New funding for Yellow Hive to boost Dutch and European growth

Poortugaal (The Netherlands), May 6, 2024 – European private equity firm IK Partners has made a second major investment in Yellow Hive, the company behind brands such as You Sure, Felixx® werk & inkomen and Yinco. The investment was made via the IK Strategic Opportunities I (IK SO I) Fund which was specially set up for this purpose. It follows an earlier investment in 2020 via the IK SC II Fund and is aimed at driving further growth in specific Dutch regions and niche markets, as well as in Germany, Spain and Belgium.

IK Partners has made IK SO I funding available in cooperation with three main investors: AlpInvest, TPG GP Solutions and Pantheon. IK Partners earlier provided a capital injection for Yellow Hive in 2020. Yellow Hive reached its targets within three years of the five-year plan, clearing the way for the new investment, which closed on April 25.

Yellow Hive will use this new capital to finance organic growth and make acquisitions. In the Netherlands, this is likely to be via Managing General Agents (“MGAs”), placing brokers, insurance brokers and pension advisory agencies. The focus will primarily be on companies that bring added value to the existing range of products and services, focused on growth in niche markets and/or companies that have a presence in specific Dutch regions, says Ger Knikman, CEO Yellow Hive.

Knikman also sees further opportunities for organic growth within the Yellow Hive platform by creating synergy between the labels and developing new products and services. Having a greater scale of available expertise and a presence in specific niche markets will allow Yellow Hive to offer better services to its customers while investing in digitalization and automation to promote ease of use. The company aims to structurally reach a top 5 position in The Netherlands within one year.

European expansion

In addition, the new investment will be targeted to continue the company’s successful European growth strategy, with a primary focus on Germany, Spain and Belgium. Yellow Hive aims to acquire local service providers, MGAs and insurance brokers in both regular and niche markets in these three territories in the coming years.

Ger Knikman: “This investment will enable us to further roll out our buy & build strategy in Germany, Spain and Belgium and strengthen our position in the Netherlands as a trend-setting financial advisory group. We are extremely fortunate to have investors who believe in us and our ambitious growth targets.”

5 min 6 May 2024, 15:07 Written by: Yellow Hive