About the deal

Brightsight was sold to Swiss listed SGS. Brightsight is a leading Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) company focusing on security evaluations for the Financial, Governmental and Intelligent Connectivity (IOT, 5G and AI) market The company was founded in 1984 within TNO, an independent and well-known Dutch research organization. In 2006 the company was spun out of TNO and rebranded to Brightsight.

As an independent body, Brightsight is accredited by the world leading (i) Financial institutions like Visa, Mastercard and AMEX, by (ii) Governmental bodies and by (iii) industry bodies like GSMA and TrustCB to evaluate customer products against requirements set by these regulators. Brightsight is by far the most active lab in the Intelligent Connectivity market, and the co-founder of very important standards in the IoT platform market.

SGS SA, a Swiss listed company, is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. Their value is to enable a better, safer and more interconnected world. This deal will accelerate SGS’s strategy to become the global TIC leader in cybersecurity.

“We are excited to announce the acquisition of Brightsight, which materially accelerates our global strategy to become the global TIC leader in cybersecurity. This significant milestone aligns SGS with the TIC connectivity megatrend and supports our purpose of enabling a better, safer and more interconnected world,” said Frankie Ng, CEO of SGS in their press release

What we did

Capitalmind Investec advised the shareholders of Brightsight throughout the sell-side process, with:

• Development of marketing materials;
• Identification and approach of selected strategic and financial buyers;
• Price negotiations;
• Managing due diligence;
• Coordinating legal documentation phase.