2020 was a difficult year that gave us the chance to showcase our resilience. In 2021, we’re looking forward to more acquisitions that will support our growth.
With a digital transformation project that first began five years ago with a series of acquisitions in different business verticals, throughout 2020, the Stefanini Group showed that we are prepared to support the needs of customers and the market amid the challenges imposed by COVID -19.
At the beginning of the pandemic, we offered our Sophie artificial intelligence platform free of charge – in Brazil and abroad – to companies, organizations, and public entities that wanted to use it on their websites to answer questions from employees and citizens about COVID-19. The platform was trained with public data on the coronavirus, which allowed Sophie to interact with users and provide updated information on the disease, its symptoms, and how to prevent it. Other relevant subjects deemed useful to the user were covered as well, such as best home office practices.
“The pandemic ended up accelerating a process of digital transformation that companies had already started. It was a matter of survival for many sectors, which had to change their business models overnight. With mature and market-recognized solutions, ranging from AI, cloud, analytics, and cybersecurity to banking, digital marketing, and Industry 4.0, the Stefanini Group got even closer to customers to understand how it could help with their needs. As a result, we reinforced our expertise in digital solutions, won our largest contract in the United States and closed the year with a 20 percent growth in global revenue,” says Marco Stefanini, founder and Global CEO of the Stefanini Group.
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Expansion through Valuable Acquisitions
As Marco explained, the growth we experienced in 2020 is the result of a lot of work and focus on his organic expansion project and through new acquisitions. In 2020 alone, the Stefanini Group acquired six companies – Mozaiko (retail); Holding Haus, owner of the W3haus (digital marketing) agency; the electronic payment solutions company Logbank; the Romanian company Cyber Smart Defense; the consultancy NI IT, which specializes in cloud services and focuses on Microsoft, Adobe and Kaspersky solutions for the Small and Medium Business (SME) market; and two Diebold software units – Online Fraud Detection (OFD) and ServCore.
“The latter is one of the largest and most important acquisitions in the last five years, as it complements our banking offering led by Topaz, which has a complete banking core; this solution includes payment models, services that combat money laundering, and the flexibility to create products that meet customers’ specific demands,” Marco continues.
Growth in Revenue
Currently, the financial segment is the largest in the group of acquisitions, representing 30 percent of the revenue earned (roughly R $4 billion or $7.4 billion USD) in 2020.
“With PIX and Open Banking, our expectation is that this unit will grow from 40 to 50 percent in the next two years, ” Marco says. The executive plans to allocate R $500 million (roughly $92 million USD) for new acquisitions until 2022.
According to Marcelo Ciasca, CEO of Stefanini Brasil, three other major bets for the group this year will be cybersecurity, the strengthening of the digital marketing ecosystem, which will be achieved by unifying all of our digital marketing acquisitions, and the expansion of offers directed to Industry 4.0, with a focus on sustainability.
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The Journey Continues
The future looks bright for us and we hope to maintain our growth rate in 2021 with even more acquisitions.
“Our entrepreneurial approach has taught us that we need to have a strong offer in the right place and at the right time to promote a relevant experience for the client. Our expectation is that there will be a big leap in the implementation of digital solutions throughout this year,” Marco concluded.
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