The software company Qlik should grow by at least one hundred employees in 2016. At the same time, speculation in the company, with a market value of 20 billion, may be about to be bought.
Qlik was founded in Lund in 1993 and develops and sells software for data analysis. In 2010 the company moved its headquarters to Radnor, Pennsylvania in the United States since July 2010 listed on the US Nasdaq.
The company has mainly grown organically and now has 2500 employees, sales of approximately SEK 5.2 billion and has a growth rate of about 20 percent.
“the market for data analysis will continue to grow exponentially, not least in view of the digital transformation the world is facing. We have interesting things that we want to develop the agenda and extends a number of years. Much of what we want to develop themselves and therefore we continue to grow in Lund “, says CEO Lars Björk.
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All significant development within the company takes place in Lund and there are currently around 500 employees.
“We have less development units in other countries as well, mainly to be available around the clock, but I are happy that we have the majority of developers in Skåne. It has a strong expertise that we do not compete in the same way that we had to do about the big ideas developed in Silicon Valley. “
The last two years have Qlik invested over 600 million per year on research and development.
“We will continue to put a lot of money on it. It is the only way to be relevant to the market, “said Lars Björk.
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Autumn 2014 Qlik released its latest big product for decision support, Qlik Sense. It is a platform with an open API (application programming interface) that makes it possible for others to develop additional functions around Sense. Lars Björk says that third-party developers is becoming increasingly important for the company.
“We see that more third-party developers begin selling products built around Qlik Sense. And if our products are used in environments other than the tools we develop, we get a big lead over our competitors. “
The night of Friday Swedish time flagged hedge fund Elliott Management to be bought almost 9 percent of the shares in Qlik and thus become a major shareholder. Elliott Management has previously entered in large companies like Novell and Riverbed and later forced a sale of the companies.
“I can not comment on the data. I have just got a contact with Elliott where they have announced that they have purchased an item, we have not had any dialogue. Generally, we are open to meet the shareholders at any time and we will not make any difference to them, “said Lars Björk.
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He sees the valuation of the company as the main reason for Elliott Management invested about 1.7 billion in Qlik.
“they have gone in because they see an opportunity to be on a trip up the stock market. “
Analysts suggest IBM and Oracle as potential buyers. What can you say about it?
“I can not comment on the details either,” said Lars Björk.
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