History
Trifork Group was founded in Denmark in 1996. Between 2007 and 2014, the Group was listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen. At the beginning of 2014, the headquarters were moved to Schindellegi, Switzerland, and Trifork Group AG was established as the holding company of the Trifork Group. As part of this reorganization, Trifork was delisted from Nasdaq Copenhagen. The company increased its international focus in these years and partnered with the software-focused private equity fund GRO Capital in 2015. GRO Capital exited its investment through an IPO on Nasdaq Copenhagen in May 2021. Today, the founder and CEO, Jørn Larsen, remains the largest shareholder with almost 20% of the shares.
In a nutshell
Trifork is a pioneering global technology partner, empowering enterprise and public sector customers with innovative solutions. With more than 1,200 professionals across 73 business units in 16 countries, Trifork delivers expertise in inspiring, building, and running advanced software solutions across diverse sectors, including public administration, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, energy, financial services, retail, and real estate.
The software industry is characterized by rapid change. Hence, Trifork always needs to be at the forefront of innovation to stay relevant for our customers. Our culture is deeply rooted in curiosity about new technologies. It means that we can attract highly skilled people, which in turn ensures competitive strength.
How we’re organized
Trifork Group is organized and reported into two segments: The Trifork segment and the Trifork Labs segment.
The Trifork segment
Trifork’s go-to-market model and financial reporting is based on the three sub-segments, Inspire, Build, and Run, which we consider to be the three phases of our relationship with each customer. The go-to-market model ensures that our customers are at the center of all activities carried out by Trifork, and that Trifork maintains a strong customer relationship throughout the software development journey. This go-to-market model is vital to Trifork’s success, enabling us to be close to and drive innovation.
Inspire
The Inspire sub-segment is primarily engaged in developing and implementing the GOTO and YOW! conferences as well as partner conferences in Europe, USA, and Australia. Inspirational design thinking workshops and training in agile processes and software development are also part of the deliveries. Our YouTube channel ‘GOTO Conferences’ with more than one million subscribers and 62m+ views, and the Instagram channel @goto_con with 18m+ views are also part of our Inspire activities.
Build
The Build sub-segment is engaged in building innovative software solutions for the customers
of Trifork. Our services include building solutions for e.g. financial institutions, healthcare providers, public administration, or leading industrial manufacturers. Our solutions are primarily done on a time and material basis or as fixed price deliveries in cases where Trifork is responsible for the whole implementation of a solution. Most often, Trifork engages in long-term strategic partnerships with major customers.
Run
The Run sub-segment is based on sales of Trifork developed products as well as business related to the sale of partner products. Products are either sold separately or in relation to projects where Trifork is engaged in developing a new customer solution. Especially important activity areas in Run are related to cloud, cybersecurity, and support and maintenance.
Acquisitions
Trifork has made many acquisitions over the years and acquisitions form an integral part of our growth strategy. We prefer to keep founders leading their company following the acquisition. We buy a majority stake initially, but founders retain significant ownership, and then we acquire non-controlling interests (NCIs) over time to ensure that founders are incentivized to perform well both operationally and financially over multiple years. Hence, the acquisition of NCIs are also an integral part of our M&A strategy. Acquiring NCIs increases EPS of the Group.
The Trifork Labs segment
Trifork Labs leads Trifork Group’s venture-financed R&D activities. We have been active in founding, co-founding, and investing in innovative software companies for more than 20 years, and currently hold stakes in 24 active companies.
These companies gain access to our network, management sparring, technology sparring, and the possibility to collaborate commercially with the business units in the Trifork segment.
Trifork Labs has participated in founding or making early investments in several successful companies including Humio, TradeShift, and Chainalysis. Our investment performance is in the top 5% of European venture capital investors (2017-24).
Our strength lies in our experience, partnership with growth investors, and business network. Our model of co-founding with entrepreneurs and partners is unique and a solid test of idea quality and commitment.
Read more about Trifork Labs here:
Trifork Labs’ financial impact
The graph shows the overall financial development and results from the Trifork Labs investments in the period from 2020 to 2024. Accumulated unrealized and realized gains are measured from 2016 when we started reporting in the Trifork Labs segment.
At the end of 2024, the total accumulated cashed-in profit from exits amounted to EURm 75.1. This includes the deduction of the initial cash invested in all of the disposed investments.
In Q4 2024, Trifork completed the partial exit of XCI to a large institutional investment fund, reducing ownership from 20% to 14.3% alongside founders. In total, 30% of the company was sold. The sale was done at a higher valuation than the previous book value and has since Trifork’s investment in 2018 yielded a very significant return, thus contribution to an extension of Trifork Labs’ strong historical track record.
At the end of 2024, the total booked value of investments in the current active Labs companies amounted to EURm 83.2. Of this, EURm 19.1 was registered as invested cash in the current portfolio, EURm 24.1 as unrealized gains from deconsolidation relating to the current portfolio, and EURm 34.5 as accumulated unrealized gains in the current portfolio.
The investments in Trifork Labs are not included in the revenue of Trifork Group. The costs of running Trifork Labs are included in the Group adjusted EBITDA (2024: EURm -2.3). The financial impact from value adjustments and exits in Trifork Labs is accounted for in Trifork Group’s pre-tax profit (EBT). In 2024, EBT from Trifork Labs amounted to EURm 13.3. EBT from Labs has averaged EURm 10.3 since 2016, and thus contributed significantly to the bottom line of the Group.
Given the nature of venture investments in general, the value creation in Trifork Labs, as measured by its impact on Trifork Group’s earnings per share (EPS), is likely to be more volatile from year to year than earnings from the Trifork Segment.
Book value of Trifork Labs
At the end of 2024, the five most valuable investments account for 72.0% of the book value of Trifork Labs, and the top 10 accounts for 92.7% of the book value.
Operational performance in Trifork Labs
From 2022 to 2024, the companies in Trifork Labs top 10 grew their revenue by 100% and significantly improved their EBITDA. Employee growth was 50% in the period.
Although not consolidated revenue, it highlights the strong underlying momentum we have built in these investments.
