Australia’s leading independent law firm, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, has advised Whiteoak on separate investments in software company Benchmark Estimating Software (Benchmark) and related engineering consulting firm MIEngineers.
MIEngineers is an independent engineering consulting firm, founded over 30 years ago, which provides cost estimating and design services to large public infrastructure and engineering projects in Australia and the UK. Benchmark was subsequently founded to create an estimating software solution that is now used by more than 220 government and private clients globally.
Whiteoak is an independent investment firm with a distinctive approach to investing in private companies, specialising in backing talented founders who require A$10 million to A$25 million to scale up sustainably. The investments in MIEngineers and Benchmark are Whiteoak’s fourth and fifth investments from its A$125 million first fund.
Whiteoak was advised by Corrs on all aspects of the transaction, leveraging the combined expertise of its corporate, intellectual property and employment teams, led by partners Glen Sauer, Eugenia Kolivos and Stephen Price.
Commenting on the matter, lead partner Glen Sauer said: “It was great to work with Whiteoak to close its latest investments out of Whiteoak Growth Fund I. We look forward to working with the Whiteoak and the Benchmark and MIEngineers teams to take advantage of growing infrastructure construction pipelines both in Australia and globally.”
Whiteoak managing director Lorcan Barden commented: “Corrs’ track record in working with Whiteoak and its experience with tech-enabled business services models enabled us to navigate a relatively complex deal structure.”