Elatec Appoints Joseph Grillo as Chairman of the Board of Directors

Munich, Germany and London, United Kingdom – Summit Partners, DPE Deutsche Private Equity (“DPE”) and their co-investors have closed the previously announced majority recapitalization of Elatec, a leading global provider of multi-standard RFID readers. As part of this transaction, DPE and its co-investors will remain minority shareholders in the company.

Joseph Grillo appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors
In conjunction with the closing of the investment, Joseph Grillo has been appointed as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Elatec. Joseph is a 30-year veteran of the electronic security and identification industries with a track record of successfully growing, acquiring and restructuring businesses. In 2012, Joseph founded ACRE, LLC as a platform to consolidate acquisitions in the electronic security industry. Over the past 6 years, ACRE has expanded its portfolio significantly and recently sold its Mercury Security business to HID Global.

Joseph is known for his long-term association with HID where he participated in the management buyout of HID from Hughes Aircraft/General Motors in 1995. During his 12 years with HID, Joseph served in various leadership roles ranging from VP of Sales and Marketing to Chief Operating Officer to Chief Executive Officer and President. Under Joseph’s leadership, HID grew from a $15M card and reader company in 1995 to a dominant $100M+ industry leader in radio-frequency technology for security applications by 2000. Joe also led the successful sale of HID to Assa Abloy in 2001 and, until his retirement in 2007, continued to run Assa Abloy’s $750M Global Technology Division.

“We are very pleased to have Joe join our board,” said Dr. Matthias Allgaier, a Managing Director at Summit Partners, who has also joined the Elatec Board. “Joe’s track record in the secure electronic identification industry is unrivalled and we look forward to collaborating with him and the Elatec team to help accelerate the company’s growth into new geographies and industry verticals.”

About Elatec
Elatec, based in Puchheim near Munich, is specialized in the development and global sales of contactless (RFID, NFC, Bluetooth) and contact (SmartCard) readers/writers. Elatec modules enable the clear identification of individual users on end devices and are used across a broad range of numerous applications and solutions, such as secure printing, elevator systems, fitness devices, industrial production, kiosk, physical access, and point-of-sale systems. The readers/writers developed by Elatec support all common RFID standards worldwide, which allows the greatest possible degree of flexibility in integrating new peripheral devices into existing RFID-based security environments. Elatec is therefore the world's leading manufacturer of multi-standard RFID readers for high- and low-frequency RFID coverage. For more information, please see www.elatec.com.

About Summit Partners
Founded in 1984, Summit Partners is a global alternative investment firm that is currently managing more than $14 billion in capital dedicated to growth equity, fixed income and public equity opportunities. Summit invests across growth sectors of the economy and has invested in more than 475 companies in technology, healthcare and other growth industries. These companies have completed more than 140 public equity offerings, and more than 190 have been acquired through strategic mergers and sales. Notable technology and technology-enabled business services companies financed by Summit Partners include Fineline Technologies, FleetCor, Hiperos, HelpSystems, Infor, Mi9 Retail, Navis, Parts Town, PSC Info Group and RELEX Solutions. Summit maintains offices in North America and Europe, and invests in companies around the world. For more information, visit www.summitpartners.com or on Twitter at @SummitPartners.

About DPE Deutsche Private Equity
DPE is a partnership headquartered in Munich and founded ten years ago with the aim of supporting the growth of medium-sized companies. We view ourselves as entrepreneurs and pursue long-term strategies in the sustainable development of market leaders. Based in Munich, we focus exclusively on medium-sized companies in the German-speaking region. Since its founding, DPE has successfully launched three funds. DPE has EUR 1.2 billion assets under management, EUR 600 million of which in DPE’s third fund. Since 2007, we have invested in 22 platform companies and made 50 follow-up investments together with these portfolio companies. For more information, please see www.dpe.de.

In the United States of America, Summit Partners operates as an SEC-registered investment advisor. In the United Kingdom, this document is issued by Summit Partners LLP, a firm authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Summit Partners LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC388179 and its registered office is at 11–12 St. James’s Square, London, SW1Y 4LB, UK. This document is intended solely to provide information regarding Summit Partners’ potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies.