Case Study: Envitia

Most ambitious companies will inevitably reach a point where taking on external investment will help drive growth further and faster. Envitia are led by a highly capable and balanced management team, who wanted to grow the business “the way they wanted to.” What was key to them was finding a supportive investment partner who let them get on with the day to day management of their business and deliver on its strategic objectives, but would be available to add value through our experience and/or networks if required. 

Watch Nabil Lodey, CEO at Envitia and Tom Purkis, Partner at Maven, discuss the importance of shared ambition and how the investment has laid the foundations for long term success, and has enabled Envitia to continue to develop its product and expand its team.

Nabil Lodey: Envitia is a software and services business specializing geospatial data science. We want to look at what scenarios exist where we could grow the company in the way we wanted to. I reached out to friends to say well look, we're looking to work with private equity, tell me what it's really like and he said, congratulations you've got your business in a place that you can work with private equity because a lot of people want to be in your shoes right now.

Tom Purkis: Nabil and the senior team were very entrepreneurial, highly ambitious, very young, had been in the business for only a couple of years at that point and to that point had delivered some pretty impressive growth. They'd nearly doubled turnover over that period and nearly tripled earnings growth, so you know an impressive team, a good track record which is ultimately what we want first and foremost in any investment.

Nabil Lodey: PE backing at Maven, they had more experience of how SMEs can grow. We haven't done this before so we were looking at the network that Maven can introduce us to support us in terms of this growth journey because that's a big deal for us as well we're confident we've got the right tools in place but we know full well that as individuals and as the company we're going on a journey and how do we support that and that was the best fit for us.

Tom Purkis: We've helped the build and the team transition into an environment where we're now very set on our strategy, our focus, our three-to-five-year plan and centering and positioning the investment to provide the right support for the team to achieve that and have the best chances of success in delivering their plans for the business and the team going forward. The key parts of our investment have been used initially for the continued development of the product, and for expanding the team. You've seen the business has had a number of new hires at both the junior, senior and executive level and it's really about building those foundations and the building blocks for two to three years ahead not just the short term in the next six to nine months

Nabil Lodey: One thing that's been I would say a real comfort is that we've now got private equity as investors and on the board, things are going to completely change, it's all about the numbers what are we going to do, cutting costs and a very aggressive approach. Actually, what we found is the supporting nature of Maven, which is one of the reasons why we chose them having spoken to a lot of people in the market they felt that actually Maven really does support the management team because they're looking at their return in three to five years not specifically you know the numbers in the first quarter so they sort of support and challenge at the same time which is exactly what we needed.

Tom Purkis: A number of our portfolio executives are previous industry operators, they've grown businesses, they've met some of the challenges, they've been through the processes before and you know I think that can be really valuable to a management team who are looking for support assistance and experience when as and when challenges arise.

Nabil Lodey: On a day-to-day basis the management team runs the business, so we have the support and advice that Maven has promised but also, we have the space to run the business as the team because they are supporting the management team and that's what they said before the deal and that's very much the case now. I don't think there is a problem that we will face that something like Maven wouldn't have seen before in other companies. Yes, we're a tech company yes, we're all about data but there are some common elements. But also, we can ask Maven and say we are looking for support in this area and they can use their network to make introductions either from experts who can come in and give us a different view or maybe at our growth agenda, look at what synergies from potential bolt-on acquisitions and that’s really exciting for us. Everything we talked about during the process has come true in the first six or seven months of working with Maven so I would certainly say that any of the fears we had have certainly been allayed because on the day-to-day basis we are now running a growth business which is exciting with the management team supported by Maven.