Tuesday, 8 April 2025
With the acquisition of Nova Consulting, Talan accelerates its growth in the consulting market and strengthens its global presence
Paris, April 8, 2025 – Talan, an international consulting and technology group, continues its growth trajectory with the acquisition of Nova Consulting.
Founded in 2006, Nova Consulting is a human-sized strategy boutique that supports companies in their strategic planning and growth initiatives. The firm combines deep sector-specific insights into consumer trends with advanced predictive statistical modeling, particularly in high-emotion sectors. With recognized expertise in culture, sports, tourism, and brand strategy, Nova Consulting has, over the past 20 years, established itself as a trusted partner to major international corporations, public institutions, and local authorities. Its long-standing client portfolio includes La Française des Jeux, Groupe Crédit Agricole, the Louvre Museum, Valrhona, Disneyland Paris, and Eiffage. Today, the firm has 40 employees and reported revenues of approximately €10 million in 2024.
This transaction marks a key milestone in Talan’s expansion strategy, aimed at strengthening its position as a leading player in business transformation through innovation, technology, and data. By combining business consulting with deep technological expertise, the Group stands out for its ability to accelerate transformation projects at every stage of the process. This holistic and integrated approach directly addresses today’s business challenges—particularly in the strategic area of artificial intelligence.
Through this acquisition, the Group further consolidates its presence in the consulting market, accelerating the global rollout of its offering while broadening its portfolio of strategic capabilities—especially in marketing and sales—to better serve executive leadership and business units. The integration of Nova Consulting into Talan will create tangible growth opportunities, particularly in international markets where Nova already has a strong footprint.
The year 2024 marked a turning point in Talan’s transformation into a global-scale group. Following the recent announcements of acquisition projects involving Micropole and Coexya in France, Thinkmax in Canada, and Nine Feet Tall in the UK, this latest move aligns seamlessly with the Group’s growth strategy—aiming to surpass the €1 billion revenue mark this year.
François Soubien, Managing Director of Talan, in charge of Consulting activities
“We are delighted to welcome the talented teams of Nova Consulting. Their unique expertise will enable us to deliver even more innovative and high-performing solutions to our clients. Strategically and culturally, our two organizations are perfectly aligned, and by combining our strengths, we will bring real added value to the companies we support. This acquisition is yet another demonstration of our strong commitment to accelerating our development in the consulting market and our ability to serve senior executives and business leaders upstream of transformation program execution. Together, we’ll be even better positioned to support our clients across their entire lifecycle.”
Julien Bernard, President and Founder of Nova Consulting
“Nearly 20 years after founding Nova Consulting in 2006, we are very excited to join the Talan Group and take this next step in our development. By leveraging our shared strengths—particularly in areas such as R&D and data—we aim to expand our international presence and broaden our historical positioning as a strategy consulting boutique focused on growth, while reinforcing our leadership in key sectors such as Brands, Tourism, Sports, and Culture. With access to Talan’s full suite of consulting services, we see strong potential to scale our impact. Beyond our clear complementarities, Talan and Nova Consulting share a common culture of innovation, agility, and entrepreneurial spirit. The immediate connection between our teams convinced us of our ability to drive even greater impact in a rapidly evolving consulting market.”
Key Stakeholders
Nova Consulting company: Julien Bernard, François Laharrague, Mohamed Bawa
Sell-side advisors:
M&A Advisor: Investec Advisory (Jean-Arthur Dattée, Théau Wagner)
Financial Vendor Due Diligence: PKF (Guilhem Pinot de Villechenon, Antoine Dudognon)
M&A Legal Counsel: FTPA (François-Xavier Beauvisage, Nicolas Message, Julien Garanger, Lorelei Gannat, Julie Bianchi, Grégoire Bonnefont)
Talan company : François Soubien, Nicolas Recapet, Hervé de Boudemange, François Dugave, Emmanuel François, Clara Assouline
Buy-side advisors:
Due Diligence Coordination & Advisory: Houston (Laureline Taquet)
Financial Due Diligence: Exponens (Matthias Collot, Clément Ausanneau, Chloé Silvestre)
Legal & Tax Due Diligence: Archers (Kamal Naffi, Thomas Juillard, Pierre-Emmanuel Simon, Marie Gagnaire, Alexandre Franco)
Social Due Diligence: Capstan (François Yang, Marine Collet, Anne Murgier)
M&A Legal Counsel: Archers (Kamal Naffi, Thomas Juillard, Pierre-Emmanuel Simon, Marie Gagnaire, Alexandre Franco)
About Talan
Talan is an international consulting and technology group that accelerates its clients’ transformation through innovation, technology, and data. For over 20 years, Talan has been advising and supporting businesses and public institutions in the implementation of their transformation and innovation projects, both in France and worldwide.
Operating across 21 countries on 5 continents, the Group employs 7,000 people and aims to achieve €1 billion in revenue by the end of 2025.
With a dedicated Research & Innovation Center, Talan places innovation at the core of its growth strategy. The Group is actively involved in key technological shifts such as Artificial Intelligence, Data Intelligence, and Blockchain, driving the sustainable growth of large corporations and mid-sized enterprises.
Guided by the principle of Positive Innovation, Talan believes that technology reaches its full potential when it serves people and benefits society as a whole.
Talan is certified as a Great Place to Work and has been awarded the EcoVadis Platinum Medal for its CSR performance, placing it in the top 1% of companies evaluated globally by the ratings agency.
www.talan.com
About Nova Consulting
Nova Consulting is a human-sized strategy consulting boutique founded in 2006, and a recognized French leader in the Culture, Sports, Tourism, and Brand sectors. Its operations are structured around three complementary entities:
Nova Consulting supports a wide range of clients—including major international French corporations, family businesses, mid-sized companies, SMEs, public and private institutions, and local authorities—in their strategic planning and growth initiatives. The firm combines deep sector-based consumer trend expertise with advanced predictive statistical modeling in high-emotion sectors.
The Nova Observatory is a specialized R&D and knowledge center, unique in Europe in its areas of focus. It leverages proprietary databases (e.g., approximately 2 million survey responses annually), modeling tools (such as M3, SIM, Zeus, Sauron, etc.), and in-depth industry monographs developed by Nova’s consultants in partnership with a network of sector-leading experts and researchers.
The Nova Ecosystem is Nova Consulting’s open-architecture platform, bringing together a unique network of expert partners in its core sectors—including researchers, agencies, startups, senior advisors, data scientists, architects, and designers.
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