European Firm Verdane Acquires Majority Stake in CropsterDaily Coffee News by Roast Magazine

A Cropster booth at a United States trade show in 2022. Daily Coffee News photo.

Tech-focused investment firm Verdane has acquired a majority stake in coffee business software provider Cropster, the companies announced today.

The financial terms were not publicly disclosed.

Verdane, which is based in Norway, said its investment in the coffee software company will further support Cropster on its “growth path,” which the firm said may include organic growth, as well as mergers and acquisitions.

“Cropster identifies growth opportunities in the rising presence of specialty coffee in conventional coffee markets like the U.S. and Europe, along with the trend of tea-drinking countries across Asia gradually substituting tea with coffee,” Verdane said in a company announcement today. “Cropster and Verdane share a vision of creating equitable growth opportunities across the coffee industry.”

Andreas Idl, Norbert Niederhauser, and Martin Wiesinger founded Cropster in 2008 after first collaborating on a tech-focused supply chain integration project with farmers in Colombia. The Austrian company, which maintains a U.S. subsidiary based in Sacramento, experienced a rapid rise in professional users throughout the 2010s, driven by its signature roasting software program, called Roasting Intelligence.

The company continues to provide software solutions tailored to specific segments of the global coffee industry, including roasters, cafe operators, producers and other inventory and business managers.

“Verdane outshines the market,” Cropster CEO Idl said in the Verdane announcement. “We are extremely happy to have found a new partner that shares our same values and who will join us as we take Cropster to the next level.”

Verdane said it has made 11 investments in German, Swiss or Austrian companies over the past year. The company, founded in 2003 and headquartered in Oslo, holds more than €4.5 billion (US$4.87 billion) through investments in more that 150 companies, according to the firm’s latest B Corp filing.

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