Antares Vision, a leading global provider of intelligent Track & Trace, Inspection and Smart Data Management solutions for the Life Science and Food & Beverage sectors, today announced entering into an agreement for the acquisition of rfXcel Corporation (“rfXcel”), a leading US-based Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) company, serving the Life Science and Food & Beverage sectors, for an upfront consideration of $120 million on a debt free and cash free basis.

Key Highlights of the Acquisition

1) rfXcel’s AI-enabled SaaS platform more than doubles Antares Vision Group’s software business and adds high share of contracted, recurring and scalable revenues

2) Combining rfXcel’s industry leading software platform with Antares Vision Group’s Track & Trace complete solution will significantly enhance value for Life Science and Food & Beverage customers in North America, Europe and Asia

3) Antares Vision Group will leverage rfXcel’s software to continue to drive global growth and expand into new market segments requiring end-to-end supply chain digitalisation solutions

4) The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Antares Vision Group’s (1) revenue growth, (2) EPS and (3) Free Cash Flow from year-1 (before synergies)

Strategic and Operational Rationale

The acquisition of rfXcel will strengthen further Antares Vision Group’s software capabilities, consolidating its position as one of the global leaders in Track & Trace. The Antares Vision Group will leverage rfXcel capabilities and software suite to help customers accelerating the transition towards digital and sustainable supply chains, enabling full transparency and visibility.

The acquisition will also enable significant opportunities to cross-sell (i) rfXcel solutions across Antares Vision Group’s large and growing installed base of Track & Trace and Inspection solutions and across a broad, blue-chip customer base of over 2,500 clients, as well as (ii) Antares Vision Group’s products to rfXcel’s existing customer base.

Together with rfXcel, the Antares Vision Group makes an important headway to provide full stack end-to-end digital solution enabling traceability, serialisation processing, regulatory compliance and gathering and monitoring of real-time data to optimise and streamline customers’ supply chains while providing complete end-to-end visibility: from the product ingredients and raw materials to the end customer experience.

The acquisition meaningfully increases Antares Vision Group’s share of contracted, recurring, high growth and high margin software revenue, more than doubling to c.21% of total Group revenues (compared to 9% LTM as of June-2020 prior to the transaction).

Emidio Zorzella, Chairman and CEO of Antares Vision said:

“Massimo and I are delighted that we have reached agreement to acquire rfXcel. The acquisition has a compelling strategic rationale with strong operational and financial benefits. The combination will strengthen Antares Vision Group's position as one of the global leaders in the Track & Trace segment, accelerating our growth and representing an attractive value creation opportunity for our customers, our shareholder the whole Antares Vision Group.

Demand for traceability and serialised products and services has increased significantly over the last few years, and this transaction accelerates our ability to offer best-in-class propositions in all our key reference sectors, Life Science and Food & Beverage. We look forward to welcoming the management and employees of rfXcel to the Antares Vision Group and working together to serve our customers across the world.

The acquisition of rfXcel will be perfectly in line with our strategic vision and it will accelerate our role in the digitisation of the industrial world. The acquisition will enable the Antares Vision Group to broaden and deepen its relationships with existing and new customers thanks to a more comprehensive and complementary product portfolio to market.”

Glenn Abood, President and Founder of rfXcel said:

“This transaction represents the next chapter in rfXcel’s evolving story—the combined company will offer the most comprehensive Track and Trace solution in every market around the globe. When Jack Tarkoff and I started rfXcel over 17 years ago, our vision was to make it possible to Track & Trace finished goods, raw materials and ingredients as they move in the supply chain. Antares Vision shares the same goals and, by virtue of their size and global footprint, we will be able to accelerate our plans. The rfXcel management team is delighted to join with Antares Vision to offer customers in the Life Science, Food & Beverage and other industries the most complete end-to-end solution for Track & Trace on the market today.”