Ixly partners up with Pride Capital Partners and Schouten & Nelissen

Software & IT-Investor Pride Capital Partners and Educator Schouten & Nelissen have acquired a stake in assessment platform Ixly. Schouten & Nelissen will contribute strategically with its broad portfolio of learning & development tools, while Pride Capital Partners is involved in as a strategic and financial investor. Ixly will continue as an independent organization after the transaction.

Ixly, founded in 2005 by CEO Diddo van Zand, is one of the leading e-assesment platform companies in The Netherlands. By teaming up with Schouten & Nelissen and Pride Capital Partners, Ixly is ready for the next step. There is already a successful partnership between Ixly and Archipel Academy, a joint venture of Pride Capital and Schouten & Nelissen.

Diddo van Zand: “This strategic partnership will help to unlock further growth opportunities, boost business continuity for clients and present exciting challenges to our employees.“

Data-driven and science-based decisions

Ixly’s assessment platform enables organizations to make data-driven and science-based HR decisions. A broad range of capability and personality tests provide access to actionable and insightful data. The assessment platform is used to select, develop and retain employees. With partners like Berenschot, Archipel Academy, USG and Jobport they are able to create value for their clients. Their clients include UWV, NS and YoungCapital.

International expansion

The partnership with Pride enables Ixly to realize international growth ambitions, including expanding into Belgium and Germany. Ixly recently won a tender from the Flemish government, which allows Ixly to kickstart its market presence in Belgium. Pride earlier on invested in HR-tech companies Archipel Academy (NL), Dileoz (BE) and Talentsconnect (DE) and will open the doors to help Ixly unlocking growth opportunities within NL and cross-borders.

Lars van ‘t Hoenderdaal, managing partner Pride Capital Partners: “In the current market, recruiting and retaining people is becoming more important. Innovative tooling and data is crucial for HR decision-making. Ixly is an established player in the Dutch market and ready to accelerate their growth together with Pride and Schouten.”

By adding Ixly, Schouten & Nelissen expands their broad range of learning and development tools with a platform for e-assessments. They see that analyzing a person’s capabilities plays a pivotal role in conducting, improving and managing employee development. Next to this, Ixly learns from employers that using assessments allows them to continuously offer development possibilities to their employees. This helps them to retain their employees more efficiently.

Jan Hein Schouten, CEO Schouten & Nelissen: “This investment fits within our philosophy to give people and organizations all the necessary tools to bring them to the next level in their professional and personal development.”

About Pride Capital Partners

Pride Capital Partners invests into growing companies in Software and IT services. By combining private debt and equity, Pride Capital Partners enables entrepreneurs to realize growth ambitions with a flexible capital solution. Typical scenarios include growth, acquisitions, and management buyout (MBO) transactions. The focus is on companies in the Benelux, DACH region and Nordics. Pride Capital Partners has offices in Amsterdam, Cologne, Frankfurt and from 2023 also in Copenhagen.

Pride Capital Partners' resources have been made available by shareholders, institutional investors, wealthy individuals, family offices and (former) entrepreneurs. The current portfolio includes Benelux companies Blue Field Agency, Spotzer Digital, Fivespark, Fairbanks, Netaxis, ScanmarQED, Archipel, Matrixian and Dileoz, and DACH companies Wagawin, GBC Gruppe, Architrave, Kendox, moveXM, eKomi and Link11.

About Schouten & Nelissen

Schouten & Nelissen is a family-owned company and was founded in 1981 in Zaltbommel, The Netherlands. The past 40 years, Schouten & Nelissen has grown into an award-winning company, consisting out of 9 brands, each with their own focus, expertise and methods. We deliver in over 60 countries worldwide, are a partner for more than 3000 business clients and reach over 400.000 individuals yearly.