BV Investment Partners Announces Investment in Plasco ID
BOSTON, December 18, 2014 – BV Investment Partners (“BV”), a middle-market private equity firm focused on the information and business services and communications sectors, today announced that it has invested in Plasco ID (“Plasco”), an ID solutions company, in conjunction with the company’s leadership team, CEO Alan Mendelson, CFO Jacob Brafman, and CMO Chris Penn.
Founded by George Mendelson in 1983, with offices in Miami and Minnesota, Plasco is an online lead generation and distribution business serving the ID Solutions industry, a market that includes identity and access control products such as identification card printers, software, and cameras, related consumables such as blank ID cards and printer ribbons, and technical support services. Plasco sells identification products through its direct sales force, value-added distribution partners and award-winning websites, IDWholesaler.com and IDZone.com, which generate new customer leads from businesses and government organizations in need of ID solutions. Plasco is the largest provider of digital photo identification systems and supplies, has served over 100,000 customers in the United States and internationally, including many Fortune 500 companies, and has been named to the Internet Retailer Top 500 list for six consecutive years.
Justin H. Harrison, Managing Director at BV, said, “Alan Mendelson has built a dynamic company with a leading position in the ID solutions market as evidenced by its broad and growing customer base. We are excited to have our Operating Advisory Board member, Mike Ricciardelli, who was key to the diligence of the Company’s web presence and competitive online edge, partner with us in this investment as well. I am confident that between the senior management team at Plasco and Mike’s expertise, we will be successful in integrating several of the growth objectives identified during our diligence.”
Justin Garrison, Principal at BV, said, “Plasco represents many of the elements we look for in an investment, including partnering with a family/founder owned business in a growing sector that we understand. There is strong recurring revenue within the existing customer base, and through our investment we hope to further penetrate the existing client base and accelerate new customer acquisition. We have already identified a number of growth opportunities to expand into new industry verticals and geographies and look forward to partnering with Plasco’s management team to achieve those goals.”
Plasco represents the fourth transaction in Fund VIII, which includes The Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing Company, an integrated marketing services, software, and data provider serving consumer product manufacturers and retailers, INetU, a leading provider of complex managed hosting and cloud services to enterprise customers, and TriCore Solutions, a leading provider of application and infrastructure managed services. Messrs. Harrison, Ricciardelli, and Garrison have joined the Plasco Board of Directors, and Mr. Justin Schlegel, an Associate at BV, is a member of the deal team.
“We have built Plasco into an industry leader based on our technology and superior customer service and we are extremely excited about this newly formed partnership with BV” said Alan Mendelson, President and CEO of Plasco. “BV immediately understood the challenges and the opportunities to grow a family operated company such as Plasco. With the experience of Justin Harrison, Justin Garrison, and the rest of the BV team, we are confident in their ability to help us facilitate and execute our growth initiatives.”
Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP served as legal counsel to BV on the transaction.
