Paris, January 22, 2008 - ESI Group (ESIN FR0004110310), a pioneer and world-leading supplier of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes, today announced a major rise in its ranking in the new Truffle 100, the top 100 European software vendors, reaching the 47^th position, up from the 58^th last year.  

The Truffle 100 ranks and highlights the top European software firms and underlines the potential of these companies, whose success is crucial for Europe. The software industry is seen as highly strategic as it creates jobs and adds value to the European economies. The Truffle 100 is the European reference for software vendors, industry observers and public authorities.

"Our data clearly shows that the European software industry is succeeding in reversing the brain drain of the 1990s, when many qualified IT employees sought jobs outside Europe. Last year, the Truffle 100 invested EUR 3.3 billion in R&D and employed 175,000 people," commented Bernard-Louis Roques, General Partner & co-Founder of Truffle Capital. "This is excellent news for European economies, which will profit greatly by increased employment throughout the software industry, and ESI Group is becoming a key player of that industry in Europe, starting with France where it is headquartered."

ESI Group’s innovative role established over several years is confirmed by the improvement in its ranking. It also shows that the group’s management’s vision and strategy are in line with industry’s requirements. Finally, it acknowledges the talents of all ESI Group’s employees and the efforts realized to become a leading player on the market.

ESI Group has skillfully handled the challenges of the simulation software sector, and has, once again without a doubt, become one of its key players.

First of all, in the highly competitive sectors such as Automotive, ESI Group secured its strategic positioning with many innovative projects, mainly with Renault / Nissan, Faurecia, Volkswagen / Audi group, Honda, GM, Hyundai which are long-standing partners. Among the new remarkable innovative projects carried out by the company, special mention should be given to the signing of a strategic collaboration with ChengDu Aircraft Industry: a major Chinese aircraft manufacturer and partner of the global aviation industry for Aeronautic Composites Manufacturing Engineering, in their aircraft design and manufacturing engineering processes. The solution adopted and put into operation was considered as revolutionary by this Chinese partner. 

ESI Group is taking an active part in major European and French innovative projects. For example, the European MARI Consortium (for Marine, Aero, Rail and Industrial structures) was created in order to establish modelling guidelines for digital simulation dimensioning and is also considered as major progress in the Vibro Acoustic field. The company is also member of the Teratec Association (High Performance Digital Simulation and Intensive Computing Cluster) which gathers the major French operators in this domain; member of the I-Trans European Project which is at the heart of the innovative transportation systems; member of the IOLS project (Infrastructure and Software Tool for Simulation).

Alain de Rouvray, Chairman and CEO comments: “The improvement in the 2007 Truffle 100 ranking illustrates ESI Group’s ability to implement, among OEMs, physics-based realistic digital simulation processes in an industrial context, while improving our global performance. The full-year performance was generally satisfactory as 2006/07 annual sales, sustained by sales from Licences, remaining our main activity, totalled 66 million euros, up +7.6% at constant exchange rates. With ESI Group’s innovation ability and the help of the strengthened management team), the company is remarkably well-positioned to continue climbing in the Truffle 100 Europe ranking in the coming years.”

About ESI Group

ESI Group is a world-leading supplier, and a pioneer of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials. ESI Group has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry oriented applications to realistically simulate a product’s behavior during testing, to fine-tune manufacturing processes in accordance with desired product performance, and evaluate the environment’s impact on product performance. ESI Group’s products, which have a proven track record in manufacturing and have been combined in multi-trade value chains, represent a unique collaborative and open virtual engineering solution known as the Virtual Try-Out Space (VTOS), enabling virtual prototypes to be improved in a continuous and collaborative manner. This integrated protocol allows all the company’s solutions to work with each other and with applications developed by independent software vendors. By significantly reducing costs and development lead times and enabling product/process synergies, VTOS solutions offer major competitive advantage by progressively eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company generated sales of €66m in 2006, employs over 600 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries. ESI Group is listed in compartment C of Euronext Paris. For further information, visit www.esi-group.com.

About the Truffle 100 Europe

For the second year in a row, the Truffle 100 Europe, established with the support of CXP, a market research organization focused on software, and IDC, a leading global market intelligence firm, sheds light on the leaders of the software industry, reveals new trends and demonstrates the vitality of the industry and its contribution to the Lisbon agenda. The Truffle 100 Europe was initiated by Truffle Capital, a leading Venture Capital firm in Europe, and Syntec informatique, and is published in conjunction with the other main national IT trade associations in Europe: Agoria (Belgium), Aitech-Assinform (Italy), BITKOM (Germany), and Intellect (UK). For further information, please visit http://www.truffle100.com

About Truffle Capital

Founded in 2002 in Paris, Truffle Capital is a leading Venture Capital firm in Europe dedicated to investing in and building technology leaders in the IT, life sciences and energy sectors. With €250 million under management, Truffle Capital is led by a team of four partners with decades of successful investment and entrepreneurial experience in both Europe and Silicon Valley. Truffle Capital’s investment team is composed of experienced and international experts. Truffle Capital aims to achieve superior financial returns by leveraging its industry knowledge, extensive network and unique focus on spin-offs to identify business ventures that match latent market needs. For further information, please visit http://www.truffle.com

Press Relations

ESI Group        

Amy de Rouvray
+33 (0)1 41 73 59 01

Truffle 100

 Madeleine Resener     

madeleine@truffle.com

Tel.: +33 (0) 6 20 41 39 82