REG - HgCapital Trust PLC - Hg announces an investment in Rightsline

HgCapital TrustAnnouncement

27/05/2026 07:00

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RNS Number : 7610F  HgCapital Trust PLC  27 May 2026

 

Hg, the Manager of HgCapital Trust plc ("HgT"), today announces an investment
in Rightsline.

 

The terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

 

HgT will invest approximately £11 million in Rightsline, with other
institutional clients of Hg investing alongside HgT through the Hg Mercury
Fund.

 

HgT, whose shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange, gives private and
institutional investors the opportunity to participate in all Hg's
investments.

Note that these figures only relate to HgT's share of Hg's overall investment
in Rightsline.

HgT's liquid resources available for future deployment (including all
announced transactions, the undrawn bank facility and the full year dividend
paid on 12 May 2026) are estimated to be £286 million (12% of the pro-forma
31 March 2026 NAV of £2.4 billion).

The investment will reduce HgT's outstanding commitments to invest in Hg
transactions to approximately £2.1 billion (87% of the pro-forma 31 March
2026 NAV).

 

Rightsline announces $500 million strategic growth investment from Hg to
accelerate AI innovation and global expansion

·    Investment accelerates Rightsline's position as a leading rights and
royalties management platform for IP-intensive industries

·    Hg to accelerate Rightsline's AI roadmap through its dedicated AI
product incubator and support international expansion

 

Los Angeles, CA - May 27, 2026: Rightsline, a leading provider of rights and
royalties management software for IP-intensive industries, today announced a
$500 million strategic growth investment from Hg, a leading investor in
transatlantic technology businesses.

Klass Capital, Rightsline's majority owner since 2020, Salem Partners, and the
broader management team will invest meaningfully alongside Hg, reflecting
their continued confidence in the business.

The global proliferation of streaming platforms, cross-border content
licensing, and IP-intensive business models has created a growing operational
challenge for rights holders, who need to track who owns what, where, and
ensure the right parties get paid. Rightsline provides the software that major
studios, publishers, consumer brands, and life sciences firms use to manage
that complexity at scale.

Originally established as a leader in media and entertainment rights
management, Rightsline now operates across eight IP-intensive verticals and
serves more than 300 of the largest organisations worldwide, across media and
entertainment, publishing, consumer products, life sciences, technology,
gaming, music and franchising. The company offers a truly unified rights and
royalties platform, with a single system spanning rights management, royalty
calculation, financials, and accounting, delivering audit-grade outputs. The
platform processes more than $40 billion of royalties annually and manages
over 150 million IP assets across 28 countries.

Accelerating momentum

2025 was a year of record growth for Rightsline across bookings, revenue and
retention, reflecting the mission-critical role the platform plays in its
customers' day-to-day operations. This momentum continued into 2026 with
another record quarter in Q1.

The company has already launched a suite of AI-powered products for its
customers, including an AI contract ingestion assistant that automates
extraction of key terms from complex legal agreements, and a natural-language
rights and availabilities assistant that enables users to interrogate their
rights libraries in plain English.

Hg's investment will accelerate Rightsline's product and AI roadmap and
support the company's international expansion, drawing on Hg's transatlantic
network and its team of more than 100 AI specialists. This includes Hg
Catalyst
(https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/hgcatalyst.ai/___.YzJ1OnJpZ2h0c2xpbmUxOmM6Z29vZ2xlX21haWxfYXR0YWNobWVudDo5YzE1OTVkMmE4ZTBiNTQzYzI4OWU2ODA3ZjI4ZTJkOTo3OjBhYTM6OTVhYzcxYzY0YTVmYzU5MjI1ZDE2MTA0NzY5ZDY1N2Q3MzMwYTQxMWZhYjRlYThkNmYyYWI0OTQ4NTMyZDBiNDpwOlQ6Rg)
, its dedicated AI product incubator, which has supported the launch of more
than 30 AI products across its portfolio to date.

Patrick Arkeveld, CEO of Rightsline, said: "The IP landscape has become
increasingly complex, with more platforms, territories, and contractual
complexity than ever. That creates a clear opportunity for us to innovate on
behalf of our customers and make their lives meaningfully easier, but more
crucially to drive better business outcomes. Farouk and the Hg team are the
ideal partner to help us deliver on that ambition, combining deep AI and
operational expertise to accelerate our product roadmap and a transatlantic
network to support our expansion into new geographies and verticals. We're
also grateful for the continued support of Daniel and Klass Capital, whose
reinvestment reflects the shared conviction we all have in what lies ahead."

Farouk Hussein, Partner at Hg, said: "Patrick, Daniel, and the Rightsline team
have built something genuinely exceptional. Rightsline provides a truly
unified rights and royalties platform, bolstered by proprietary calculation
engines, data, and algorithms, enriched with decades of domain experience. The
company boasts an impressive roster of blue-chip customers and a consistent
track record of sustained growth and retention that speaks to how deeply
embedded the product is in its customers' legal, sales, finance and operations
workflows. Rightsline is incredibly well-positioned to expands its presence
across its core verticals with this growth investment, and we're excited to
work hand-in-hand with management and our Hg Catalyst team to build the next
generation of agentic AI products for IP lifecycle management."

Daniel Klass, Founder of Klass Capital, said: "Patrick and the team have built
Rightsline into a clear global leader in rights and royalties software. When
we set out to find our next partner, we wanted a firm that shares our growth
ambitions and has the operational depth - particularly in AI and international
scaling - to help take the company to the next level. Hg was the clear choice,
and our decision to reinvest meaningfully alongside them reflects our strong
conviction that the best chapter for Rightsline is still ahead."

Donna Laing, Vice President, Royalty Accounting & Rights Data Management,
Scholastic, said: "In publishing, royalties vary by channel, format, territory
and more, and simply knowing what we have the right to sell in each market can
be incredibly complex. Keeping track of all that, and making sure the right
people get paid accurately, is a real operational challenge. Rightsline
handles that complexity for us and, as the publishing world continues to grow
more complex, we're excited to see Hg's investment accelerate what's already
an industry-leading platform."

As part of the investment, Farouk Hussein and Annie Wei from Hg will join the
Rightsline board alongside Daniel Klass and Patrick Arkeveld. Ron Kasner will
join as independent Chair given his multi-decade experience in scaling
technology companies.

AQ Technology Partners, Brown Rudnick and Goodmans served as exclusive
financial and legal / tax advisors to Rightsline. RBC, Latham & Watkins,
and PwC served as exclusive financial, legal and integrated diligence advisors
to Hg.

-Ends-

For further information, please contact:

HgCapital Trust
Laura Dixon

laura.dixon@hgcapital.com (mailto:laura.dixon@hgcapital.com)

+44 78 2459 2894

 

George Crowe

george.crowe@hgcapital.com (mailto:george.crowe@hgcapital.com)

+44 7774 617 150

 

Cadarn
Lucy Clark
lucy@cadarncapital.com (mailto:lucy@cadarncapital.com)

+44 (0)7984 184 461

 

David Harris
david@cadarncapital.com (mailto:david@cadarncapital.com)

+44 (0)7368 883 211

 

Hg
Tom Eckersley

tom.eckersley@hgcapital.com (mailto:tom.eckersley@hgcapital.com)

 

Sam Ferris

sam.ferris@hgcapital.com (mailto:sam.ferris@hgcapital.com)

 

About HgCapital Trust plc

HgCapital Trust plc is an investment company whose shares are listed on the
London Stock Exchange (HGT.L). HGT gives investors exposure, through a liquid
vehicle, to a portfolio of high-growth unquoted companies, managed by Hg, an
experienced and well-resourced private equity firm with a long-term track
record of delivering superior risk-adjusted returns for its investors.

 

For further details, see hgcapitaltrust.com (http://hgcapitaltrust.com) and
hgcapital.com (http://www.hgcapital.com)

 

About Rightsline

Rightsline is a leading global provider of rights and royalties management
software, helping IP owners to manage and monetise content across the full
intellectual property lifecycle. Trusted by more than 300 enterprise customers
worldwide across media and entertainment, publishing, consumer products, life
sciences, technology, gaming, music and franchising, Rightsline provides
legal, sales, finance and operations teams with complete visibility into their
rights, royalties, contracts and monetisation opportunities. The platform
processes more than $40 billion of royalties annually and manages over 150
million IP assets across 28 countries. Founded in 2012, the company is
headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with operations in New York, Boston,
Toronto, London, and India.

 

About Hg

Hg is a leading investor in European and transatlantic software, services, and
data businesses. We help to build sector-leading enterprises that supply
critical software applications or workflow services to deliver intelligent
automation for their customers.

 

We take an active approach to value creation, combining deep end-market
knowledge with world class operational resources to provide compelling support
to entrepreneurial leaders looking to scale enduring businesses.

 

With a vast European network and strong presence across North America, Hg has
approximately $110 billion in assets under management and more than 400
employees. Our portfolio spans almost 60 companies worth over $190 billion in
aggregate enterprise value, employing more than 130,000 people and
consistently growing revenues at more than 18% annually.

 

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