In just two and a half years, Arlane delivers a strong capital gain, allowing it to return a large share of the capital called for Arlane III.
Just two and a half years after acquiring control for an equity ticket of between €10M and €15M, Arlane is selling Eliis, a developer of seismic interpretation software, to Nasdaq-listed US group Bentley Systems through its subsidiary Seequent, which is taking over the company serving the oil & gas and geothermal sectors.
50% EBIT margin
The transaction was conducted on a bilateral basis. “On its own, it enables the Arlane III fund, for which this is the first exit, to return 80% of called capital to our LPs,” says Jean-Valmy Nicolas des Lauriers, founding partner of Arlane. As a reminder, the fund held its final close in early 2025, having raised more than €120M.
Since the primary LBO carried out by Vespa Capital (since renamed Arlane) in mid-2024, Eliis’s annual revenue has doubled to €20M, while its EBIT has tripled to €10M.
This performance is the result of several initiatives: a build-out of the sales organisation, the opening of offices abroad (where the Montpellier-based group generates 95% of its business), the launch of PaleoModel, a new software dedicated to reservoir modelling, and the integration of AI into its original product, PaleoScan.
Above all, the company has completely transformed its business model. Having initially sold software licences, it has since moved to SaaS, delivering higher profitability and greater revenue predictability.
The acquisition allows Seequent, Bentley Systems’ subsidiary dedicated to subsurface technologies, to strengthen its geophysics expertise by adding seismic data interpretation capabilities.