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Catapult Sports (ASX: CAT) is boosting the scouting capabilities of its fast-growing sports technology business through a $139 million acquisition of IMPECT GmbH, the operator of a soccer intelligence platform that provides insights on player performance and team dynamics.
The Melbourne-based company has announced a $150 million capital raising to fund the deal, comprising a $130 million institutional placement and a $20 million share purchase plan.
Catapult, which sees IMPECT being “immediately accretive" to its annual contract value (ACV) growth, says the capital raising will strengthen its balance sheet and provide capacity to pursue other complementary merger and acquisition opportunities in the sports technology sector.
Catapult announced unaudited data today that reveal ACV surged about 19 per cent to as high as US$115.6 million ($176.35 million) in the six months to the end of September, while group revenue was up as much as 16 per cent to US$67.5 million ($103 million).
The ultimate purchase price for IMPECT will depend on performance hurdles being cleared, but Catapult will acquire all of the company’s issued capital for up to €78 million ($139 million) including an upfront cash payment of €40 million ($71.4 million) which will be entirely funded by the share placement.
Capapult will make deferred payments of up to €38 million ($67.9 million) over four years on top of the upfront sum, with €10 million ($17.9 million) of the total purchase price subject to IMPECT meeting performance hurdles.
IMPECT, which was founded in Germany in 2014 by Stefan Reinartz, Jens Hegeler, Lukas Keppler and Matthias Sienz, is described as a leading innovator in soccer analytics.
The company’s end-to-end intelligence platform encompasses player scouting, opponent analysis and internal benchmarking tools, all of which use data that IMPECT collects and owns.
IMPECT’s proprietary Packing data is said to provide a unique perspective on games, helping teams and federations generate deeper insights into player performance.
The acquisition comes on the heels of Catapult’s US$28 million ($43 million) deal for US-based athlete monitoring company Perch announced in June this year, which is expected to open new opportunities in the professional sports market for the Australian group.
Catapult, which was founded in 2006, has developed a range of products for professional athletes designed to optimise performance, avoid injury and improve return to play. In the past two decades, the company has grown its client base to more than 4,600 sporting teams globally.
Catapult sees IMPECT adding scouting insights to its athlete performance suite, which includes Vector, ClearSky and Perch, and its Pro Video analysis suite comprising MatchTracker, Focus, Hub and Thunder.
The group anticipates IMPECT’s scouting and tactical insights software will help create a “unified intelligence platform”.
“Professional soccer is undergoing a rapid and deep transformation toward data-driven decision-making,” says Catapult CEO Will Lopes.
“Recruitment, match analysis and tactical preparation – processes that once relied on gut instinct – are now powered by detailed performance data.
“Teams of every size and ambition recognise they need more than conventional statistics; they need tailored, tactical insights.
“IMPECT is this solution, providing teams and federations with a tactical edge by quantifying, visualising and embedding soccer intelligence into their daily workflows.”
Lopes says the merger of the respective technologies of IMPECT and Catapult represents significant progress towards the company’s goal of becoming “the global platform for professional sports teams”.
IMPECT brings to Catapult a scalable, technology-first, cloud-based SaaS (software-as-a-service) business model that "generates deep tactical insights" for scouting from almost 150 global soccer leagues and 40,000 matches in 25 countries.
“From the moment our founders heard the vision from Will and the team, it became clear to us that bringing our technology into the Catapult platform represented an opportunity to accelerate our growth, benefit from Catapult’s global scale and industry leadership position, whilst maintaining our steadfast culture of innovation,” says IMPECT co-founder and managing director Stefan Reinartz.
“It’s this innovation that drives every decision we make at IMPECT, and by joining an innovation powerhouse, we’re thrilled to begin a new chapter together as we build a future that is bolder, brighter, and overwhelms our customers with the best product, and the best customer experience.”
Catapult’s $150 million capital raise is priced at $6.68 per share, representing a 7.7 per cent discount to Friday’s closing price of $7.24.
The $130 million institutional placement is fully underwritten while the $20 million share purchase plan is not underwritten.
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