San Francisco, CA – February 12, 2018 – Serent Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm focused on investing in fast-growing software and services businesses, announced that its portfolio company Knowland has acquired Competitive Marketing Exchange (“CMX”), a Chicago-based provider of event space marketing intelligence for hotels.
The acquisition strengthens Knowland’s position as a leading provider of meeting marketing intelligence in the hospitality industry. “The addition of CMX significantly expands Knowland’s footprint,” said Tim Hart, CEO of Knowland. Knowland’s critical sales and marketing tools are now utilized in over 3,300 hotels across 200 markets, enhancing data on over 15 million events across 1.4 million international organizations.
“We are pleased to be working together with Knowland to bring a new suite of software and services to our customers in the hospitality sector,” said Guy DiCara, President of CMX. “We also look forward to partnering with Serent Capital, whose growth-focused engagement model will help enable the future success of the combined business.”
“CMX is an important piece of Knowland’s strategy to drive growth through both organic and inorganic means,” said Tim Hart. “Serent Capital was instrumental in helping to cultivate the relationship with CMX over several years, and worked closely with our team to help execute the transaction.”
This is Knowland’s third acquisition in the past 18 months. Knowland acquired Meeting Intelligence (formerly known as HIS) from Amadeus in July 2016, and it acquired Philadelphia Reader Board in June 2017.
CMX represents Serent’s eighth recent investment in the Restaurant and Hospitality Technology space — including Knowland (2012), FranConnect (2014), Compeat (2015), Meeting Intelligence (2016), Philadelphia Reader Board (2017), Ctuit (2017), and BirchStreet Systems (2017).
Lance Fenton and Dexter Hopen represent Serent on the Board of Knowland.
About Knowland
Knowland Group provides technology, data and analytics to the hospitality industry. Knowland’s cloud-based sales and catering solution and its competitive intelligence tools help hotels to maximize revenue from meeting and conference space. Knowland’s technology is powered by an extensive database of events, of organizations that hold these events, and of the key contacts who book them.
About Serent Capital
Serent Capital invests in growing businesses that it believes have developed compelling solutions that address their customers’ needs. As those businesses grow and evolve, the opportunities and challenges that they face change with them. Principals at Serent Capital have firsthand experience at capturing those opportunities and navigating these difficulties through their experiences as CEOs, strategic advisors and board members to growing businesses. By bringing its expertise and capital to bear, Serent strives to help growing businesses thrive. For more information on Serent Capital, visit www.serentcapital.com.