ReadSoft was a global provider of applications for automating business processes. ReadSoft was founded by two university students in Linköping, Sweden, in 1991, both of which were still actively involved in the management of the company until the point of sale to Lexmark. The company was headquartered in Helsingborg, Sweden and its share was traded on the NASDAQ OMX - Stockholm Small Cap list. ReadSoft had operations in 17 countries and a partner network in an additional 70 nations.
Company operations
ReadSoft’s specialties included accounts payable automation, accounts receivable automation, sales order processing, and digital mailroom solutions. According to the company, ReadSoft’s on-premises and cloud solutions for document process automation enable some of the world’s largest corporations as well as small and medium businesses to compete and thrive in today’s environment by improving customer and supplier satisfaction, increasing operating efficiency, and providing greater visibility into business processes. ReadSoft has been regarded as an "AP invoice specialist" - AP is a common abbreviation of Accounts Payable - by Gartner, an independent information technology research and advisory company. Specialist software is designed to integrate with the AP software from ERP systems, such as Oracle and SAP. For example, ERP integration may take advantage of single-sign-on processes, eliminating the need for employees to juggle multiple logons and systems. With more than 12,000 customers, ReadSoft claims to be the market leader of the Document Process Automation segment - a term first coined by ReadSoft itself to cover the technology that automates the processing of business documents. It involves data capture and extraction from paper and electronic documents, integration with company's existing ERP system and routing to company agents for approvals and problem resolution via workflow. ReadSoft maintains SAP and Oracle competency/development centers which provide integrated solutions for companies with SAP or Oracle, respectively. Market analyst firm Harvey Spencer Associates reports ReadSoft with a 13% market share.
Lexmark acquires ReadSoft
In May 2014, US Company Lexmark International, Inc announced a bid to buy out all remaining shares in ReadSoft. The deal was completed in late 2014 and ReadSoft now operates as part of Lexmark's Enterprise Software division. Lexmark Enterprise Software was rebranded to Kofax early 2017.
, a private equity and growth capital firm, secured the July 2017 acquisition of Lexmark’s Enterprise Software business which consists of three entities: Kofax, ReadSoft, and Perceptive Software. Following this, Kofax and ReadSoft would combine into a single, newly independent Thoma Bravo portfolio company named Kofax.
