About us

Visma is founded through the merger of three software companies and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. With presence in the Norwegian and Swedish markets, our headquarters are located in Oslo, Norway.

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Why Visma? It’s short for visual management applications.

After a period of financial challenges, Øystein Moan is recruited as new CEO in 1997. His journey towards building one of Europe’s largest software companies begins with a successful change in structure and strategy. In 2000, we sell our marine division – freeing up resources to pursue growth within accounting software and business process outsourcing (BPO).

We continue our expansion within business software and BPO, and enter the public market with debt collection and temp services. In 2006, British private equity firm Hg Capital acquires a controlling stake in Visma, and we are delisted from the Oslo Stock Exchange.

We’ve now grown from 300 to more than 3700 employees in 12 years, and move into our new HQ at Skøyen, Oslo in 2009. The following year we get a new majority owner in US private equity firm KKR – in a transaction valuing Visma at NOK 11 billion. In this period we also make our first move into IT consulting, as well as identifying cloud computing and SaaS as our strategic priorities.

2012 kicks off with the launch of Visma.net ERP, a pioneering SaaS solution, to the SMB market. We continue to invest heavily in R&D, acquiring more cloud software companies to strengthen our position as Europe’s leading SaaS provider for the private and public sector. 

In 2017, KKR sells its entire remaining stake in Visma to an investor group led by Hg Capital. The transaction values Visma at NOK 45 billion. In 2019, we become a proud title sponsor for the cycling team Team Jumbo-Visma.

Merete Hverven succeeds Øystein Moan as CEO of Visma, stepping up from her role as Chief HR Officer and Deputy CEO. As the pandemic hits, the significance of flexible, accessible and secure cloud software becomes even more evident for businesses and societies.

We divest our businesses within IT consulting and infrastructure services (CIS), emerging as a pure play software company. Our business model shows resilience through a turbulent period for the global economy, as we achieve record revenue of 1.97 billion and end the year with 1.4 million customers across Europe and Latin America.

The digital transformation continues to shape many areas of society, enhanced by the promise of generative AI to drive even more innovation and efficiency. With Visma’s legacy as a driver of the cloud transition, as well as hundreds of AI initiatives ongoing across the Group, we are in a strong position to continue our growth in both existing and new markets. We ended the year with all-time high revenue of €2.4B and over 1.7 million customers.