Allison Barlaz joins Sidetrade with over twenty-five years’ experience in product and marketing roles across software companies, including SaaS vendors. In her new role, Barlaz provides visionary leadership and strategic marketing direction, contributing to Sidetrade’s expansion goals. She joins the executive committee of Sidetrade, expanding its membership to 10.
Allison joins us at milestone moment for Sidetrade as it steers through significant Gen AI transformations said Olivier Novasque, CEO of Sidetrade. Her success building B2B brands coupled with her martech expertise is pivotal in our market reach and new growth initiatives.
Barlaz has a proven track record in demand generation, leveraging new marketing technologies to support business objectives and drive revenue growth. In addition, she has experience in the Order-to-Cash market, having spearheaded BlackLine’s demand generation and digital marketing strategy for more than two years.
Commenting on her new role, Barlaz said: It’s an exciting time for the Order-to-Cash market as the impact of AI technology becomes more evident each day. Sidetrade is well positioned to help clients realize this untapped value, as demonstrated by our three-time positioning as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic QuadrantTM for Invoice-to-Cash Applications. I am excited to contribute to this market leader and help drive its next phase of growth globally.
Barlaz is based in the US and holds degrees from INSEAD Business School, UC Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania, underscoring her formidable background and readiness to lead Sidetrade’s marketing endeavors.
Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Invoice-to-Cash Applications”, Tamara Shipley, Valeria Di Maso and Miles Onafowora, May 6, 2024.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
New management at SHS Viveon AG as Sidetrade takes majority control
Sidetrade AG, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sidetrade group, has now secured 1,977,439 shares, representing 79.39% of SHS Viveon AG’s outstanding share capital, thereby becoming the majority shareholder.
On June 4, 2024, Olivier Novasque, CEO of Sidetrade, was appointed as the new CEO of SHS Viveon AG: I’m excited to lead the SHS Viveon team of talented employees who bring with them impressive expertise and skills in risk management. Together, we will innovate, reach new heights, and continue to serve our valued customers in Germany and beyond with passion.
In conjunction with this appointment, the Supervisory Board of SHS Viveon AG implemented further significant changes on June 10, 2024. Philippe Gangneux, CFO of Sidetrade, was appointed the new Chairman of the SHS Viveon AG Supervisory Board. Mark Sheldon, CTO of Sidetrade, was named as a new Board member, joining Heinz Resch, who remains as Deputy Chairman.
SHS Viveon AG delisting approved by Munich Stock Exchange
SHS Viveon AG (ISIN: DE000A0XFWK2) has formally applied to delist its shares from the Munich Stock Exchange. The Munich Stock Exchange decided that the listing on the m:access segment will end on June 30, 2024 and on the regulated unofficial market “Freiverkehr” on November 15, 2024. As a result, after November 15, 2024, SHS Viveon shares will no longer be listed on the capital markets.
In accordance with Munich Stock Exchange, Sidetrade has extended its public tender offer to July 29, 2024 at midnight (CEST, Munich, Germany). This extension provides SHS Viveon’s shareholders with ample time to tender their remaining shares. As stated in the May 2, 2024 press release, Sidetrade’s offer price is €3.00 per SHS Viveon share in cash.
SHS Viveon AG delisting time-frame
| May 7, 2024 | Tender offer opens |
| June 12, 2024 | Delisting of SHS Viveon AG proposed to the Munich Stock Exchange |
| June 17, 2024 | End of the initial tender offer period |
| June 24, 2024 | Extension period of the tender offer opens |
| June 30, 2024 | Delisting of SHS Viveon AG from m:access |
| July 29, 2024 | End of the tender offer period at midnight (CEST Munich, Germany) |
| November 15, 2024 | Delisting of SHS Viveon AG from “Freiverkehr” |
The tender offer is not subject to reaching a minimum acceptance threshold.
The tender offer documentation is available on www.sidetrade.com in German (https://www.sidetrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/public-tender-offer-shs-viveon-de.pdf) and in English (https://www.sidetrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/public-tender-offer-shs-viveon.pdf).
Copies of the German language binding document may be obtained at uebernahmeangebot@oddo-bhf.com.
Sidetrade is assisted by King & Spalding LLP as legal advisor on the transaction and ODDO BHF SE as financial advisor.
About SHS Viveon AG, a German leader in credit risk & compliance management software applications
Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Munich, Germany, SHS Viveon AG offers applications designed to enable risk, credit, and compliance management teams to automatically identify, assess, and hedge risks in a flexible, digital process. It simplifies access to all relevant data from any system, improves analysis and simulation, and enables better business decisions.
In 2023, SHS Viveon AG reported revenues of €8.8 million. SHS Viveon AG’s customer portfolio currently comprises 80 businesses including Fortune 100 companies.
Olivier Novasque, CEO of Sidetrade commented: Leaders around the world understand that generative AI is the new frontier for driving business transformation and unexpected growth. At Sidetrade, we are at the forefront of this exciting and rapidly evolving field. Our dedication to innovation is reflected in the solutions and the growth opportunities we create for our wemployees, customers and shareholders.
Our ambition is to revolutionize the Order-to-Cash landscape. By leveraging generative AI and the world’s only real time O2C Data Lake, we are going to reshape industry benchmarks, raising the bar to a level never seen before. We are changing the game for finance teams’ operations allowing them to reach unexpected performance. Our AI, AKA Aimie, unlocks new potential by mastering GenAI efficiency. Aimie processes over $6.1 trillion worth of O2C payment experiences to provide the best performance recommendation every second, surpassing the capabilities of static ERP systems, spreadsheets, rule-based O2C software and even, advanced but too generic ChatGPT abilities. Our mission is to empower finance professionals in their daily life by delivering them not only intelligent automation but the highest level of intelligence in their cash conversion performance across their entire Order-to-Cash journey.
Introducing ‘Ask Aimie’ – Sidetrade’s first generative AI feature
Recently, Sidetrade introduced ‘Ask Aimie’ within the Digital Case solution, the first generative AI feature revolutionizing user experience. This new innovation provides users with concise summaries of lengthy emails from their clients and enables them to generate appropriate replies by choosing from four different templates; this functionality, enables to respond promptly and effectively, maintaining the context throughout the communication.
With ‘Ask Aimie’, finance teams benefit from:
- Streamlined efficiency: Reduced time spent on information gathering and email drafting, freeing up resources for higher-value tasks.
- Enhanced communication: Faster and more personalized customer interactions.
- Improved comprehension: An enriched reading experience with real-time contextual information, helping users understand content without the need for external research.
- Instant insights: Immediate access to a wealth of O2C information, setting new benchmarks in AI predictability, accuracy, transparency, explainability, and user customization.
Rob Harvey, Chief Product Officer of Sidetrade commented: It’s been a quarter of a century since search engines like Google democratized access to universal knowledge. However, it was still up to us to interpret results and create relevant, specific, and accurate content from them. Today, generative AI answers users’ problems on specialized topics, offering invaluable support even in complex environments. But the benefits of generative AI extend far beyond just producing well-written content. Domain expert LLMs we are leveraging can be fine-tuned to deliver responses that not only exhibit human-like reasoning but also demonstrate a deep understanding of finance and its context. This approach builds trust with users and adds value for our customers.
Our AI, Aimie, mimics human-like reasoning by analyzing billions of transactions in seconds and focusing on the complex context of the customer and their environment. This makes her the most advanced O2C Intelligent Agent on the market. She acts as a mirror, reflecting current customer interactions and revealing blind spots and weaknesses through real time, data-driven insights: Aimie is a superb assistant for text recognition and generation. This enables organizations to enhance relevance, better understand context, and optimize customer responses, ultimately improving customer satisfaction. By freeing up finance teams, sales, and customer services to tackle more complex issues, Aimie further enhances customer satisfaction.
Deploying generative AI technology will allow Sidetrade’s customers to streamline their customer interactions, accelerate their understanding, and personalize their responses for a more human touch.
Combining GenAI with worldwide data to set new standards in Order-to-Cash
Sidetrade’s AI Aimie utilizes machine learning (ML) techniques to analyze customer payment behaviors. Since 2015, Sidetrade has built the most advanced and vast dataset in the Order-to-Cash market, and the only one offering real time AI capabilities. Continuously learning from Sidetrade’s extensive Data Lake, Aimie has been able to recommend optimal collection strategy and act by her own on certain actions. Now, Sidetrade has integrated a new range of data science techniques with the development of its own generative architecture which integrates Large Language Models (LLMs) that are being trained on vast amounts of O2C text data to understand and generate complex human language specific to the industry.
These latest technologies enable Aimie to analyze and understand natural language queries, generate relevant answers, and assist users in anticipating future payment behaviors based on emerging trends and current data. Aimie also leverages big data elements to process and analyze large quantities of Data Lake information, elevating its capability to deliver relevant, accurate, contextualized O2C specific insights that no other vendor can provide.
Mark Sheldon, Chief Technology Officer at Sidetrade: With the O2C industry’s most advanced and only real time Data Lake, Sidetrade is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the potential of generative AI because without data, there is no advanced AI. Sidetrade offers unparalleled insights to customers worldwide, empowering finance professionals to benefit from GenAI. This leads to strategic business growth and operational efficiency in ways previously unattainable. Generative AI places humans back at the heart of processes, without sacrificing performance objectives.
Ensuring data privacy and customization with in-house innovation of LLMs
The advantage of running Sidetrade’s own generative architecture with domain expert LLMs, over generic, third-party hosted LLMs, is that Aimie provides insights that are far more tailored and specific to the O2C industry. Unlike GenAI features on the market that offer much more generalist information, Sidetrade’s AI delivers precision and relevance.
Moreover, unlike other SaaS offerings, all of Sidetrade’s infrastructure, LLMs, and data remain within Sidetrade’s private cloud. This ensures that customer data is fully segregated and never mixed in with external models, prioritizing privacy and security.
Sheldon continued: Sidetrade’s approach to generative AI ensures that our technology upholds the highest standards of privacy, sovereignty, and accuracy. Instead of adopting a plug-and-play approach, we have built an entire ecosystem in-house, taking full ownership of the intellectual property. This strategy offers a whole host of benefits to our customers, both now and in the future, including a more bespoke, customized and accurate service. Additionally, it provides the reassurance that their data never leaves our secure cloud environment.
According to Gartner (source: Magic Quadrant Research Methodology | Gartner), “Leaders execute well against their current vision and are well positioned for tomorrow.”
Sidetrade Chief Product Officer, Rob Harvey said:Being named as a Leader by Gartner for the past three years is a remarkable recognition for us. At Sidetrade, we take pride in our commitment to innovation, and we believe this recognition reflects our advancements in artificial intelligence and the value we create for our clients.
At a time when AI tends to be seen as a commodity, the differentiating factor is the quality of the data. The reason is simple: there is no high-performance AI without data. Sidetrade’s AI – nicknamed Aimie – stands out with its exclusive access to the Sidetrade Data Lake, allowing her to mine a vast source of financial and business data. This unique capacity gives Aimie exceptional accuracy in analyzing payment behaviors and predicting the dynamics of cash flow generation. Aimie is continuously enriched with millions of data points, leveraging the latest in machine learning, natural language processing and, more recently, generative AI. The power of our AI, fueled by our Data Lake, demonstrates our advanced expertise in algorithms.
From Sidetrade’s perspective, being recognized as one of the vendors positioned in the Leaders Quadrant in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant acknowledges its AI capabilities, product strategy and customer support.
Sidetrade Chief Executive Officer, Olivier Novasque said:Being named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Invoice-to-Cash Applications for three years in a row means a lot to us, and it’s fantastic to be recognized for both our ability to execute and completeness of vision. It offers credibility and visibility in competitive markets but also trust among large global organizations, demonstrating Sidetrade’s reliability and effectiveness. Additionally, we believe this recognition supports Sidetrade’s expansion efforts, helping to establish a strong foothold and attract new business, in particular in North America.
Download a copy of this 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant report, here.
Source Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Invoice-to-Cash Applications”, Tamara Shipley, Valeria Di Maso and Miles Onafowora, May 6, 2024.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
As announced in the May 2, 2024 press release, Sidetrade’s tender offer for SHS Viveon AG has been posted in the Federal Gazette, an official promulgation and announcement organ of the Federal Republic of Germany, today. The price of this friendly offer is €3.00 per SHS Viveon share in cash.
Planned milestones for Sidetrade’s acquisition of SHS Viveon AG
| May 7, 2024 | Tender offer opens |
| May 9, 2024 | Delisting of SHS Viveon AG proposed to the Munich Stock Exchange |
| June 17, 2024 | Tender offer closes |
The tender offer is not subject to reaching a minimum acceptance threshold.
The tender offer documentation is available on www.sidetrade.com in German (https://www.sidetrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/public-tender-offer-shs-viveon-de.pdf) and in English (https://www.sidetrade.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/public-tender-offer-shs-viveon.pdf).
Copies of the German language binding document may be obtained at uebernahmeangebot@oddo-bhf.com.
Sidetrade will support the delisting of SHS Viveon AG’s shares from the open market m:access of the Munich stock exchange. Post delisting, SHS Viveon AG shares will not trade anymore in Germany (either Frankfurt or Munich).
Sidetrade is assisted by King & Spalding LLP as legal advisor on the transaction and ODDO BHF SE as financial advisor.
Following the execution of binding agreements with shareholders of SHS Viveon AG to acquire shares at a price of €3.00 each, as announced in the April 16, 2024 press release, Sidetrade has secured 1,702,407 shares, representing 68.4% of SHS Viveon AG’s outstanding share capital as follows:
- 43.0% of the SHS Viveon shares already acquired.
- 5.7% of the SHS Viveon shares set to be acquired in the coming days.
- 19.7% of the SHS Viveon shares to be acquired at subsequent dates at the latest in July 2024.
Sidetrade plans to open its public tender offer on May 7, 2024, to acquire the remaining shares of SHS Viveon AG at €3.00 per share in cash, representing a 53% premium over the 1-year VWAP (Volume-weighted average price) of SHS Viveon AG (€1.96 per share) as of April 15, 2024.
SHS Viveon AG’s supervisory board signed a business combination agreement with Sidetrade on May 1, 2024, and supports Sidetrade’s take-over plans.
Planned milestones for Sidetrade’s acquisition of SHS Viveon AG
| May 6, 2024 | Tender offer posted in the Federal Gazette |
| May 7, 2024 | Tender offer opens |
| May 9, 2024 | Delisting of SHS Viveon AG proposed to the Munich Stock Exchange |
| June 17, 2024 | Tender offer closes |
The tender offer is not subject to reaching a minimum acceptance threshold.
The tender offer documentation will be available in German and in English on May 6, 2024 on www.sidetrade.com. Copies of the German language binding document may be obtained by email at uebernahmeangebot@oddo-bhf.com.
Certain SHS Viveon AG’s shareholders entered into a binding agreement with Sidetrade to transfer 19.7% of their shares at subsequent dates at the latest in July 2024.
Upon completing these acquisitions, Sidetrade will become the majority shareholder and assume control of SHS Viveon AG. Sidetrade will support the delisting of SHS Viveon AG’s shares from the open market m:access of the Munich stock exchange. Post delisting, SHS Viveon AG shares will not trade anymore in Germany (either Frankfurt or Munich).
Sidetrade is assisted by King & Spalding LLP as legal advisor on the transaction and ODDO BHF SE as financial advisor.
About SHS Viveon AG, a German leader in credit risk & compliance management software applications
Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Munich, Germany, SHS Viveon AG offers applications designed to enable risk, credit, and compliance management teams to automatically identify, assess, and hedge risks in a flexible, digital process. It simplifies access to all relevant data from any system, improves analysis and simulation, and enables better business decisions.
In 2023, SHS Viveon AG reported revenues of €8.8 million. SHS Viveon AG’s customer portfolio currently comprises 80 businesses including Fortune 100 companies.
Sidetrade’s 2023 Annual Report provides a synthesis of its environment, activities, strategy, governance, and looks back over the events that marked the financial year. It establishes the link between financial and non-financial performance.
The document is available on the company’s website here.
Philippe Gangneux, CSR Ambassador and Chief Financial Officer of Sidetrade, commented:
Given the growing interest in our activities and our international development, the publication of an annual report linking financial and non-financial performance was an important challenge. This represents a new initiative in our transparent communication approach, and shedding light on our expansion combining growth and profitability.
Sidetrade today announces that it has entered into binding agreements with shareholders of SHS Viveon AG to acquire more than 50% of all outstanding shares in SHS Viveon AG at a price of €3.00 per share.
The number of shares Sidetrade has the intention to acquire is 1,462,489 shares, representing 58.73% of the outstanding share capital of SHS Viveon AG:
- 43.30% of the SHS Viveon shares would be acquired by Sidetrade in the coming days; and
- 15.43% at subsequent dates in June and July 2024.
The price of €3.00 per share represents a 53% premium over the 1-year VWAP (Volume-weighted average price) of SHS Viveon AG (€1.96 per share) as of April 15, 2024.
Sidetrade is also currently considering acquiring additional SHS Viveon AG shares from existing shareholders at €3.00 per share.
In addition to the aforementioned acquisitions, Sidetrade is considering launching a public tender offer to acquire the remaining shares of SHS Viveon AG also at €3.00 per share.
Upon completion of these acquisitions, Sidetrade would become the majority shareholder of SHS Viveon AG owning a controlling stake and would take the appropriate measures to delist SHS Viveon’s shares from public trading.
Sidetrade is assisted by King & Spalding LLP as legal advisor on the transaction and ODDO BHF SE as financial advisor.
About SHS Viveon AG, a German leader in credit risk & compliance management software applications
Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Munich, Germany, SHS Viveon AG offers applications designed to enable risk, credit, and compliance management teams to automatically identify, assess, and hedge risks in a flexible, digital process. It simplifies access to all relevant data from any system, improves analysis and simulation, and enables better business decisions.
In 2023, SHS Viveon AG reported revenues of €8.8 million. SHS Viveon AG’s customer portfolio currently comprises 80 businesses including Fortune 100 companies.