Eden Prairie, Minnesota – Hennepin Partners announced that it has successfully advised Whether or Knot, LLC dba AerisWeather on its acquisition by Vaisala (HEL: VAIAS). Hennepin Partners acted as AerisWeather’s exclusive financial advisor.
AerisWeather is a subscription-based software company providing weather and environmental information. AerisWeather’s suite of global weather data and imagery solutions enables customers across a broad array of industries to harness and incorporate environmental data in their business intelligence tools, products and services.
Vaisala’s acquisition further progresses the Company’s execution of its Weather and Environment business area’s strategy to drive growth in Data as a Service (“DaaS”) and Software as a Service (“SaaS”) recurring revenue businesses.
“The overall usage of accurate weather and environmental data continues to increase significantly as extreme weather phenomena become more frequent, and in practice all business sectors look to optimize their operations through weather and environmental insights. Vaisala is already the global leader in providing lightning data, which is essential to ensuring safety in multiple different sectors. In addition, we are a leading provider of weather and road weather data for the automotive industry and road authorities, as well as a significant player in providing historical data and forecasts for the renewable energy sector. Through AerisWeather we are expanding our offering and opening access to several new customer segments with our leading data offering,” said Jarkko Sairanen, EVP of Weather and Environment at Vaisala, in the release.
“We are very excited to have AerisWeather as part of Vaisala to accelerate our platform-based data business. By combining Vaisala’s existing measurement and forecasting technologies with AerisWeather’s industry-leading data services and developer tools, we will offer the best insights and forecasts for all-important weather and environmental data parameters in an easy-to-use, developer-centric way,” added Samuli Hänninen, VP of Weather and Environment at Vaisala, in the release.
Regarding Hennepin Partners, Dave Hubbard and Mike Vaughn, two of AerisWeather’s shareholders who will remain with the business in its next phase as senior management members, added “Hennepin Partners was a trusted advisor and played a critical role in the success of our transaction by running a great process. In the end, we could not be happier with Vaisala as our new owner. Hennepin Partners is very good at what they do, and the entire team – Jim Clancy, Anders Olson, Zach Creighton, and Logan Maccani – were true partners end-to-end. We would be very comfortable recommending Hennepin Partners to others thinking about a sale or recapitalization.”