09 January 2012

ASI sold Online Scientific Publisher Versita to De Gruyter

Ambient Sound Investments' (ASI) portfolio company Versita has been acquired by the Berlin-based academic publishing company De Gruyter. Versita's Open Access platform which is one of the largest in the world will be merged with De Gruyter's existing content.

“The purchase of Versita is a logical continuation of our publishing strategy of recent years, which involves giving both our authors and our customers an optimum range of publishing options,” says Dr. Sven Fund, the Managing Director of De Gruyter. “For some time now, Open Access has been an important element of academic publishing. With the integration of all Versita content under a joint publishing administration on the new De Gruyter platform, we are now realizing the principle in our program,” continues Fund.

Versita, established in 2001 has been the fast growing Polish venture, which was seeking to become the leading scientific online publisher and electronic publishing technology provider. ASI invested into Versita 400.000 Euros in 2007 and became the sole financial investor in the company. Versita publishes about 250 own and third-party scholarly journals across many disciplines. Its journal portfolio takes in 25 subscription-based journals, including a group of Central European Journals in 8 disciplines. Versita also publishes over 230 society journals, which are available through Versita Open (www.versitaopen.com), one of the largest Open Access platforms in the world. The company was established in 2001 by Jacek Ciesielski.

The acquisition transaction created another positive return exit for ASI, second within eight months. ASI sold Russian software development company LogneX is May 2011.

Jacek Ciesielski
CEO, Versita
E-mail: gm@versita.com

Margus Uudam
Head of Venture Capital Investments, Ambient Sound Investments
E-mail: margus@asi.ee
Skype: margusuudam

About De Gruyter

De Gruyter is an independent academic publishing house with a company history spanning over 260 years. The publishing group with headquarters in Berlin annually publishes over 800 new titles in the humanities, medicine, science and law and more than 230 journals and digital media. http://www.degruyter.com/

About Versita

Versita publishes about 250 own and third-party scholarly journals across many disciplines. Its journal portfolio takes in 25 subscription-based journals, including a group of Central European Journals in 8 disciplines. Versita also publishes over 230 society journals, which are available through Versita Open (www.versitaopen.com), one of the largest Open Access platforms in the world. The company was established in 2001 by Jacek Ciesielski. http://www.versita.com/

About Ambient Sound Investments

Ambient Sound Investments (ASI) is an investment group founded in 2003 with the objective of managing and investing the assets of Skype‘s four Estonian founding engineers. ASI primarily finances international start-up technology companies from its own funds. The company has financed over 30 technology start-ups worldwide: in Asia, the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, Finland, and Russia.