3U HOLDING AG: weclapp intensifies internationalisation and cooperates with well-established northern Italian ERP solution provider

Marburg (pta006/18.01.2021/07:00 UTC+1)

• Strong SME sector in the eighth-largest economy increasingly relies on digitization
• Successful IT service provider Infominds uses weclapp as gateway to cloud computing

As a building block of its growth strategy, weclapp SE, a subsidiary of 3U HOLDING AG (ISIN DE0005167902), has initiated the active international marketing of its cloud-based ERP platform of the same name in Europe. In the pursuit of this strategy, it has now concluded a cooperation agreement with Infocloud AG in Bolzano, Italy, a subsidiary of the Infominds Group (https://www.infominds.eu), which was founded for this purpose. With 120 employees and 2,000 customers, Infominds is one of the leading independent vendors of business software in northern Italy and generated sales of more than EUR 11 million in the 2019 financial year. 

Infominds will partner to exclusively market the cloud-based ERP platform weclapp throughout Italy. To support the market entry, weclapp SE has adapted its proven online marketing linguistically and culturally to the requirements of the Italian market. Subsequently, weclapp will appear sustainably in the result lists of internet search queries from Italy.

While the user interface has long been available in Italian, the platform's functions are now continuously being adapted to the country's specifics. The addition of local requirements to the software is being carried out by a binational team. Data hosting will initially take place in the computer centre in Frankfurt am Main. With certification according to the international standard ISO/IEC 27001, weclapp meets high data security standards.

The cooperation is being launched in the first few weeks of 2021. Italy is the eighth largest economy in the world and is largely characterised by medium-sized companies. Like Germany, it is currently undergoing a wide-ranging process of digitization of the economy and public life. According to Asintel, the Italian association of the information and telecommunication industry, Italian companies invested almost EUR 25 bn in their IT in 2020, notwithstanding the COVID 19 restrictions, of which around EUR 7.3 bn was spent on software. According to surveys by Italian market analyst NetConsulting, ERP software-as-a-service (SaaS) is by far the fastest-growing segment of the ERP market in Italy, with forecast growth rates of well over 20 percent in the coming years.

“This is another important step in our active internationalisation. It is particularly beneficial to have reliable partners in the country itself in order to combine strengths. With Infominds, we have found this partner for Italy. Like us, they are enthusiastic about the cloud-based technologies ahead and we are looking forward to jointly accelerating this trend,” says Ertan Özdil, CEO and founder of weclapp SE. 

weclapp, which has already made a name for itself in its home market of Germany as a driver of digitization, expects to quickly build up a customer base in the Italian market and achieve similarly rapid growth as in Germany. “weclapp already shows today which platforms companies will want to use in the future: intuitive usability, quick implementation, system and location independence, comprehensive handling of all business processes in the team,” explains Peter Nestl, Managing Director at Infominds AG. “The market is increasingly looking for cloud-based solutions, and weclapp has a competitive edge here, both technically and in terms of price: we are looking forward to working with weclapp and opening the way to the cloud age for Italian companies.”

“The digitization of SMEs is picking up speed throughout Europe, indeed throughout the world. Politics, businesses and SMEs are driving digitization forward of their own accord. weclapp as a cloud-based business platform offers them a low-cost way to use state-of-the-art technologies: for more customer delight, higher efficiency, increased profitability. Such competitive advantages strengthen medium-sized businesses and open up a successful future for them – now and beyond Corona,” emphasises Michael Schmidt, the CEO of 3U HOLDING AG. 

About weclapp:
weclapp SE was established in 2008 and has been offering the cloud-based platform of the same name since 2013. Since market entry, it has grown by an average of 50% every year and is profitable. With Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), it mainly addresses small and medium-sized enterprises, especially with the integrated ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) functionalities. Customers thus have unrestricted access to their business transactions and data from any internet-capable end device and from any location connected to the internet. With storage and computing capacities in Germany and Switzerland and certification according to ISO 27001, weclapp offers a high level of data security. The platform has repeatedly been awarded as ERP system of the year. weclapp SE is based in Frankfurt am Main with further locations in Marburg and Kitzingen. It is a subsidiary of 3U HOLDING AG based in Marburg.

About Infominds:
INFOMINDS was formed in 2017 from the merger of the Software division of ACS Data Systems with Ergo Software. The software and consulting company is a software house that is independent of international manufacturers and can focus fully on the needs of its customers. INFOMINDS accompanies companies on the path to digital transformation based on the ERP software solutions Radix and Ergo and offers software and services from a single source. INFOMINDS focuses on innovation that reaches the user and services that keep the user's back. With 120 employees and 2,000 customers in Bolzano, Bressanone and Verona, INFOMINDS is not only South Tyrol's leading provider of business software, but also an important player in Northern Italy.

About 3U:

3U HOLDING AG (www.3U.net) 3U HOLDING AG (www.3U.net) has its headquarters in Marburg, Germany, and was founded in 1997. It is the operating management and investment holding company at the head of the 3U Group. It acquires, operates and sells companies in the three segments of ITC (Information and Telecommunications Technology), Renewable Energies and SHAC (Sanitary, Heating and Air Conditioning Technology). The 3U Group has successful and profitable business models based on megatrends in all three segments. It continues to expand its business activities dynamically, particularly in its strongest growth areas of cloud computing and online trading, in which it is striving to achieve leading positions in the market. 
3U HOLDING AG’s shares are traded on XETRA, Tradegate and on the German regional stock exchanges (ISIN: DE0005167902; identifier: UUU).

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