HMT Blog

Our first HMT podcast today turns to one of the most common but often most bewildering financing situations that entrepreneurial businesses will face – how to raise true growth capital to fund business investment.

HMT LLP provided combined buyside advisory services to Ethos Partners’ portfolio company Compliancy Services, one of the UK's leading providers of compliance consultancy and regtech services on their bolt-on acquisition of Portman Compliance.

HMT LLP provided combined buyside lead advisory and financial due diligence services to Mobeus on the £13.4m MBO of Gungho Marketing, a specialist lead generation business focused on the fast growth International RegTech and LegalTech markets.

Raising money especially early-stage venture capital can be a monotonous, time consuming and ultimately frustrating process if you don’t know what is involved and importantly who your audience – the venture capitalist – is and what they are looking for. We thought it useful to set out in this paper a few observations about the fundraising process that we encounter all too often.

One of the things we are most frequently asked for as Corporate Finance Advisers, is to support clients and private equity firms in the execution of a buy and build strategy.

HMT LLP have advised Rockpool Investments’ portfolio company, EA-RS Group on four bolt-on acquisitions in the past 6 months. EA-RS acquired Added Security Technology Limited, UK Security Doors Limited, Firesec Compliance Limited and Air Projects Limited.

When you look at the attrition rate between the number of deals that an investor gets to see each year and the numbers that they actually transact, you can start to understand why, with the odds seemingly stacked against you that fundraising can feel like an uphill struggle and for some will be a race against insolvency.

HMT LLP advised the shareholders of leading M&E contractor Ceetech Limited on their disposal of the business to leading environmental, engineering and technical services business, RSK Group Ltd.

HMT LLP advised the shareholders of Thames Valley based IT services provider Smart Capital Technology on their sale to management. Private equity firm WestBridge invested £17m to support the MBO and Shawbrook Bank provided the debt facilities.

The team at Chorus (a transaction we advised on recently) faced a familiar situation to many growing businesses when they engaged HMT. We often support founder-owned businesses that are growing rapidly with a differentiated product or service and loyal customers, but where there is a clear opportunity to accelerate investment further with external capital.