The Riverside Company (Riverside), a global investment firm focused on the smaller end of the middle market, has announced that its affiliated European fund has invested in Abovo, a Switzerland-based distributor of primarily cleanroom consumables. This acquisition marks the seventh add-on to Riverside's portfolio company Dastex Group (Dastex), a pan-European expert in cleanroom contamination control, which Riverside backed in May 2023.
Abovo, headquartered in Selzach, serves a large portfolio of customers across Switzerland, from life sciences to semiconductor and aerospace industries, including watchmakers. Alongside its core cleanroom consumables offering, Abovo provides a range of complementary product lines (e.g. Henkel adhesive technologies and electrostatic discharge (ESD) accessories), which the combined group will continue to develop together with Abovo's partners and suppliers, giving customers access to a broader portfolio of best-in-class products.
Karsten Langer, Riverside Europe Managing Partner, commented: “We are delighted to continue our buy-and-build programme for Dastex with this latest investment, further underscoring our team's ability to source and execute proprietary opportunities alongside our existing platforms.”
Damien Gaudin, Partner and Head of Healthcare at Riverside Europe, who led the deal, added: “Integrating Abovo into the Dastex Group will strengthen Dastex’s position in a highly strategic market. Abovo's local footprint, established customer relationships and multilingual service capability complement Dastex's existing strength with larger Swiss accounts and open access to the broader Swiss SME customer base. We look forward to supporting Markus and the team as we continue to build Dastex into a true pan-European champion in contamination control.”
“Joining the Dastex Group is a natural next step for Abovo,” said Markus Kaufmann, Managing Director of Abovo. “Dastex has been one of our key suppliers for many years, and this partnership will allow us to keep serving our customers with quality service, now backed by the resources and product range of a leading pan-European group.”
“Abovo has built an excellent reputation with its customers in Switzerland over many years under Markus Kaufmann's leadership,” said Filip van de Vliet, Chief Executive Officer of the Dastex Group. “This acquisition cements our direct presence in an attractive market where we intend to continue growing in the years to come, while deepening our relationship with a partner we already know well. I look forward to welcoming Markus and the Abovo team into the Dastex family.”
Riverside acquired Dastex, a specialized distributor of both third-party and own brand cleanroom garments and consumables in mid-2023, simultaneously completing its first add-on, Vita Verita, in Sweden. Continuing its buy-and-build strategy, the company added AET, a leading independent player in Norway, in April 2024, and CRTM, another German distributor, in December 2024. In 2025, Dastex closed the acquisitions of pure11 and Conformat, leading distributors of cleanroom consumables in the DACH region and France, respectively, and Hydroflex, a German developer and supplier of cleanroom cleaning systems. Dastex serves the resilient and growing cleanroom industry, helping customers in pharmaceuticals, life sciences, semiconductors and other high-tech industries to meet ever stricter quality and regulatory standards.
Working with Damien Gaudin on the transaction were Riverside Europe team members Principal Maxime Meulemeester, Vice President Sebastiaan Pauwels and Senior Legal Counsel Peter Parmentier.
