Diligent’s Acquisition Of Accuvio Illustrates The Surge In ESG Software Investment By GRC Vendors

Diligent’s Acquisition Of Accuvio Illustrates The Surge In ESG Software Investment By GRC Vendors

Today, Diligent, a New York-headquartered Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) software vendor announced that it had acquired sustainability management software specialist Accuvio. Founded in 2009, Ireland-based Accuvio developed a broad sustainability management and reporting cloud software application designed to pull data from the full range of sustainability data sources and to provide outputs for a rich mix of reporting frameworks from GRI to GRESB and the EU Non-Financial Reporting directive. At the time of the acquisition, Accuvio customers included Aaron’s, Balfour Beatty, Cobham and The Hartford. The firm had approximately 30 employees. Based on analysis of Accuvio’s financial and business performance and strategic value in the ESG software market, Verdantix estimates Accuvio was valued in the range of $26 million to $32 million.

Diligent’s acquisition of Accuvio comes hot on the heels of multiple deals involving GRC software vendors buying sustainability specialists to bolster their product development efforts for the fast-emerging regulatory ESG market. In March this year, 1,500-employee OneTrust bought ethics and compliance software provider Convercent adding 150 experts to its ranks and expanding its ESG total addressable market. In June, Nasdaq which has a portfolio of risk and compliance software acquired a majority stake in Puro.earth which expanded its ESG footprint into climate change and decarbonization solutions. In 2020, Nasdaq bought OneReport and Nasdaq Ventures invested in ESG financial metrics provider Matter. Earlier in August, financial and compliance software provider Workiva bought OneCloud which will enable it to enhance ESG data integration and preparation.

The direction of travel for the ESG software market is increasingly clear. With significant ESG financial disclosure regulations likely to apply from January 2023 to tens of thousands of entities located in the EU and the US, a wide variety of vendors with a foot in the market are making their moves to expand their issue coverage and depth of functionality. Demonstrating the intense competitive situation, Verdantix recently benchmarked 44 providers of corporate ESG and sustainability software on 12 critical areas of functionality. Given their large scale, GRC vendors such as Diligent and ServiceNow are in pole position to expand their ESG total addressable market through the acquisition of sustainability, EHS and energy/carbon management vendors.

To inform and enhance your ESG digital strategy get in touch with Verdantix today to schedule a diagnostic call.