Through the acquisition, Siemens Mobility adds the S3 Passenger technology to its portfolio
Dutch rail software provider Sqills to be acquired by Siemens Mobility. (Credit: Siemens)
Siemens Mobility has agreed to acquire Dutch rail software provider Sqills for €550m plus an earn-out, in a move to advance its strategy to boost the availability, capacity and utilisation of public transportation.
Sqills is a software as a service (SaaS) provider of cloud-based inventory management, reservation and ticketing software. The company caters to public transport operators in various parts of the world such as SNCF, Rail Delivery Group, Irish Rail, Via Rail, SJ and Eurostar among others
The rail software provider has developed the S3 Passenger platform to help rail and bus operators to change their legacy reservation systems with an online booking system that increases the usage and availability of passenger transportation.
According to Siemens Mobility, the S3 Passenger technology adds a key digital solution to its software portfolio. The fully scalable and modular web-based platform is claimed to handle millions of transactions per day.
Siemens Mobility, which is a separately managed company of Germany-based Siemens, provides rolling stock, rail automation and electrification, intelligent traffic systems, turnkey systems and others.
Siemen president and CEO Roland Busch said: “The acquisition of Sqills is a perfect example of how Siemens combines the real and digital worlds to empower its customers in their transformation.
“At the same time, Sqills supports our own growth path for digital services and is a great example of applying our capital allocation criteria through targeted acquisitions. It also fits perfectly to our recently announced focus on generating recurring revenue through resilient business models such as Software as a Service.”
Siemens Mobility will manage Sqills as a separate legal entity.
Sqills alongside Siemens Mobility’s previous acquisitions of Hacon, eos.uptrade, Padam Mobility, and Bytemark will become part of an interconnected software portfolio where a broad range of services for public transport are brought together.
The Dutch company, which was founded in 2002, has a workforce of 160 people. Its revenue for the calendar year 2022 is forecast to be nearly €40m.
Sqills board member and co-founder Bart van Munster said: “Joining Siemens Mobility’s growing business and software portfolio for intermodal and connected travel is a tremendous opportunity that allows Sqills to advance its plans to expand beyond Europe into the Asia Pacific and the Americas as well as its ongoing investment in team, product and existing long term operator partnerships.
“Together with a strong and trusted international partner like Siemens Mobility, we’ll be even better equipped to drive the mobility software business and optimisation of rail and bus travel on a global scale with local representation.”
The deal, which is subject to customary conditions, is anticipated to close in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2022.