2 years of fortified investments: how Ideals VDR safeguards EXEO Capital’s multi-million deals in Africa

Overview

“We needed to be able to reassure our investors and transaction counterparties that we could offer a more secure way of exchanging information than the online document exchanges.”

That’s how Denham Wiercx, EXEO Capital’s Senior Associate, remembers the challenge the company was facing in 2021. 

At that time, EXEO Capital was actively looking for a secure tool to manage fundraising and M&A, while guaranteeing more control and transparency in negotiations. And that’s how and when EXEO Capital and Ideals started their successful partnership. A collaboration that, after 2 years, hasn’t loosened its edge. Quite the contrary.

The context

EXEO Capital, a pan-African investment firm, specializes in both managed and proprietary investments to build sustainable business, primarily within the food and agribusiness sectors in Africa. “With purpose, rigor and patience,” as they claim, they constantly deliver sought-after investment returns.

Founded in 2007, the firm currently manages around USD 300 million in assets, with their three main offices in South Africa, Kenya, and Mauritius.

In 2021, with several major deals on the horizon, EXEO Capital wanted a secure way of sharing data with teams in different organizations, optimizing their due diligence both for investments and for fundraising.

Key challenges

To guarantee better protected fundraising and M&A deals, EXEO Capital wanted to upgrade their platform by improving security, flexibility, usability, and general performance. 

Their key requirements for the new platform were:

• 2FA and built-in redaction 
• Different permission levels for in-house teams and third-party users
• Granular reports to provide a full audit trail
• Automatic indexing with easy to amend categories 

Security was always the number one priority for the company. Denham was adamant about the necessity of a data room that could give both investors and beneficiaries “reassurance that the exchange of information was more secure.”  

Ideals stood out among several providers. Aside from its bank-grade security, “it was the most flexible on price and had the most user-friendly interface for first-time users, both things were key for us.”

Solution

EXEO Capital soon set up all their projects on the platform, each one with its project manager, all following their guidelines. As Denham affirmed, “it was very easy and simple to use.”

With Ideals they were able to:

• Upload all document formats 
• Go live with a new room within an hour
• Put all their staff through a training session
• Access excellent customer service 24/7

He also added that, while time-saving was not their main driver, using Ideals had noticeably helped them save hours of work, “the data is all in one place, and people can use it seamlessly without it requiring great effort.”

Above all, it was keeping control of sensitive information such as valuations, credit checks and bid status that mattered most to EXEO Capital, and Denham was delighted with what Ideals could offer. 

The future

They currently have 92 users, around 20,000 documents, and are setting up at least one new project every month.

Denham is very pleased with how the platform works, and the level of customer service available which “really setsIdeals apart from other service providers.”

When asked to list his top three reasons why he would recommend Ideals, aside from the outstanding customer care, he chose:

• Security and confidentiality levels
• Being able to set different access permissions when inviting users
• How easy it is to upload documents 

“Since working with Ideals we’ve been very happy with both the service and product and would have no problem recommending them as a VDR provider!” he concluded.