Drooms became the first European supplier to use an online platform for due diligence activities 15 years ago. The latest revolution in online due diligence: Drooms NXG introduces self-learning software into the due diligence process.
Zug/Frankfurt, 03 November 2016 – Drooms, Europe’s leading supplier of virtual data rooms, celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. Founded in 2001, the company looks back on a history of continual growth. Now, Drooms employs almost 100 employees in 23 countries, and maintains an international presence in all European markets. As a digital pioneer in the virtual data room market, Drooms was the first company to use an online platform for due diligence activities for deals such as mergers and acquisitions, real estate transactions and IPOs. Jan Hoffmeister, Co-founder and Managing Director of Drooms, gathered many years of experience in the M&A sector during his time at Siemens, where he spent much time in physical data rooms reviewing hundreds of files. He quickly realised the need for a digital solution. By developing its own secure cloud solution for safely exchanging confidential documents, Drooms established an online data room solution for the first time in the European market. It enabled various parties to access documents simultaneously, to review them, and subsequently carry out a valuation of the transaction object.
Trailblazer in establishing virtual data rooms in Europe
In addition to using virtual data rooms for due diligence in M&A transactions, IPOs and commercial real estate sales, virtual data rooms are also used for asset documentation during the entire life cycle of the transaction object. This makes it possible to manage a complete portfolio from a single source. “In the future, Drooms will continue to focus development on digitisation of an asset’s entire life cycle and of the associated workflows,” Hoffmeister explains. Last month, the European market leader will present Drooms NXG, the next generation in online due diligence. With the new platform, workflows can be mapped automatically for the very first time. The new virtual data room enables real-time translation of documents in the data room itself as well as the first implementation of automated red flag analysis. “In five years, these current developments will have significantly changed the current workflow in transaction processes,” asserts Alexandre Grellier, Co-founder and Managing Director of Drooms.
The new platform was developed over a period of two years by a dedicated in-house development department in Frankfurt. The challenge was attracting highly specialised developers to Frankfurt. “Our top-class, international team made getting new colleagues on board easier and so over time, we put together a team of specialists,” says Hoffmeister, pleased about the minimal change there has been at Drooms. “This is the only way we can react to market requirements.”
More than 25,000 companies around the world count on the support of Drooms’ secure platform during complex transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, commercial real estate transactions, fundraising and IPOs. The total value of transactions supported by Drooms amounts to over EUR 300 billion.
