Scanmarket A/S expands enterprise contract lifecycle and third-party risk management with the acquisition of leading software vendor Symfact AG

• Scanmarket acquires leading Contract Lifecycle Management, Third-Party Risk Management, and Legal Entity Management Software company, and adds capabilities to existing Scanmarket portfolio
• Acquisition of Symfact expands Scanmarket’s commercial reach into the DACH region and strengthens the group’s AI technology capabilities

Aarhus, Denmark – Scanmarket A/S is pleased to announce the acquisition of Symfact AG of Switzerland, an enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) and Third-Party Risk Management software company specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning applied to the legal market. Symfact is headquartered in Sugiez-Bern, Switzerland, and has 22 employees.

“This acquisition is a strategic move that underpins Scanmarket’s ambition to become the leader in the procurement marketplace and to expand Scanmarket’s product portfolio and geographical market reach,” says Betina Nygaard, CEO of Scanmarket.

“Symfact is uniquely positioned in the Enterprise Legal Management market with solid expertise within CLM, strengthened by its additional capabilities within Legal Entity and Risk Management,” she adds.

Supply chain assessment, data privacy, data protection and cyber security have all become urgent business requirements with the arrival of Covid-19. Over the past 18 months, it has become apparent that most companies were not prepared or resilient enough to handle a crisis such as a global pandemic. As a result, the topic of Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) is now at the top of most business agendas.  The combined product offering of Scanmarket and Symfact specifically addresses the trend of GRC and provides solutions across the full spectrum of risk assessment and monitoring.

Scanmarket is an expert in Source-to-Contract (S2C) solutions, while Symfact brings all the capabilities surrounding Contract Lifecycle Management including Third-Party Risk Management. With Symfact’s capabilities, financial, entity and personal risk factors are automatically identified and integrated with CLM related to contract analysis, contractual commitments, exposure, as well as liability and legal risk capabilities, enabling case management for general counsel.

“We see a great opportunity for synergies between our two product portfolios, complimenting and strengthening our collective offerings and following the trend of a converging market,” says Andreas Kyriakakis, CEO of Symfact.

“The combined Scanmarket and Symfact offering will provide businesses with a comprehensive ability to secure their supply chains, ensuring deliveries as promised, as well as providing ongoing supply chain monitoring and risk assessment,” he added.

The combined offering is expected to be attractive to Scanmarket’s existing client base, which is faced with the challenge of aligning supplier contracts with the requirements of their legal teams, a stakeholder group with growing influence for future procurement teams.

Scanmarket will expand its geographical reach in the DACH region through Symfact’s sales representatives and offices in Switzerland, adding support for the German, Austrian, and Swiss markets, with additional plans to expand its local presence in the region. The acquisition of Symfact also adds a larger footprint to Scanmarket’s existing North American presence, including an additional office location in Canada.

Furthermore, the acquisition of Symfact will expand the group’s capabilities in the field of AI technology by complementing Scanmarket’s existing AI team with additional resources and technology to grow automation and machine learning in all product areas. This will start within CLM and Spend Analytics. Symfact has progressed in the field of AI and OCR (Optical Character Recognition), providing automated legal contract analysis to address risk identification, meta data and missing paragraphs, thereby saving time, and bringing new capabilities to legal teams overwhelmed by high volumes of contracts.

Scanmarket and Symfact already share a common approach – both hold market positions as vendors of technology that is easy to use; adapt well to market requests; and provide exceptional customer support and maintain close working partnerships with their customers. This strategy will continue following the acquisition of Symfact.

Terms and conditions of the transaction were not disclosed.