April 2022 – Silverpeak

Silverpeak Q1 2022 benchmark report: Multiples fall 16% across all categories

Posted on April 28, 2022May 13, 2022 by Hannah Parker-Smith

Welcome to the latest edition of the Silverpeak Benchmark report – Application Software Sector, a review of key company valuation metrics in the US, UK and European application software sectors. By reviewing sector median averages, our aim is to provide a set of software industry benchmarks against which individual company performance can be measured.

Report highlights

On average, EV/Revenue and EV/EBITDA multiples fell 16% across all categories. Europe and UK were impacted more severely, with an average 22% decrease compared to an average 11% decrease between the US categories.
This widespread decline can be attributed to the uncertainty brought about by factors including: the ongoing pandemic, particularly the impact of city-wide lockdowns in China; geopolitical tensions, notably the war between Russia and Ukraine; and significant inflation that was already rising due to supply chain and recruitment issues across developed economies.
Unsurprisingly, the market is valuing profitability over growth at this time: EV/Revenue multiples have decreased significantly more than EV/EBITDA multiples, both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year.
The DeepTech and Industrial sectors are the most volatile of all the sectors covered in the report. On the one hand, they showed the largest (positive) year-on-year EV/Revenue growth, but on the other hand, they also experienced the biggest declines in quarter-on-quarter EV/EBITDA index.

Enterprise Awards celebrate UK tech entrepreneurial talent

Posted on April 7, 2022April 22, 2022 by Hannah Parker-Smith

Silverpeak was delighted to sponsor the tenth Enterprise Awards which culminated in the Awards dinner last night at the prestigious Goldsmiths’ Hall in the City of London.

Uniquely focused on the founder rather than the businesses themselves, the Enterprise Awards boasted previous winners that have achieved prominence in both private and public markets. The judging panel is looking for examples of vision, growth, innovation, funding, use of capital, use of resources, strategy, execution, ambition, and determination to succeed.

Paddy MccGwire, Silverpeak Managing Partner, sits on the judging panel and continues to be excited each year to see the quality and depth of talent in the industry.

Many congratulations to the winners announced across the nine categories:

Net Zero – Dr Rebecca Harding, Coriolis Technologies

Social Enterprise – Alex Stephany, Beam

Public Sector – Sara Murray, Big Technologies trading as Buddi

Deep Tech – Scott White, Pragmatic Semiconductor

Emerging (revenues between £1m and £3m) – Alex Housley, Seldon

Developing (revenues £3m to £20m) – Alexandra Depledge, Resi

Scale Up (growth 50%+) – Adrian Overall, Cloudstratex

Enterprise (revenues £20m+) – Vishal Marria, Quantexa

Judges Special Award (all-round excellence) – Martina King, Featurespace

and also to John O’Connell, to commemorate ten years as chair and founder of the awards.

In addition to celebrating the best of UK tech talent, the Enterprise Awards has traditionally been organised as a fundraising event, donating profits to the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists’ charities to help its mission to improve lives across the UK and beyond by providing IT skills and training. Last night’s Awards, however, raised £30k for the Ukraine Relief Fund.

Silverpeak advises leading RegTech supplier Worksmart on sale to Davies Group

Posted on April 4, 2022April 20, 2022 by Hannah Parker-Smith

Silverpeak, the mid-market technology specialists that represent European growth businesses in M&A and financing transactions, advised Worksmart on its sale to Davies, the leading specialist professional services and technology business, serving insurance and highly regulated markets.

Worksmart is the leading supplier of regulatory technology (“RegTech”) for people and process management. The Worksmart product range enables organisations to track and manage regulatory processes across customer complaints & feedback, quality assurance, training & competence, the Senior Managers & Certification Regime (“SM&CR”) in the UK, and the Individual Accountability Regime (“IAR”) in Singapore.

Based in Milton Keynes, UK, Worksmart serves financial services organisations across insurance, banking, investment and consumer credit, helping them to manage the growing complexity of operating within the highly regulated space. Worksmart is the number one provider of RegTech for complaints management and feedback in the Lloyd’s market, and the firm’s proprietary platform ‘Foundation’ remains the “go-to” solution for training & competence needs within the Banking and Wealth Management sectors. The firm’s SaaS solution ‘Accord’ is the only purpose-built SM&CR tech available in the UK.

Silverpeak worked with the management team to uncover every source of value and refine the equity story before identifying the most relevant global buyers that would benefit from this RegTech business with a dominant position in the UK market and further market growth in Singapore and Ireland. The whole process was completed in under 6 months.

Andy Nightingale, Worksmart CEO, said, “Silverpeak worked hard and fast to understand every element of our business, discovering sources of hidden value that proved strategically important to our eventual acquirer. I have no doubt this helped deliver a materially higher sale price.”

Paddy MccGwire, Silverpeak Managing Partner leading the transaction said, ”Having had a very competitive process with strategic buyers from Europe and the US, BC Partners’ portfolio company Davies were ideal due to a great cultural fit whilst providing a lot of leverage to the business in its next chapter of growth.”

For more information please contact:

Paddy MccGwire – pm@silverpeakib.com

Dorian Maillard – dm@silverpeakib.com

Silverpeak advises marine autonomous robotics technology business Vaarst on $20m financing round

Posted on April 1, 2022November 16, 2022 by Hannah Parker-Smith

Silverpeak has advised Vaarst on the first $20m of a Series B funding round, led by Legal & General and Equinor Ventures, to accelerate the development of 3D SLAM and autonomous marine robotics technologies.

Silverpeak, the mid-market technology specialists that represent European growth businesses in M&A and financing transactions, acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Vaarst and its sister company Rovco, the UK-based innovative ‘blue-economy’ technology and renewables-focussed services businesses, on a significant growth investment to help drive the next phase of expansion. Legal & General and Equinor co-led the round; other participants include strategic investor for the US intelligence and defence communities In-Q-Tel, and existing shareholders Foresight Group and Martlet Capital.

Vaarst is a leading provider of subsea 3D computer vision and SLAM technologies; supporting offshore wind, wave & tidal, scientific, and maritime security sector. It also uses ground-breaking AI-based technology to revolutionise how energy companies manage subsea infrastructure and improve asset integrity.

Rovco delivers Vaarst technology into the energy transition space mainly focused on its use for subsea surveys in the offshore wind where it is a market leader in the UK, and in oil field decommissioning.

This new investment enables Vaarst & Rovco to continue global expansion plans, targeting the USA and Asia, as well as increasing its presence across Europe. Its existing customers include Iberdrola, SSE and Deepocean.

Silverpeak was engaged due to its expertise in deep tech, software, and knowledge of the international investor market. We advised Rovco & Vaarst on its Series B financing by positioning the company as an autonomous robotics leader in the global blue technology sector and approaching a range of international financial investors as well as strategic counterparties with a strong interest in renewable energy and ESG-focused investments.

Brian Allen, CEO of Rovco/Vaarst said, “The Silverpeak team helped us build the equity story and business plan; held in-depth discussions with global investors; put together the multi-party transaction; and provided invaluable support throughout the process all the way to closing – it was a huge undertaking and I’m sure resulted in a better outcome than managing the process in-house”

David Ford, Partner at Silverpeak leading the process added “Through this process, we confirmed that the Vaarst technology is years ahead of any competition, and with this capital injection from some great investors the business is now very well placed to capitalise on the huge opportunities in the subsea marine robotics space.”

For more information please contact David Ford, Partner: df@silverpeakib.com