Interview with Trifork’s Group Investment Director Frederik Svanholm

For those unfamiliar with Trifork, could you provide an overview of your company, its core services, and the primary markets you serve?

Trifork was founded in 1996 by Jørn Larsen, who remains the CEO and owns approximately 20% of the company. Kristian Wulf-Andersen has been CFO of Trifork since 2007 so we have had the benefit of very stable leadership. Initially focused on digital health, the Group has expanded into various domains over the years, including healthcare, finance, manufacturing, education, government, and retail. Trifork is a pioneering technology partner to large enterprises (two-thirds of revenue) and the public sector (a third of revenue), helping them understand and implement complex technologies, where we build, operate, and maintain solutions tailored to customer needs. Trifork serves over 650 customers annually.

A key differentiator is Trifork’s ability to guide its customers through the entire lifecycle of technology adoption. Trifork delivers end-to-end solutions – from inspiration and education to development and operation. The company operates in 15 countries, employing approximately 1,300 people, including 1,000 software engineers. The average age of our employees is 40 years, which is a more experience on average than most of our competitors.

Our business segment simply called Trifork is divided into three main sub-segments:

Inspire: Educating customers through innovation workshops, conferences, and online thought leadership content. This is around 2% of revenue but important for lead generation.

Build: Developing and deploying custom software and proof-of-concept solutions. This is around 74% of revenue and is today mostly invoiced on hourly rates but we also price on fixed terms sometimes.

Run: Licensing and maintaining software while providing operational support through cloud and cyber technologies. This is around 24% of revenue, is invoiced on recurring contracts, and carries the highest margins of the three segments.

These are where you see revenue and EBITDA in our financial reports.

Then we have the other segment called Trifork Labs, where we co-found new technology companies or invest in the early stages of external founders’ new companies. These are typically B2B software products that carry synergies to the activities in the Trifork segment. The values of these minority investments are carried as assets on the balance sheet and value creation impacts the EBT line as financial gains. We have 25 companies in Labs, and our track record matches the 5% best performing European and US VC funds over the past seven years.

Trifork operates across various business areas, including Digital Health, FinTech, and Smart Building. Could you elaborate on how your solutions in these sectors differentiate you from competitors?

What sets Trifork apart is its organizational model and approach to innovation. The company operates a decentralized structure, empowering its 76 business units with the autonomy to pursue innovative projects and adopt new technologies tailored to their clients’ needs.

Trifork fosters creativity by giving its engineers freedom to experiment and specialize in emerging technologies, allowing the company to stay ahead of the curve. This is in contrast to traditional consulting firms, which often restrict teams to specific frameworks, solutions, or technologies.

Additionally, Trifork’s focus on delivering end-to-end solutions — from ideation to building, implementing, maintaining, and protecting — ensures that customers receive tangible results rather than just boardroom recommendations. We position ourselves as a long-term partner, building tailored software while enabling clients to stay ahead of technological advancements.

Recently, Trifork was selected as the sole supplier for a new IT development framework agreement with Aalborg University, valued at up to DKK 40 million over three years. How does this partnership align with your strategic goals, and what impact do you anticipate it will have on your presence in the education sector?

The agreement with Aalborg University is a continuation of a strong existing relationship, demonstrating customer loyalty and satisfaction with Trifork’s services. The education sector is a growing focus for us, and this partnership further solidifies its position in this domain.

Trifork has significant experience delivering digital solutions for educational providers, including exam platforms and driver’s license test systems in Denmark, as well as educational tools in Switzerland and the UK. While education remains one of many focus areas, it is strategically aligned with Trifork’s vision of enabling digital transformation in key public and private sectors.

In November 2024, Trifork partnered with Swiss Post to advance the digital transformation of healthcare infrastructure in Switzerland. Can you discuss the objectives of this collaboration and how it enhances your footprint in the Digital Health domain

Switzerland’s privatized healthcare system creates unique challenges in enabling seamless data sharing between private hospitals, clinics, and insurers. Trifork brings its expertise from Denmark, where we helped build a national healthcare data-sharing infrastructure since 1996.

In Switzerland, Swiss Post plays the role of orchestrating data sharing of electronic health records, while Trifork is tasked with building the foundational infrastructure, described as the “rails” of a railway system. Working with other partners like Bluespace Ventures, Trifork is also developing the “trains” that run on these rails, enabling efficient healthcare data exchange.

This project solidifies our position as a leader in digital health and is expected to drive long-term growth in Switzerland, where healthcare digitalization is a multi-decade opportunity for us. Now, more countries are knocking on our door for digital health services, and it is great to see that our proprietary platforms are sold as part of these solutions, providing more long-term recurring revenue to Trifork.

Trifork has been expanding its international presence, notably with the acquisition of Spantree Technology Group in Chicago in May 2024. How does this acquisition fit into your broader strategy for growth in the U.S. market, and what synergies do you expect to realize?

The U.S. market is a strategic focus for Trifork, particularly Chicago, which hosts numerous larger enterprises. The acquisition of Spantree Technology Group provides Trifork with a stronger local presence and enhances our ability to engage with large customers.

Trifork’s strategy is to grow our revenue significantly in the U.S. and be recognized as a local partner rather than relying international resources. The acquisition also complements our partnerships with Apple, Nvidia, and SAP, strengthening the position in advanced technology solutions, including spatial computing and Vision AI.

With the rapid evolution of technology, how does Trifork stay ahead in areas like Cloud Operations and Cyber Protection to meet the changing needs of your clients?

Trifork’s approach to staying ahead is centered on its people. The company ensures that the workforce is motivated to learn about new technologies and ways of solving problems with software. They are connected to the open-source community and we maintain close relationships with key opinion leaders and technology founders. Our conference and video brand GOTO helps us stay at the forefront of innovation while sharing knowledge internally. We have more than one million online subscribers online and 75 million video views.

Additionally, Trifork’s ability to make strategic investments in emerging technologies through Trifork Labs has been a key differentiator. These investments generate both financial returns and valuable insights, ensuring that we can quickly adopt new tools and frameworks across our wide customer offerings in Trifork.

Looking ahead three years, where do you envision Trifork in terms of market position, technological advancements, and service offerings?

We plan to deepen our presence in existing European markets while accelerating growth in the U.S. We aim to become a strategic partner for C-level executives, offering high-value, solution-driven services rather than solely operating on hourly billing.

A key focus will be on developing more proprietary products and expanding recurring revenue streams through licensing. This shift will not only stabilize revenue and support margins but also open doors to new customers by showcasing Trifork’s unique offerings. Trifork’s reputation as an innovative, decentralized organization will remain a central strategy. And we will of course have built a lot more awesome AI use cases, which is an area we are seeing high demand in currently.

For potential investors, what are three compelling reasons to consider investing in Trifork today?

Structural growth: Trifork enables digitalization across multiple industries without being tied to a single product or industry. It provides exposure to long-term technology trends and innovation.

Track record: The company has three decades of consistent profitability and meaningful revenue growth. Revenue and profits do not always go up on a straight line every year. We have been through many market dips in the past and come out stronger every time. 2024 was one of those tougher years, not just for us but many of our peers too. We expect that history will repeat itself, or at least rhyme. And we will continue to acquire majority stakes in companies like we have in the past.

People and culture: Our decentralized organizational model fosters creativity and innovation, making us a preferred employer for top talent – which enables maintaining an edge in competitive markets.

Additionally, Trifork Labs represents a unique avenue for shareholder value through our venture co-financed R&D model, which has demonstrated significant returns over the years, and as shown with our latest partial exit announced in December of XCI. Not many companies on the stock exchange offer investors a way to get some exposure to venture capital returns without the management fees involved, balanced by the lower risk business model in the core business.