The Carlyle Group has agreed to acquire Victory Innovations, a provider of electrostatic sprayers.
Victory’s cordless electrostatic spraying equipment is used to disinfect surfaces in businesses, transportation systems, hospitals, and schools. The company is headquartered near Minneapolis in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Electrostatic technology is used to maximize the attraction of chemical agents to objects that need to be cleaned or sanitized. Victory’s sprayers – which are chemical-agnostic – use patented technology to apply positive electric charges to cleaning agents to better enable them to envelop and bind to shadowed, vertical, and difficult-to-reach grounded surfaces. This technology allows for faster application times and reduced chemical usage.
Demand for Victory’s products have grown significantly since the company’s founding in 2014, and the company has experienced a dramatic increase in demand because of COVID-19. Schools and hospitals were among the first to adopt Victory’s technology, followed by an increasing number of other businesses and industries, from airlines and hotels to gyms and professional sports.
Currently, Victory’s products are sold in more than 40 countries and Carlyle plans to grow revenues through expansion in other global markets in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa.
“Victory’s electrostatic sprayers are quickly becoming the new standard in infection control, in particular as businesses plan to reopen following the coronavirus pandemic,” said Chris Gurreri, a co-founder and the CEO of Victory. “Along with co-founders Kyle Wheaton and Cliff Wright, we’re pleased to partner with Carlyle, an investor with a record of success helping companies scale and expand globally. We look forward to working with them as we continue providing the tools that make our hospitals, schools, and communities safer.”
“As more and more businesses grasp the need to not just clean surfaces, but disinfect them, we see tremendous growth opportunity for Victory,” said Vipul Amin, a managing director at Carlyle. “Their highly effective technologies are more cost-effective, use less disinfectant and operate faster than alternative disinfecting methods. We look forward to working alongside the co-founders and the entire Victory team as we support their continued expansion.”
The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) invests worldwide in buyouts, growth capital, real estate, and leveraged finance. The firm, with $221 billion of assets under management, has more than 1,800 employees in 31 offices across six continents and is based in Washington DC.
Carlyle’s buy of Victory is being funded through Carlyle Partners VII LP and is expected to close by the end of this month.
Private Equity Professional | September 17, 2020
