How we helped

Bionic is the smart way for Britain’s SMEs to sort their business essentials such as energy, connectivity, insurance and finance. It combines cutting-edge technology with experts who compare trusted UK business suppliers and talk customers through the results on their screen. It is rated Excellent on Trustpilot and is the UK’s market-leading SME marketplace.

Strategic acquisitions:

  • We worked with Bionic’s management team to build an acquisition strategy, and scope and source acquisition targets.
  • Bionic has successfully made six acquisitions since ECI’s investment, and significantly expanded its capability offering to customers, providing SMEs more ways to save money on their business essentials.

Sales & marketing:

  • We worked closely with Bionic on their strategy and how to grow their non-energy offering, which has helped to support their M&A plans.
  • We supported the Bionic management team with their rebrand from Make it Cheaper to Bionic, representing how their in-house experts are enhanced by technology to provide the best offering to customers.

People & culture:

  • We invested significantly into the senior leadership team during our investment, bringing in market-leading digital and proposition expertise into the business and delivering on the founders’ succession plans of transitioning to non-exec roles.
  • We supported the team to build on their fantastic employee experience, with Bionic achieving a successful 7th place ranking in the Top 100 Best Companies to Work For. Find out how they became a Best Companies to Work For. 

Tech & data:

  • Bionic’s technology platform underpins every aspect of its customer service, and they have significantly invested in this capability, including creating a new digital hybrid customer journey and deploying new platforms underpinning finance and insurance.

In 2022 we were delighted to announce the successful secondary sale of Bionic to another private equity firm, delivering a 4.8x return.