Digia

SysOpen was founded in 1990 by Kari Karvinen, Jorma Kylätie and Matti Savolainen. SysOpen was listed on the stock exchange in 1999 and grew strongly through corporate acquisitions until around the turn of the millennium.[3]

In 1997, Pekka Sivonen, Mika Malin and Jarkko Virtanen founded Digia Oy.[3]

SysOpen Oyj and Digia Oy merged on 4 March 2005 to form SysOpen Digia Oyj. According to Talouselämä magazine, the merger was a cheap way for Digia to get listed on the stock exchange. In the new company, Digia employees were granted the positions of both Chairman of the Board (Pekka Sivonen) and CEO (Jari Mielonen). The reason for this was Digia's better profitability: its earnings before interest, taxes and goodwill amortisation were 15 per cent, while SysOpen's were 9 per cent.[3]

The new company's main customers included device manufacturers, such as Nokia, operators and corporate customers. In addition to Sivonen, SysOpen-Digia's Board of Directors included Kari Karvinen (Vice Chairman), Pekka Eloholma, Pertti Kyttälä, Matti Mujunen and Mikko Terho.[3]

In the summer of 2006, SysOpen Digia Oyj acquired the integration and production management software company Sentera Oyj and Sentera's business was merged into SysOpen Digia. The company's name was changed to SYSOPENDIGIA Oyj in 2007.

SysOpen Digia's Pekka Sivonen won the Services category of the Entrepreneur of the Year competition for growth companies organised by Ernst and Young in 2004–2006. SysOpen Digia was Finland's leading integrator of information system and communications, employing 1,100 people with a turnover of EUR 61 million in 2005. In the justifications for the award, Sivonen was praised as a persevering serial entrepreneur who is always looking for new business opportunities, and who had recruited good, motivated key persons and been able to create added value through mergers and acquisitions.[4]

The company was renamed Digia Oyj in 2008.[5]

In March 2011, Digia acquired Nokia's Qt commercial and open source licensing and service business.[6]

As a subcontractor, Digia suffered from Nokia's problems, resulting in several employer-employee negotiations.[7] The end of Nokia subcontracting led to the loss of one third of turnover as well as employees, but the company's IT services sustained it through the worst times.[8]

Qt logo in 2013

In 2012, Digia acquired the entire Qt development environment and related business from Nokia. With the acquisition, Digia took over all operations related to Qt technology, such as product development. The most important goal of the acquisition was to improve Digia's position in the Qt ecosystem and to expand the availability of Qt technology to an increasing number of platforms.[6] The Qt investment of EUR 4 million yielded at least tens of millions of euros to shareholders. Digia's CEO Juha Varelius negotiated the Qt deal with Nokia after Nokia had abandoned its old subcontractors. In 2016, Talouselämä magazine estimated that the deal was made at a dumping price.[8] Nokia had acquired the Norwegian company Trolltech and its application development environment Qt for EUR 104 million in January 2008.[9]

In August 2015, Digia Oyj's Board of Directors decided to explore a possible spin-off that would separate its domestic and Qt businesses and create two distinct companies, with identical ownership, listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.[10] Digia's largest shareholder was Ingman Development, owned by the Ingman family, which held a stake of more than one fifth.[11] Digia's turnover totalled EUR 108 million.[12]

Digia Oyj's Annual General Meeting decided on Digia's partial demerger in March 2016,[13] and the demerger was registered in the Trade Register on 1 May.[14] Digia's Qt business was transferred to Qt Group with Digia's domestic business remaining under the Digia brand. Digia's CEO Juha Varelius became the CEO of Qt Group while Timo Levoranta, who had started as the head of the domestic business unit early in the year, took up the post as CEO of the new Digia. In June 2016, Digia acquired Igence, a consulting firm owned by Transaktum, to improve its position in the e-commerce market. Igence employed 24 people and its service portfolio included e-commerce, product information management, order management and personalisation software as well as expert services, with a turnover of EUR 2.26 million in 2015.[15] In October 2016, the Finnish Tax Administration announced that it had selected Digia to implement the National Incomes Register.[12]

In the spring of 2017, Digia acquired Omni Partners Oy and its subsidiary Oy Nord Software Ltd. In May, Digia's Board of Directors announced that it would organise a rights issue in order to raise approximately EUR 12.05 million in net assets for corporate acquisitions, growth investments, to bolster the company's capital structure and for general financing needs.[16] The rights issue was oversubscribed with over 6.8 million shares subscribed, representing approximately 115% of the shares offered. The issue generated gross proceeds amounting to approximately EUR 12.5 million.[17] The company established Financial Operations to support the growth of its product and service business and combined Horizontal Services with the functions reporting to the CTO.[18] In December, Digia acquired Integration House. Digia had more than 800 employees and its turnover totalled EUR 96.2 million.[19]

In March 2018, Digia acquired Avarea Oy, a Helsinki-based company specialising in analytics software, which had a turnover of approximately EUR 3.6 million. Avarea's product business was excluded from the acquisition and transferred into its own company. 41 employees joined Digia.[19] In the summer of 2018, Digia announced the acquisition of Mavisystems and its subsidiary Mirosys Oy. The companies, which employed a total of 34 people, specialised in Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems and CRM software and their turnover totalled approximately EUR 3.2 million in the financial period ended in June 2017.[20] Digia's turnover totalled EUR 112.1 million and it employed 1,069 people. The company's operating margin was 5.8 per cent.[21]

In June 2019, Digia announced the acquisition of Accountor Enterprise Solutions, a subsidiary of Accountor focused on business platforms and services whose software centred around Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Oracle NetSuite services. The purchase price was EUR 9.4 million. Accountor Enterprise Solutions had a turnover of EUR 12.7 million in 2018 and it employed 114 people in June 2019.[21] Digia's turnover was increased especially by good demand for online business, integrations and software interface services, Microsoft ERP systems and business analytics.[22]