The road to IPO: How Ardian’s Growth team and Planisware achieved a landmark European tech listing

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The road to IPO: How Ardian’s Growth team and Planisware achieved a landmark European tech listing

  • 17 June 2025

  • Growth

Reading time: 7 minutes

Alexis Saada

Alexis Saada

Head of Growth & Senior Managing Director

Alexis Saada joined Ardian Growth in 2007 to help develop investments in profitable growth SMEs and provide expertise on innovative companies. Alexis has overseen a large number of private equity transactions over Europe, among which several involving publicly traded companies, as well as miscellaneous acquisitions across the globe. He was previously a vice president in the equity capital markets department at BNP Paribas, having joined in 1999 after a first M&A experience abroad. Alexis graduated from ESCP, European School of Management.

Ardian worked with portfolio company Planisware for more than two years to prepare the software provider for life as a public company. Pierre Demonsant, Co-Founder and Chairman of Planisware, and Alexis Saada, Head of Growth at Ardian, explain how they executed one of the Europe’s most successful recent IPOs.

  • Biggest IPO on Euronext Paris

    since 2021 oversubscribed and backed by Tier 1 investors

  • +80%

    of revenue generated internationally Driven by strong U.S. and global demand post-IPO

Planisware’s IPO was a major success in a period when very few companies have been going public. Where does the story begin?

Alexis Saada: The team at Planisware had built world-leading project management software that solves extremely complex problems for global blue-chip companies. Planisware helps these companies manage multiple R&D programs around the world, measure performance, and optimize their investment portfolio across business units. The early customers were pharmaceutical companies and today they have 18 of the top 20 pharma companies as clients. 

  • 18 of the top 20

    pharma companies are clients Trusted by leading global R&D players

They have also expanded into other verticals such as automotive, aerospace, engineering, IT and consulting. We made our most recent investment in 2018 to fund their transition to a scalable SaaS business model, drive recurring revenue growth, support a strategic acquisition that would enable Planisware to address the midmarket segment, and continue expanding their international client base. It was the success of those projects that allowed us to start preparing for the IPO, which we worked on intensively together for more than two years.

Pierre Demonsant: When you have a private equity firm as a shareholder, you obviously need to think about the options for exit. We had a long relationship with Ardian that was very successful because they adapted to our changing needs and offered valuable advice on strategic decisions.

 

We are growing at about 20% a year and we are profitable.

Pierre Demonsant, Co-Founder and Chairman of Planisware

We are growing at about 20% a year and we are profitable but I am 60 and so it is inevitable that when you hire talented people under these circumstances, they wonder whether the company might be sold in a year or two. Is it worth them investing their energy in it? We felt we needed to send the message that we did not intend to sell Planisware and we knew that going public would signal that we planned to remain independent. With that in mind, I started to think about an IPO at the end of 2021.

What advantages were you seeking by listing Planisware?

What advantages were you seeking by listing Planisware?

PD: An important motivation was to raise the company’s profile. We do more than 80% of our business outside France and because we had concentrated on international growth, we were a success story that was not well known in our home market. Becoming more visible was also important for our customer base, especially in the US, where transparency in financial information and consistent service delivery are key decision factors. Being a public company means that clients can access more detailed financial and operational information about your business, services, and growth perspectives. Indeed, transparency significantly supports trust when we are speaking with large international clients.

Transparency significantly supports trust when we are speaking with large international clients.

Pierre Demonsant, Co-Founder and Chairman of Planisware

AS: It was also clear that having a way to monetize the equity more easily would help Planisware attract and retain talented people. We had organized a way for employees who left the company to sell their shares when Planisware was private, but listing Planisware would allow it to create much more effective equity incentive schemes for the staff. When you are competing against major tech companies for talent, this is incredibly important.

What changes did you need to make at Planisware to prepare for the IPO and how did Ardian help with this process?

What changes did you need to make at Planisware to prepare for the IPO and how did Ardian help with this process?

PD: The first step was to change our governance and create a public company board so that I could hand over management responsibility and concentrate on strategy and product development. We appointed a CFO with listed company experience, Stéphanie Pardo, who joined in September 2022, and once she was in place we started the selection process for our CEO. We looked at external and internal candidates and in September 2023, we appointed Loïc Sautour, who has been with the company for more than 25 years. We also identified three very strong independent directors. 

AS: Planisware needed to transform its organization and processes. This started with its governance but it also meant new hires for the Finance, Legal and Human Resources functions, as well as changes to its internal processes to align them with the requirements for public companies. They needed to move to a quarterly cycle for business planning and financial reporting, which was a change of culture although it also improved the information available to Planisware’s management.

PD: Once we had created the right internal structure for the IPO, we worked together to select our advisers. 

Ardian’s support was important at this stage because they had worked closely with many similar businesses in their portfolio and had deep knowledge of the market and advisers.

Pierre Demonsant, Co-Founder and Chairman of Planisware

Alexis also helped us a lot to prepare for the investor presentations because he had known me and the company for a long time and he could challenge us very effectively. He played an important role in the process.

How did you ensure the IPO process was a success?

How did you ensure the IPO process was a success?

AS: The IPO on Euronext in Paris was originally set for October 2023 but then the attack on Israel by Hamas happened and the environment became too volatile so we could not proceed. We decided to wait and in the following months we worked on ways to ensure a successful IPO relaunch when we returned in April 2024.

PD: The rules for IPOs in France when we originally wanted to list said we had to offer our shares to the retail market as well as to institutions, which meant we had to run the bookbuilding process for six business days. In a market that is so volatile and uncertain, that was too risky. We discussed the situation with the French regulator and we were able to take advantage of a change in the listing rules that meant we could go public without a retail offer and instead run an accelerated bookbuilding process for institutional investors over two days. This reduced our period of market risk to an absolute minimum and our IPO was a huge success. Planisware was the first French IPO to launch under these rules.

We attracted four best-in-class cornerstone investors including Tier 1 US names, and the IPO was many times oversubscribed.

Pierre Demonsant, Co-Founder and Chairman of Planisware

AS: Recognized as the “Exit of the Year EMEA” by PEI, Planisware’s listing was a landmark IPO for European technology companies and the largest on Euronext Paris since 2021. We achieved a great result for everyone. Planisware made a smooth transition to the public market and Ardian sold most of its stake in the IPO, but retained a quarter of it to ensure that interests were aligned between selling and non-selling shareholders. With the shares delivering strong performance and measurable financial results after the IPO, we were able to place the remainder of our shares in September 2024.

How do you reflect now on the process of going public?

How do you reflect now on the process of going public?

PD: An IPO is a very demanding project that requires a lot of resources spread over many interlinked workstreams, all of them essential to maximize the chances of success. It reminds me of the complexity of our clients’ project portfolios. We were more than happy to tap into Ardian’s expertise to take the shortest, safest path.

Our success in helping Planisware go public is a testament to the strength of its founder-led story and our careful work in the preparation phase, based on a shared commitment to identify and address key challenges together.

Alexis Saada, Head of Growth at Ardian
  • Planisware_CEO-2.jpg
    Pierre Demonsant, Co-Founder and Chairman of Planisware
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