creativestyle GmbH, based in Munich, Germany, joins Smile, the European leading group in open source technologies. creativestyle will operate and grow on the German market supported by its Polish entity and will benefit from Smile's expertise to strengthen its client offering.
The project benefits from the active support of the management of both companies and the shareholders of the Smile Group: Keensight Capital, one of the leading private equity managers dedicated to pan-European in Growth Buyout1 investments, and Eurazeo through its Small-Mid Buyout team.
Smile and creativestyle are bringing together their expertise and know-how in digital & e-commerce services through open source technologies to innovate and best meet customer expectations throughout Germany and German-speaking countries. The aim is to develop in those markets thanks to a combination of both creativestyle expertise and Smile capacities, technologies & solutions, and international presence.
creativestyle will be part of Smile Group, a European leader in open digital and open source (consulting, innovation, integration, infrastructure). Smile contributes each year to hundreds of strategic digital projects for the largest French and European accounts through high-level innovative solutions and concepts.
Founded in 2001, creativestyle is headquartered in Munich and also has offices in Hamburg, Krakow and Rybnik. With a team of over 85 digital experts, creativestyle is one of the leading agencies in Germany in terms of consulting, backend integration, operations and customer experience of e-commerce solutions, for which it is regularly awarded with prizes such as the Shop Usability Awards.
The acquisition of creativestyle is part of Smile's Open Arrow strategic plan, notably to develop the Group's geographic coverage. creativestyle will benefit from the continued development of Smile on an international scale with the support of its shareholders in the endeavor. creativestyle will reinforce the overall Smile Group delivery skill centers and know-how with its Polish entity and experts.
Marc Palazon, Smile Group CEO, declares: "Entering the German market is key to strengthening Smile's leadership in the open-source industry in Europe and we believe that building a European open-source digital champion strongly benefits our clients and partners. creativestyle has demonstrated a fast industrial growth, especially thanks to its Polish capacities and its straightforward, high-level expertise. Smile & creativestyle share a similar company culture and mindset which have been key in building this partnership. We are looking forward to working with creativestyle's outstanding managers & teams."
Jaromir Fojcik & Krzysztof Daniel, founders and managers of creativestyle, add: "We are pleased to expand our open-source strategy with Smile. In addition to our current consulting and web development services in B2C commerce, we will grow our B2B commerce offer and digital solutions across the German-speaking region. Furthermore, we are strongly increasing our remote capacities, ensuring a sufficient developer firepower for our customers at a time when skilled experts are making themselves scarce. Joining Smile gives us a great opportunity to deliver large, ambitious and international projects to large corporations."
Stanislas de Tinguy, Partner at Keensight Capital, concludes: "We are proud to support Smile in this new stage of its international development as part of the Open Arrow strategic plan. Following the recent acquisitions of UX-Republic and alter way, this new build-up will be key to strengthening Smile's position as a European leader in the field of high added value open-source digital solutions. This acquisition is a key step in Smile's ambitious growth strategy."
1 Growth Buyout: investment in unlisted profitable growth companies, in minority or majority stakes with or without leverage, with a flexible approach adapted to the needs of each entrepreneur, to finance organic growth projects, acquisition strategies or to provide liquidity to historical shareholders.
