Maven makes a £19.5 million exit from MSIS via secondary buy-out to Primary Capital

 

 

Maven Capital Partners (Maven), the leading UK private equity house, is pleased to announce that it has realised its investment in the environmental services and equipment specialists MSIS, via a sale to London-based Primary Capital for £19.5 million.

 

 

This sale has achieved a 3.5x multiple return on the original investment for its client funds. The exit from MSIS represents the latest profitable disposal by Maven’s Aberdeen-based team. In recent years the team has overseen the sale of a number of high-growth energy services support businesses, including EFC Group in December 2014 for a return of 3.8x. 

 

 

Since its launch in 1998, MSIS has grown to become an independent and trusted adviser to the global oil and gas industry, offering an increasing range of specialist skills, equipment and services. The company, employing 80 people, has a proven track-record and expertise in specialist cleaning, waste management and market-leading best practice.

 

 

The team at Maven first invested in MSIS in 2007 when it supported a £6.1 million buy-in management buyout and provided a further £3.35 million of funding over the subsequent years to facilitate growth. With Maven’s support, revenues have more than doubled while profitability has increased 3 fold since the original investment.

 

 

This rapidly expanding company has made substantial investment into equipment and facilities at its bases in Invergordon and Aberdeen over the last two years. MSIS has also begun to focus more strategically on specialised work within the sector, leading to a record year in terms of profitability for the business in 2014.

 

 

Jock Gardiner, Partner at Maven, said: “Maven has formed an excellent partnership with MSIS’ CEO Chris Lloyd and his team following the acquisition. It is hugely satisfying to have worked with the business and in particular developed its oilfield service capability both in the North Sea and globally in recent years. This investment has delivered a highly profitable return for Maven clients and supports our long-term investment approach in this sector.”

 

 

 

Chris Lloyd, CEO at MSIS, added: “The MSIS management team looks forward to the next phase of our development and we would not have secured the platform that our business represents without the support of Maven over the last few years. The oil and gas industry is a cyclical but rewarding sector and having the experience, advice and support of the Aberdeen-based Maven energy services team has been critical to MSIS’ development and success”.

 

 

Captify Raises £8 million Series B investment led by Smedvig Capital with existing investor Panoramic Growth Equity following on

 

 

Captify Media Limited (“Captify”) one of the fastest growing advertising technology businesses in Europe, and a market leader in search retargeting, today announced that it has secured £8 million of series B funding, led by Smedvig Capital with follow on commitments from all existing investors including Panoramic Growth Equity.

 

 

This injection of funding will enable Captify to invest in its search intelligence technology, expand its product suite and accelerate international expansion.  

 

The company has developed the largest independent search data network in Europe, covering 550m unique users globally and billions of searches.  Captify works with over 88 media agencies in the UK and over 100 in Europe; and runs campaigns on behalf of the world’s largest brands including Microsoft, British Airways, Barclays, Warner Brothers, SKY, BMW, Hilton and American Express; all of whom use its proprietary technology to engage with consumers at the key point of intent.

 

Captify’s search intelligence powers its core search retargeting offer.  Search retargeting is the fastest growing segment in the digital media industry. Captify has played a pioneering role in this market, disrupting the industry with its search intelligence technology, empowering brands by leveraging its intent driven data asset.  As a result of achieving clear differentiation in the digital media landscape, it has secured long term trading deals with some of the world’s largest media agency groups. 

 

The company received £1.2 million of Series A investment from Panoramic Growth Equity in 2013.  Within two years, it increased its gross revenue by almost 300% and its employee base from 11 to 65.  It has also opened offices in Hamburg and Kiev, with a third to open in Paris this summer; and is expected to achieve revenues of over £15m this year.

 

The latest investment will enable Captify to consolidate its market leading position in the UK; build on its already strong position in key European markets; and support further expansion into overseas geographies.  The strength of the market opportunity for Captify is evidenced by increasing search and display advertising spend across the world, which is expected to reach £145.5bn by 2016 (Zenith Optimedia).

 

Captify has already established itself as a pioneer in search intelligence and this investment will facilitate further product innovation.  Captify plans to add new channels to its product suite, launching the world’s first mobile search product (with the global market for mobile advertising and analytics currently valued at $18 billion, rising to $42 billon in 2017 according to Gartner); as well as video products this year, (capitalising on a market that is currently valued at $4 billion, and experiencing 43% year on year growth).

 

Captify is a multi-award winning business, named as UK’s number 1 Startup (Startups100), described by SMARTA as “the most original, exciting, resourceful and disruptive business in the UK”, and listed among the top 50 fast growth companies in the UK by Santander Breakthrough 50 (2014). The London based founders, Dominic Joseph (aged 30) and Adam Ludwin (aged 27) who set up the business in 2011, have also been named Young Entrepreneurs of the Year by the Great British Entrepreneur Award and the WCIT awards.  Both came from digital media backgrounds on both the buy and sell sides of the industry, before combining to form Captify.

 

Captify has also been able to attract some of the brightest minds in advertising technology, including recent senior hires from Google, Yahoo, WPP and AOL, among others.

 

Dominic Joseph, co founder and CEO of Captify commented:

 

“This £8 million investment is a significant milestone for Captify as it will enable us to consolidate our position as the European market leader in search data driven advertising and analytics and put us on course to claim true global leadership.  It is indicative of how the European ad tech space is flourishing and providing genuinely tough competition to established US rivals.” 

 

Adam Ludwin, co-founder and CVO of Captify, added:

 

“In the last two years we have blazed a trail in technological innovation and can now confidently say that we are the only people to successfully bridge the gap between search and display in Europe.  This investment marks a coming of age for Captify as we prepare to bring search retargeting to new channels like mobile and video and to strengthen our claim on global leadership.”

 

Jon Lerner, Principal at Smedvig Capital, commented:

 

“Captify is the clear European leader in a very exciting, disruptive and fast growing segment of advertising technology.  The Captify team has built fantastic client relationships through proprietary technology, unique data, great performance and excellent customer service. There is a large global market opportunity here, and we are very much looking forward to working closely with Dom and Adam to further scale the business.”

 

Malcolm Kpedekpo, Partner at Panoramic Growth Equity, who has backed Captify since 2013, commented:

 

 

“We have worked closely with the team since 2013 when Dom and Adam accepted institutional capital for the first time, and in that short period Captify has achieved exceptional growth, realised its ambition to move into overseas markets and significantly built its base of in house talent.    They have strongly held their dominant market leading position in Europe against competition from US competitors and are now well placed to make their mark on the global search intelligence market.   There is no question that this business has an exciting future ahead.  We are delighted to be investing further in the company and continuing to support them through the next stage of growth. We also look forward to working in collaboration with new investor Smedvig."

 

 

Undergraduates rush to follow Zuckerberg in search of billions

 

 

5 per cent of students plan to start their own business after graduating; Zuckerberg, Page and Brin are inspiring undergraduates to dream of founding  £billion enterprise; Undergraduates currently run over 52,000 active companies; Generation Y don’t want to be told what to do – those starting businesses are motivated by being their own boss

 

New research published by Direct Line for Business, the small business insurer, reveals a new generation of entrepreneurial undergraduates, with 15 per cent planning to start their own company after graduating.

Many undergraduates already operate their own businesses while studying. Over 52,0002 students currently run their own enterprise, in industries ranging from events promotion to software development and clothing design. 

The Millennials - or those born between 1980 and 2000 - are entrepreneurial, ambitious, confident in their own abilities and fiercely independent. Of those graduates planning to start their own business, 45 per cent stated they were driven by the desire to be their own boss. Over a quarter, (27 per cent) believe they will earn more money by starting their own enterprise than they could by working for someone else. A worry over suitable job opportunities has motivated a further 19 per cent to contemplate starting their own company.

Male undergraduates display a greater entrepreneurial spirit than their female counterparts.  One in five (20 per cent) male students plan to start their own enterprise post-university, compared to 11 per cent of female undergraduates. Given the billion dollar valuations of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Larry Page’s and Sergey Brin’s Google, which were both started while the founders were at university, it is little wonder undergraduates  are inspired to set out on their own.      

Those studying creative, arts & design courses at university are more likely than any other student to start their own business. Over a quarter (26 per cent) of those studying these courses plan to start their own company upon graduation. Those studying STEM subjects such as engineering, science and maths are the least likely (12 per cent) of all the university disciplines surveyed to consider starting their own enterprise upon graduation.

Percentage of undergraduates planning to start their own business upon graduation divided by course:

 

 

Jane Guaschi, Business Manager, at Direct Line for Business said: “This research goes to show that we are truly a nation of entrepreneurs. It’s encouraging to know that companies such as Google, Facebook, Wordpress, Asceno, and even Time Magazine, which were all founded by students at university, are inspiring the Millennial Generation to strike out on their own. The latest generation of graduates is clearly fiercely independent and wanting to control the destiny of their own careers, rather than answering to anyone else.”      

“'Even though many student businesses are run out of rented accommodation, it’s vital the operators consider protecting their stock and equipment to guard against the risk of business disruption. Home Business insurance can cover student business owners for public and product liability claims, which could be invaluable if they don’t have large assets to defend claims made against their enterprise.”

 

Students seeking practical business advice to assist with starting or running their own business can find a wealth of useful information at the Direct Line for Business knowledge centre: http://www.directlineforbusiness.co.uk/knowledge-centre/understanding-business-insurance