PORTFOLIO NEWS UPDATE - OCTOBER 2022

StaySafe, provider of the market-leading app for keeping lone workers safe, was acquired on 14 June by EcoOnline, a European market leader in EHS SaaS solutions. This exit represents a c. 3.3x return to MC investors over a 2 year 9 month timeframe with a further earn-out anticipated in Feb 23.

The Story:

StaySafe was established in 2012 by Graham Mills. Graham is a surveyor by background and wanted to be sure that when his lone surveyors were out on site that they would be safe. Having been unable to find a suitable offering in the market, he worked alongside health and safety advisors and a small team of developers who had experience with mobile-orientated product innovation, and StaySafe commenced trading in 2013 with its lone worker app-based solution.

The Team:

Founder Graham Mills funded the initial prototype/business with a handful of early investors. In 2014 he hired Don Cameron as CEO and one of the early investors as Chairman whilst Graham himself stepped back from the day-to-day activities (NED) to re-focus on his surveying business. In subsequent years Don took the company from strength to strength focusing on global growth of the B2B product, arranging additional funding rounds (2015 – Crowdcube & London Co-Investment Fund, 2017 – CASS) and growing his team accordingly.

The Purchase/Exit:

Purchase – MC Investors subscribed at a valuation of £6.1 (pre-money) in Sept 19, which represented a 4.1x multiple of Annualised Recurring Revenues (ARR) vs a sector average (Software) of 5-10x.
Exit – Purchased in June 22 by EcoOnline, a Norwegian headquartered & listed business backed by Goldman Sachs and Summa Equity and focusing on tech-led solutions for the health & safety market, for £24m upfront (10x current ARR) with an earn out of 5x net new ARR over 10 months to Feb 23. This represented a c. 3.3x return with an additional earn out anticipated in Feb 23 which, based on budget, may realise a further c. 1.2x.

You can read more about the exit here.

Fibre CRM secured additional funding of £240k in July 22. This additional funding provides management with the means to pursue an ambitious growth strategy and secure their position as leader in cloud-based client retention and new client acquisition technologies for the accounting profession.

The Story:

Fibre CRM was established in 2007 in Cornwall by founder Simon Leek after a gap in the market was identified; a bespoke CRM system for accountancy firms. Simon’s background was in software sales, spanning a 30 year career, but he also had prior entrepreneurial success in a similar software business, which he subsequently sold to his brother (and co-founder) back in 2000. Simon financed the first 12 years of FibreCRM’s life himself, bringing the product to market and securing multi-year contracts with UK Top 100 accountancy firms on the back of having a solution geared exclusively to the profession and affording unique integration capabilities with the most popular Practice Management systems of the large accountancy software providers.

The Funding Rounds:

MC investors supported the first external funding round in May 2019, a raise of £750k, along with Bayes Entrepreneurship Fund (part of Bayes Business School) and Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (supported by the British Business Bank). The same counterparts, along with MC, supported this follow-on funding round. The proceeds will be used to address some gaps in the people-related infrastructure, to build-out the product functionality and to enhance internal systems and processes. If successful, the likely exit route remains acquisition by a supplier of software to the accountancy sector.

For more information on this fund raise click here.

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