
Following their panel discussions at Real Deals’ Tech Innovation Conference 2023, we chat to Suzanne Pike, Partner and Head of Origination, and Ash Patel, Head of Cyber, to share their views on how tech and cyber are evolving in the world of private equity.
Suzanne, you joined the panel discussion on the role of technology in deal sourcing, execution and exit. How do you think incorporating AI/Machine learning is evolving in origination?
It’s something that’s really transforming the way that firms can originate. Our proprietary AI platform, Amplifind™, is the tech backbone of our origination processes, from sourcing to converting deal flow.
On the lead sourcing side, it is constantly retraining itself on our own Salesforce data, helping us to surface the right leads. Origination has a natural tension, where if you don’t look at smaller fast-growth businesses, you will not get early access to really exciting businesses. On the other hand, if you broaden out your range, it throws out a huge number of companies, which no human has the time to trawl through.
For us, Amplifind™ has solved for that conflict by automating prioritisation, serving up leads with the highest potential to become ECI deals. That has led to an eight-fold improvement in conversion from leads reviewed to opportunities.
The platform is key to us throughout the pipeline process. For any company in our universe, we’ve leveraged OpenAi to generate an automated profile with detailed financials and rich business descriptions. That has not only cut the time it takes for us to review leads, but it also helps inform deal team thinking, as they have a fantastic overview of any company at the tip of their fingers.
As all investors look to meet firms earlier, this is a very powerful way to compete.
How can firms make the most of this technology?
Firstly, the vision should be maximising automation to free up time for our greatest asset, our people. Tools like Amplifind™ are fantastic precisely because they free up humans to do the things that humans are good at. That means relationship building, deal judgement- the really important things that make a difference to a partnership.
Secondly, it’s important to remember the tools are incredibly powerful, but AI/ML is only of value if its pointed or trained on well managed data. You have to get the basics right as a springboard for the quick and powerful wins AI can offer.
And lastly, it is easy to get distracted by the newest technology, but it’s more important that what you’re doing is aligned to business strategy. To make a success of it, it should be truly embedded in every stage of proprietary processes.
Ash, you joined the panel on cybersecurity and how PE firms are protecting themselves and their portfolio against emerging cyber threats. At both, how do you think awareness of cyber risk has changed?
I think now, Boards are much more aware of the risk, it’s no longer just a focus of IT teams. The awareness of cyber as a risk to reputation and the bottom line has meant it’s now higher on the board agenda. No one wants to be reactive to a cyber event, so increasingly that means looking to put an information security program in place and having a good assessment of cyber resilience ahead of time.
How does that translate to helping portfolio companies?
We often have good insight in a company’s cyber resilience prior to investment, whether that’s as part of Tech DD, or at a high level we might use external tools like Security Score Card to get an idea of any potential weaknesses. When we’re invested, we see it as part of our duty and good governance to make sure we can help them to monitor cyber risk and provide real support for portfolio companies to fix any potential issues.
We benchmark ECI and our portfolio to ensure a certain level of compliance on an annual basis, and then I support them with a cyber gap analysis to help them identify areas which need to be mitigated. I think having that external sounding board is really helpful, and as we’ve helped other companies progress on certain frameworks, we can share those lessons that we’ve learned.
Insights
30/03/2023
Suzanne Pike,
Ash Patel
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Q&A: AI and Cyber evolution in Private Equity

Paul McCreadie recently chatted to Real Deals as part of their Deal in Focus series to discuss how Tusker was able to secure such a fantastic result of £300m on their sale to Lloyds Banking Group. Read the full article here: https://realdeals.eu.com/article/deal-in-focus-how-eci-scored-300m-on-tusker-sale
Here are a few highlights from the piece:
Backing the subscription trend
“Through our investment in Tusker, we were backing quite a few early-stage market trends. There’s been a shift over the last decade towards renting stuff rather than buying it by simply paying a single monthly fee to gain access to everything – from music to films to even cars – which is what we saw growing strongly six to seven years ago. Consumers welcome one single bill which covers their insurance, road taxes, and maintenance.”
The growth in green
Customers are increasingly looking to go green with electric vehicles, and one of the most cost effective ways into the world of EV motoring is through salary sacrifice schemes, which drove a lot of demand at Tusker during ECI’s investment. “We've invested in markets that we think have strong tailwinds which saw us through other issues when they were thrown at us. Lloyds came out very strong in their desire to acquire the business in that process as it seemed to fit into their strategy to reach net zero.”
Thinking about exit at entry
“Exits are something investors think about very early on. This effectively means we build up relationships from the start. The car leasing industry is quite close-knit, and the players know each other well. Tusker’s CEO has known Lloyds and other potential trade acquirers for some time, so the sale didn’t happen overnight. Lloyds was the perfect home for the business – more than just the price, the asset should be the right cultural fit and possess the right thoughts about the culture of the business.”
Read the full article here. If you would like to find out how we helped Tusker deliver its 6.2x return or to talk about the growth potential of your business, please reach out here.
Insights
27/03/2023
Paul McCreadie
Read Time: Min
Tusker: A 6.2x case study


Moneypenny, the Wrexham-headquartered outsourced communications provider, has bolstered its growth ambitions in the US by appointing a CEO of North America operations.
The new appointment of Richard Culberson will strengthen Moneypenny's rapid growth in the US and boost its plans to grow the North American business both organically and through acquisitions.
Culberson was previously general manager of GPS Apparel at Gap, Inc. He brings with him a wealth of experience in developing new business opportunities and helping companies scale by leveraging innovative technologies and launching differentiated products and services.
He has a wide range of experience in media, technology, retail and communications industries, and is passionate about serving the unique needs of both small and large businesses and helping them provide outstanding customer experiences.
News
24/03/2023
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CEO of Moneypenny North America appointed

As the much-anticipated final season of HBO’s Succession approaches, our research has revealed that the lack of successful transition plans might not be limited to the hit TV series. In a survey of over 500 UK CEOs, ECI’s Growth Characteristics report found that only half of CEOs (51%) have a succession plan in place
Effective succession plans are a way of ensuring stability in a company while minimising disruption, therefore it’s wise for CEOs to start thinking about one well before they plan to leave a business.
Family interests
Just as Succession’s patriarch and media tycoon Logan Roy decides which of his children will succeed him as CEO, the ECI report also highlights that 15% of business leaders want to keep their company in the family, not far off the 20% that are looking to pass the position onto their leadership teams.
Tom Wrenn, Managing Partner at ECI Partners said:
“While the drama Succession is a parody of the realities of succession for most business owners, planning for the future should always be on the agenda for any CEO. Not only for their own teams but also investors are always keen to understand whether a CEO intends to be part of the business for the long term. If you are not looking to lead the next exit, flagging your succession plan to investors early on can instil confidence, acting as a great indicator that a roadmap is in place for employees and the leadership team.
The impact on culture can be very important, as the role of the CEO is often to preserve the company culture as the business grows. Choosing a successor is a key part of ensuring that the secret sauce for what made the business successful under one CEO is retained, and the company values are carried through under new ownership. We often support those looking for succession to transition to an advisory or Non-Exec role to ensure the continuity that is so key to business growth.
If nothing else, the chaos of the Roy family will hopefully highlight to those leadership teams who haven’t yet thought about succession planning, the importance of having a solid plan in place.”
Insights
23/03/2023
Read Time: Min
Succession difficulties may not be limited to HBO series according to ECI’s research

Isa Maidan: Welcome to ECI's series on valuing digital platforms and marketplaces. Today, we'll be talking about the supply side and in particular homogenous versus heterogeneous supply. So, let's start with some definitions. Firstly, what is homogeneous supply? Homogenous supply is where each unit that is on your platform is more or less indistinguishable from the next. Think Uber, Lyft and Bolt, where your consumer is relatively agnostic to the driver and the car that turns up.
Secondly, let's define heterogeneous supply. That is where each unit that is on your platform is unique. Think Airbnb, where each apartment and each property looks different from the next.
So, what are the pros and cons? The pros of a homogenous supply model are very high conversion rates. The customer comes to a platform expecting a specific product or service, and you have that exact product or service.
That means there are very high conversion rates and customers typically turn from search into a value transaction. So, what are the challenges with the homogenous supply model? The most obvious one is that it's very difficult to differentiate versus your competitors, and that means you typically end up with copycat platforms. The taxi market again, is a good example here, whereby riders and drivers will typically run multiple platforms.
The challenge you've got here is consumers tend to focus on one thing, and that's price. Moving on to heterogeneous supply, the main benefit here is that you can differentiate versus your competitors, and you do that through the quality of your supply. Here, customers only need to go to one platform to look for different products or services. That means you typically get more customer loyalty, you get higher repeat rates and you get much less pressure on price.
The key challenge with a heterogeneous model is managing a wide range of diverse supply is inherently more complicated. Building up supply and maintaining standards on your platform becomes a lot harder.
Your supply model will impact a few KPIs, which are important in driving the valuation of your marketplace or platform. Unit economics, retention rates and competitive differentiation are typically better in a heterogeneous model versus your ability to scale and conversion rates, which are typically better in a homogenous model.
So how does this impact your valuation? If you have a heterogeneous supply model, an investor is likely to focus on your base to build and maintain the quality of supply, as well as increase conversion rates. If you have a homogenous model, customer and supplier loyalty is going to be key. At ECI, we've invested in businesses with both homogenous and heterogeneous supply models, both of which have been hugely successful.
If you have a digital platform or marketplace, we'd love to hear from you.
Insights
20/03/2023
Isa Maidan
Read Time: Min
Valuing digital platforms and marketplaces: Homogenous v Heterogenous supply

It has long been a truism in software investing that businesses with happy customers and operating in large markets are highly attractive investment propositions. In our experience though, in addition to these factors, the very best software businesses will also understand their customers, both existing and prospective, in depth. Best-in-class SaaS businesses are structured to put the customer as central to everything they do.
Customer expectations are evolving. Consumer-grade software, tailored user experiences, and shorter and shorter time to value are becoming the norm. And if you’re not adding increased value year on year - and communicating that to your customers - you will likely see churn.
Conversely, where we see businesses with a deep understanding of their customer needs, there is usually a significant opportunity to make further sales to an existing base.
So, what does good look like to us?
1. A business that understands the metrics
When you see a customer-focussed business, you usually also see a laser-like focus on churn. Having the right metrics and shining a light on this is key.
High gross revenue retention is one metric that demonstrates the resilience of a customer base. But it is net revenue retention, being the net impact of churn, downsell, upsell and expansion, that is a great indicator as to the future growth potential of a business.
While most SaaS businesses have a well-defined route to market to attract new customers, the best SaaS businesses will usually have a clear approach for growing existing customers. If a SaaS business has net revenue retention of over 110% (which we will often see in the best SaaS businesses) they are delivering 10% growth per annum before they have sold to any new customers.
Where there is churn, drilling down to understand what went wrong means you can enact change to hopefully prevent further churn in the future. Transparency and accountability are key here. The best SaaS businesses take churn seriously and seek to learn from every churned customer.
2. A business that understands its customer
Gross retention is a backwards looking metric – once it is reported the customer has already been retained or churned.
The best SaaS businesses will dig a level deeper and develop meaningful forward-looking indicators to help them to understand the health of their customer base.
Tools such as ChurnZero or Gainsight combine usage, with helpdesk contact or any other interactions. They provide visibility into the customer base and can generate calls to action, such as upsell opportunities or churn risks, off the back of certain behaviours.
But while technology is doubtlessly helpful, real customer service is human. Fantastic sales teams are those that understand the customer's objective for investing in the software and communicate that effectively to the implementation and customer services teams. Those teams should then consistently review whether the software is delivering a return on investment for that customer based on their own objective. Seamless and integrated teams create great relationships and better outcomes.
In turn, best-in-class customer service works hand in glove with product teams. The feedback loop between the two should be invaluable to improving product. And the product team should equip account managers with full details about new releases or extensions to the product.
In terms of upsell, our experience is that scattergun approaches can be hugely inefficient and actually cause damage to customer relationships. We’ve all been sold irrelevant products because our needs aren’t understood. One area we often help SaaS businesses is with a propensity analysis to understand, based on characteristics and past behaviours of customers, where the upsell opportunities may be. This can also help to inform the product roadmap or M&A strategy if we feel there is demand for a product that today isn’t part of the offering.
3. A business that puts customer service at the heart of its org chart
The best SaaS businesses are organised with customer experience in mind. That means breaking down siloes. This is something we often help management teams with, mapping the entire process from prospect to sale, to onboarding and implementation, to customer service, to renewal. This gives a fuller understanding as to where customer touchpoints are or could be more effectively coordinated.
Why is that important? As above, the first contact at the business development stage needs to understand the pain point the software is going to solve or the business objective it is going to help deliver. Capturing why the prospect wants to purchase and sharing it effectively with sales affects a more useful demo of the product.
Then if the customer is successfully acquired, the team should focus on tailoring onboarding to shortcut time to value. At this point there should be a great understanding of customer success, referring back to initial need.
As well as creating happier customers, this also creates a more rewarding and enjoyable journey for your people throughout the business. If everyone is aligned around delivering a world-class product and experience to customers, it’s culturally very different from working somewhere where customer service is constantly dealing with incomplete information and unhappy customers. This means not only do you create a more scalable business with faster growth, but you also attract and retain people who can scale with you – high-performing software businesses are great places to work!
If you would like to find out more about our experience supporting SaaS businesses, please do get in touch here.
Insights
20/03/2023
Stephen Roberts
Read Time: Min
The importance of a customer success culture in SaaS

As part of our ECI Unlocked programme we recently welcomed tech leaders from across our portfolio and network to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities facing CTOs today.
We were joined by Mark Rotheram, CTO at BCN, to discuss something front of mind for lots of tech teams. In today’s inflationary market, how can teams manage tech costs, with the challenge of balancing innovation and cost? Not only is there the cost of maintaining existing systems, the complexity of multiple licenses, but companies are also facing growing cyber threats, and don’t want to be left behind on innovation.
Businesses like BCN, a provider of flexible managed IT services, can help. Here are Mark’s top tips for staying on top of tech costs:
1. Have a solid tech roadmap
If you have a good tech roadmap as your foundation, it should provide clarity to the strategy and costs of the year. This helps to make sure everyone understands where the business is investing, and what will happen if that investment doesn’t happen.
That doesn’t mean that tech roadmaps need to outline everything you want to happen. It is about having a solid process that considers both risks and costs. It should be agile as you go through the year, but the roadmap should have board approval so everyone has visibility as to what needs to happen and can refer back to it as things change.
2. Negotiation
Tech contracts should be negotiated, and where possible volume discounts utilised. It is the benefit of using a partner like BCN, who not only understand how the price compares, but importantly understand the level of service you are getting, so that you haven’t negotiated a cheaper rate at the expense of requirements. Negotiation is an art, and it’s crucial to understand where you’re losing and gaining.
3. Open-source code
Open-source code provides a fantastic opportunity to save costs in your business. It is free and flexible so worth exploring.
One caveat here is that what is free now doesn’t always stay free, so there is a risk to take into account around future uptick in costs.
4. Automation
While automation is much easier to say than to do, there is still a lot of automation opportunity that is being underutilised. If done right it can reduce costs, particularly around maintenance.
One of the keys to getting it right is progressing slowly. This also means not trying to reduce team need too quickly. Instead gradually reduce team commitment as automation starts to take on some of the lower value tasks.
Microsoft in particular has lots of capabilities around automation that are not fully exploited. A partner can help to understand potential scope and determine whether processes could use a low-code/no-code solution.
Teams may have been burnt by seeing automation go wrong, which is why it’s important to set ground rules. At the start the strategy should be absolutely clear and any ancillary impacts considered.
5. Optimisation
It’s important to be very rigorous on costs, which means first reviewing the technology you have and deciding if you still need it. Go back to your roadmap and assess your existing tech stack against it. Do you still need everything you have? Some tech can be retired, but it often becomes BAU if it’s not being looked at properly.
Similarly, lots of companies are often overspecced for their needs. That may be using products that aren’t fully utilised, or with excess licenses hanging around. Check licenses against usage, in particular if they are being used by third parties.
Another way to optimise is that often vendors have consolidated since your initial purchase, and that means so can your licenses.
BCN have helped many companies move to the cloud, and the real value is about how to deliver more efficient business processes and ensure tech is delivering value. There are some areas where it is important not to try and skim the fat too much – cyber being one of them, as short-term savings may lead to long term costs both financially and in reputation. If you have your tech maintenance well managed and cost-effective, it allows you to invest in innovation, confident that you are adding value. Get in touch with one of the BCN team here if you’d like to find out more.
Insights
13/03/2023
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5 ways to keep on top of tech costs in your business

This International Women’s Day the theme is embrace equity, looking at how to better include and create a sense of belonging for women across the world. Embracing equity helps to drive success for all, and is the means by which we can create a more equal working environment. We ask the teams across our portfolio and ECI, how they think we can get there:
What do you think needs to change for the UK to have more female-led businesses in the future?
Claire Webster, HR Director, Avantia: Companies should prioritise long-term thinking. As well as setting short-term KPIs, businesses need to invest in initiatives that will facilitate long term change, as we can’t reverse history in a year. As a tech-led business working in a market where a disproportionate number of men still fulfil the roles, we find that applicants are predominantly male, even though we take steps to encourage diversity through our recruitment channels. Therefore, it’s important organisations actively seek out opportunities to encourage greater female participation in STEM subjects from an early age.
Secondly, research shows that women are often more reticent to put themselves forward for roles compared to similarly qualified male peers. So, ensure your managers are clear on the aspirations of all their team. And ensure that they work in partnership with each employee to look for opportunities to support their desired career progression. Lastly, ensure the workplace environment is one where women can thrive. For example, caring responsibilities often still fall primarily on women and hence we need to create supportive environments where these responsibilities can be performed alongside work, without them having to sacrifice career growth.
Julian Llewellyn, CFO, BCN: The narrative in the UK around gender splits tends to focus on public company Boards and the number of female CEO’s. This data is readily available and provides easy to digest statistics. But increasing female representation at Board level needs to be the result of increasing the number of women in middle and senior management roles. When we talk about ‘female-led businesses’ I think it’s important to focus on management levels outside of the main Board and remove the blockers for building female management talent. There is still a high level of subconscious male bias when it comes to progressive policies around recruitment, development opportunities and also offering much needed flexibility. Those attitudes need to change more quickly.
Joanna Swash, Group CEO, Moneypenny: We need to let go of bias and ego, and all the limitations put on recruitment briefs. Expand your pool to focus on attitude over aptitude. It is about hiring the right person for the role, not just based on skills but on attitude and characteristics, resilience, innovation, agility. And, most importantly on their fit with your business. Just because they excelled at Apple, does not mean that they will with you.
It's not just about if you've got a man or a woman in the seat. Have you got a broad range of experience, a broad range of backgrounds? Yes, if we have men and women and people of different ethnicity, that’s important. But there’s no point ticking those boxes if you don’t have diversity of thought. For me, that is what makes a truly great team. We all need to think in different ways, interview different kinds of people and make sure that a variety of people are invited to the table.
Suzanne Pike, Partner, ECI: To see more female led leadership teams, you need to foster inclusion, so that women feel they belong and want to be there. We also need to see more businesses intentionally building in objectivity into their performance review processes. That means actively asking where unconscious bias has played a role in forming a view of an individual or in making a promotion decision. And flexible working, something that is increasingly important to everyone, needs to be more widely accepted as simply working differently and not adding less value.
What role do investors have to play in this change in 2023 and beyond?
Julian Llewellyn, CFO, BCN: Investors have a unique position of influence where they can help set the strategy around gender equality. They also have visibility across numerous businesses, seeing innovative approaches and best practice in action. They can support the sharing of that across their investment portfolio. This can provide a highly effective way of enabling invested businesses to make progress, in line with their own people culture and at a pace that suits them. Bringing sustainable gender balance needs to come from managerial commitment within a business. It needs high levels of internal buy in to really make it work. It shouldn’t be seen as an initiative but embedded as part of standard practice.
What initiatives have you seen work to create more equitable organisations?
Faye Maughan, Investment Director, ECI: The best example that springs to mind is one of our own at ECI. We recently did unconscious bias training and what made it so powerful was the work that had been done internally ahead of the session. A broad range of employees were interviewed to understand scenarios in which they had seen or experienced bias. These scenarios were then amalgamated and anonymised to create case studies that were acted out and dissected on the day. I think this approach made the training a lot more “hard-hitting” than you may see ordinarily.
What role does inclusivity have in forging successful businesses?
Lesley Davies, Growth Specialist – People & Culture, ECI: Hopefully, it is already well accepted that inclusivity plays a vital role in successful businesses today. Those companies well-advanced in this, cite improved closeness with the customer base and a greater responsiveness to wider stakeholders as performance benefits. However, looking forward, it is hard to see any business being truly great without fully embracing and knitting inclusivity into every aspect of its DNA. By the end of this decade, over 30% of the workforce are predicted to be Gen Zs. Companies who do not fully represent the society and culture they live in, will end up as talent deserts.
Sarthak Sawlani, Investment Manager, ECI: Inclusivity is not only the right thing to do, but it is also economically beneficial for businesses. By creating an inclusive culture, companies can tap into a wider pool of talent and ideas. This leads to greater innovation, productivity, and profitability.
Research shows that diverse teams are more likely to outperform homogeneous teams in problem-solving and decision-making. A diverse team brings a wider range of perspectives, experiences, and knowledge, which can lead to more creative and effective solutions. Inclusivity also helps businesses create a more engaged and committed workforce. Employees who feel valued and included are more likely to be productive, loyal, and motivated. In turn, this can reduce turnover and save companies money on recruitment and training costs. By embracing inclusivity, businesses can create a more prosperous and equitable society, benefiting both the bottom line and society as a whole.
What advice would you give to other women when it comes to career development and advancement?
Claire Webster, HR Director, Avantia: As a part-time working mother, I understand it can be difficult to juggle all the various demands in life. But having a family doesn’t mean you can’t fulfil your career ambitions or must sacrifice family time to do so. Organisation is key, as is surrounding yourself with good people – both at home and at work. Working for an organisation with inclusive practices and supportive colleagues makes a huge difference. Finally, try to minimise the feelings of ‘mum-guilt’. There’s never going to be enough time to do everything to the extent that you may like. But recognise that you’re setting a fantastic example for your children through everything you achieve at work as well as home and be proud of these achievements!
Claire Williams, CPO, Ciphr: It’s important to network and build up a group of women in leadership roles or with experiences that you can learn from and that you can go to for advice and support. Most people enjoy reminiscing about their journey with others and will be excited to share their knowledge with you when they can. This in turn will help build confidence and this is key! Women are naturally more inclined to be cautious about being open and honest about their career aspirations and to champion themselves. Aim high, take control of your career, and have confidence in yourself.
Insights
07/03/2023
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How can businesses and the investment industry better embrace equity?
