelling value proposition spreading worldwide.” ADVISOR INTERVIEW Please introduce yourself, your role and your firm. Sandrine Vergnory-Mion is a Principal who has been driving Private Placements projects for ten years as part of the Paris office of Drake Star. Prior to Drake Star, she worked in Coporate Development for IBM covering EMEA. Tell us a bit more about Drake Star’s involvement in InterCloud’s recent EUR 10M investment? We had advised the company on its EUR 4M round in 2014. Following first discussions with management on initiating a series B, we began the preparation of all documents on the back of strong trending revenue, showcasing 100% year-on-year growth. We launched international distribution focussing on VCs and large corporate VCs in the SaaS/Cloud area. We began receiving LOIs only 3 months in. However, we decided to broaden the scope of distribution and a few months later began negotiating with the lead LOI. Following the signing of our lead investor, we worked to include latecomers’ offer in the deal while negotiating terms with new shareholders. On January 2017, the deal closed, only 10 months after the initial discussions with management. What were some of the challenges that you were faced with? How did you overcome them? The company’s cap table was quite complex coming into the deal and this round was the opportunity to make it simpler through a set of full or partial secondary transactions. A lot of communication was required with these shareholders to reach the final valuation of the secondary and its volume. The company ‘s international expansion had only just begun with a very successful office in Spain. We showcased InterCloud’s international delivery network, able to address clients’ needs on all continents, the international track record of the recent senior hires and the global make up of the current and pipeline client’s headcount and usage. Awarded for her involvement in the following transactions: Drake Star Par tners Advised InterCloud on Its EUR 10m Fundraising FIRM PROFILE Drake Star Partners is a global investment banking firm serving the technology, media and communications sectors with offices in New York, London, Paris, Munich, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berlin, Amsterdam, Geneva and Tokyo. The firm focuses on M&A and corporate finance for its clients worldwide. Drake Star Partners completed over 300 transactions since 2004, 70% of which are cross-border. CONTACT Sandrine Vergnory-Mion Email: sandrine.vergnory@drakestar.com Phone: +33 1 70 08 76 21 Q Q Q