SaleCycle, a high-growth behavioural marketing business whose clients include Tommy Hilfiger and Nike, has received a GBP11.5 million investment from BGF to further scale its operations.
The business, headquartered at Rainton Bridge in the North East of England, will use the funding to open two new international offices, in Japan and New York, and roll-out major advancements to its technology platform.
Founded in 2011 by CEO Dominic Edmunds with the support of angel investors, SaleCycle helps online retailers to increase conversion rates, recover abandoned sales, gain visitor insights and drive customer loyalty through a sophisticated software platform and email re-marketing service. The business aims to capture a growing market for recovering lost online sales, with eMarketer estimating that around 74 per cent of global online shopping baskets were abandoned in 2017.
Since its inception the business has grown rapidly, currently generating GBP15m in sales to a global blue-chip customer base across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific to customers including Radisson Hotels, Ralph Lauren, Ikea and Virgin Atlantic.
As part of BGF’s investment and after significant R&D, SaleCycle plans to roll out its new online platform architecture which is based on Amazon’s cloud computing platform AWS.BGF, which recently became the first investor to be honoured for Innovation in the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, backs a number of businesses in the North East including life sciences company Arcinova, which is based in Alnwick. The deal was led for BGF by Barry Jackson, Richard Taylor and John Eggleston and represents the fourth investment by BGF’s Leeds team this year.
Dominic Edmunds, CEO of SaleCycle, says: “We have been through a period of significant growth in a relatively short period of time. That is testament to the hard work and inventive ideas from right across the team.
“This is an exciting time for the business as we continue to grow upwards and outwards, and commit to ongoing investment in our platform. Now is the right time to bring on board an investor that can support that growth over the longer-term, while retaining control of the company. We are pleased to be working with BGF and looking forward to driving the future growth of the business.”
BGF investor Barry Jackson, who originated and led the deal for BGF, says: “SaleCycle’s disciplined focus on innovation and service, alongside a natural drive towards efficiency has enabled it to succeed in becoming a highly profitable and scalable business. In a competitive landscape, we believe that this focus and energy will service the team and the business well over the longer-term, and we’re delighted to be working with them.”
Legal advisors to the transaction: Ward Hadaway – BGF (Martin Hulls and James Nightingale) and Watson Burton – SaleCycle (Duncan Reid and Kirsty Adamson).
