Swissbit continues its growth trend with Ardian

In this transaction, Ardian will acquire a majority stake in Swissbit. Swissbit’s existing management team led by Silvio Muschter, Thomas Luft, Vincenzo Esposito and Matthias Poppel will significantly reinvest in the company as part of the transaction and will hold a substantial stake in the company, thereby ensuring continuity in the management of the business. With the help of Ardian, the positive growth trend will continue to accelerate. The parties have agreed not to disclose financial details of the transaction, which is subject to approval by the antitrust authorities.

Swissbit is the only independent European provider of NAND flash-based storage and embedded IoT solutions for demanding niche applications in a wide range of end markets. The company manufactures high-quality storage media such as SD and microSD cards, SSD hard drives, and USB memory modules for mission-critical applications. The products are manufactured exclusively at Swissbit's state-of-the-art production facility in Berlin, which commenced operations in October 2019.

Such solutions are used for example in industrial automation applications and network communication technology, as well as in the security sector and in medical technology. Swissbit's embedded IoT storage solutions are highly relevant especially in the fiscal and security segments.

The company's storage solutions stand out due to their high degree of customisation for specialised storage and computing applications.

Swissbit was created through a management buyout from the Siemens Memory division in 2001. With its innovative strength and extensive research and development capacities, Swissbit is optimally positioned to benefit from the rapidly evolving IoT and edge computing market trends in a wide range of applications.

The company currently has more than 700 customers, including numerous renowned industrial, medical and technology companies. Together with Ardian as a strong global partner, Swissbit intends to continue to accelerate the internationalisation of the company in North America and Asia. In addition, management aims to increase the considerable growth potential in the embedded IoT segment, thanks to the variety of new, rapidly growing applications for Swissbit’s specialised storage solutions.

Dirk Wittneben, Managing Director and Head of Ardian Expansion in Germany, said: “The main factors for our investment in the company were Swissbit's convincing and promising business model combined with an excellent management team with many years of industry experience and strong technological expertise. We look forward to working in partnership with the management and supporting the company as it continues down its path of growth towards a successful future.”

Silvio Muschter, CEO of Swissbit, added: “The digitisation and networking of devices in the Internet of Things drives the demand for secure, high-quality storage products from our memory division and the security solutions from our embedded IoT division. Above all, data is the most valuable asset. At Swissbit, we see it as our central task to reliably store and protect this data.

“For this reason, we have systematically created a new, state-of-the-art electronics production facility in Berlin, set up the Embedded IoT business unit and successfully developed innovative hardware-based security products in recent years. With Ardian, we have found a financially strong and globally connected partner for our further planned growth in new markets.”