Peoplesafe accelerates growth, announcing exceptional mid-year results

Peoplesafe, the global provider of workforce safety software and solutions backed by ECI, has announced exceptional mid-year results, accelerating to CARR of £26m and a CARR growth rate of 19%, whilst maintaining EBITDA margins above 50% 

The rapid acceleration in the last 24 months across each of Peoplesafe’s core markets (UK, US and Canada) has been driven by the launch of its multi-award-winning software platform (‘Nexus’), further product launches, significant new customer wins, enhanced customer engagement and retention initiatives, and M&A, opening up the North American market.  ECI’s Investment, Commercial and Origination teams have offered important support to the Peoplesafe team in defining and executing upon these important initiatives. 

What has driven this success?  

• Customer-focused innovation, with the award-winning Nexus platform enabling quick development of new innovative features that have supported expansion into new markets and broader user groups. Alongside Peoplesafe’s product and engineering teams, ECI Commercial Team members – Duncan Ramsay and Max Jackson – have supported Peoplesafe in developing and refining its product strategy. Together, this led to the successful scoping and subsequent development and launch of Peoplesafe’s market-leading platform.  In recent months, under the stewardship of CTO, Will Solomon, Peoplesafe has developed and launched a number of new products, including:  

1. Travelsafe, which protects workers on their commute. This product has recently been rolled out by Tesco and is a solution that is open to their entire workforce of 300k employees. 
2. Roamsafe, a resilient signal solution that connects remote locations. 
3. Team Broadcast, Peoplesafe’s in-app mass notification offering.  

• The establishment of Peoplesafe North America through the acquisition of OK Alone, has opened up new geographies to Peoplesafe’s suite of solutions. Five years ago, ECI’s Origination Team built a qualified pipeline of bolt-on targets relevant to Peoplesafe in North America and introduced a number of companies to Peoplesafe’s management team. Jeremy Williams, Peoplesafe CFO, has since successfully led the execution of the M&A strategy and integration programme. The establishment of Peoplesafe North America represented a significant milestone in the organisation’s international growth strategy and facilitated entry into the expanding American and Canadian markets. This move has resulted in notable commercial progress, with Peoplesafe’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth rate in the region increasing from approximately 40% at the time of acquisition in 2023 to a latest TTM growth rate of 65%, whilst maintaining good levels of profitability. Since completing the acquisition, the company has doubled its recurring revenue in North America, securing new high-value clients in target verticals and regions such as the Florida and Nebraska Department of Corrections and Fraser Health in the home healthcare market. Alongside sales leader Mark Ryder, ECI’s North American Growth Specialist, Brett Pentz, supported Peoplesafe’s prioritisation of specific sectors and regions based on data and a market interview programme, which has enabled its commercial focus and success to date. 

• Customer engagement and retention initiatives have focused on technology-enabled self-service support systems, alongside high-touch onboarding and customer success programmes ensuring value across the customer base, but particularly for larger, more complex customers (>100% net retention across the entire base, with the enterprise customer base delivering the strongest performance).  A key hire in achieving this end has been the group’s COO – Jen Cosgrove – a new role in the business.  

Naz Dossa, CEO of Peoplesafe, comments: “The workforce safety market is growing as more employers further invest in the wellbeing of their staff. This is helping to unlock a larger market and enable further expansion into current markets, with Peoplesafe well placed to service prospective customers with industry-leading technology and service levels.  

Our unheralded success is something to celebrate and reflects the strength of our strategy and the scalable platform we’ve built over the last few years. We’ve also built a solid core to our business, adding channel partnerships to our strong direct sales to create new growth avenues for both the UK and North American businesses.  

For me personally, it’s always been a privilege to lead a business that keeps people safe and saves lives every month. We’re excited about what the future holds and, in particular, to extend our leadership position in the UK, maximise the North American growth opportunity, and further expand our tech suite in response to growing customer demand. M&A, which we have done some of historically, is also increasingly on the agenda now that the professionalisation of the business is complete. ECI have been an amazingly supportive partner throughout this professionalisation process, and the business is now extremely well primed for future success”  

Daniel Bailey, Partner at ECI, comments: “Peoplesafe is led by an exceptionally strong team, who it is a pleasure to work with. They are doing a great job building a fantastic platform for growth. I believe that there is a lot more success to come at Peoplesafe, and I’d also echo Naz’s sentiment that it is a real privilege to support a business that helps people in their seconds and minutes of need”.