Umbraco has announced that the Swedish software growth investor, Monterro, has become a majority investor in the business. Founded in 2005 in Denmark, Umbraco offers a platform for content management (CMS) based on open-source technology and boasts more than 700,000 installations and a well-established partner network of digital agencies, Lake Solutions being one of them.
Umbraco says that its business had reached a ‘crosswords’ and, to ‘stay relevant’, it needed to change the way it does things.
The company states: “In this process, it has been important to find seasoned and domain knowledgeable investors that believe in open source and that can help the continued growth of Umbraco in a sustainable way. In Monterro, we have an investor with substantial operational experience in the domain.”
The Umbraco team explains that Monterro is a ‘hands-on growth investor with a focus to support B2B software companies to grow in a sustainable way’ and is keen to point out that its investment ‘will not result in any changes for customers and partners’
“The partnership is a perfect match for us,” says Gustav Lagercrantz, CEO of Monterro. “Our mission is to support Nordic B2B software companies to become global players. Added to that, we’re very familiar with the CMS sector, as many of the colleagues at Monterro have managed and scaled up Episerver.”
Adds Kim Sneum Madsden, CEO of Umbraco: “In this process, Monterro clearly stood out as the right investor, bringing extensive operational experience and domain knowledge to the table. Umbraco is in a strong position, which makes this the perfect time to team up with Monterro as it enables future growth and reach of the software, the community and the company.”
The main question this investment has raised in the wider community is whether Umbraco will remain open source and the company is keen to emphasise that it will.
The company states: “Throughout the history of Umbraco, the open-source CMS has been the foundation of our commercial products and it is crucial that the continued development stays true to that principle and that the symbiotic relationship between the open-source CMS and the commercial products is maintained.
Open source and community engagement have been and will continue to be the foundation for Umbraco. This is what constitutes us and it is what truly enables us to maintain the outside/in perspective. This will continue to be at the heart of Umbraco: the friendly CMS, built on a vision of making the complex simpler.”
Kim Sneum Madsden from Umbraco continues: “Umbraco is in a strong position to take on the world - as always, in the friendly way. I am looking forward to continuing the work with the strong team at HQ, the community and the customers of Umbraco.”