Tag: Investment

 

Livingbridge has invested in the clinical consulting business Four Eyes Insight and will work with the founders to accelerate growth over the next few years. The investment was made from the Livingbridge Enterprise 2 fund.

Four Eyes Insight was founded in 2013 by Dr Henry Carleton and Brian Wells. Leveraging the founders’ clinical experience, the business helps acute NHS trusts across the country identify and implement efficiency and performance improvement projects.The business’s services are in high demand due to the significant funding pressure placed on NHS England. A requirement to find £22bn of annualised efficiency savings by 2020/21 is necessary to overcome the impending funding shortfall. Nearly 60% of the NHS’s budget is directed to acute trusts and as a consequence they are experiencing the greatest share of efficiency saving pressures. Four Eyes Insight’s clinical productivity consulting assists trusts in realising savings.

Drawing on the team’s clinical expertise, the business is able to bring to bear market leading modelling and workflow management techniques for trusts such as The Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust, Croydon Health Services Trust and Central Manchester University Hospitals Trust. In each case Four Eyes Insight have helped these trusts and others to achieve tangible improvements in clinical efficiency and reduced patient waiting times.

Four Eyes Insight has worked with more than thirty NHS acute trusts over the last three years and on each occasion has been able to demonstrate lasting productivity improvements which are highly valued by trust management and the regulator, NHSI.

The investment from Livingbridge will see Four Eyes Insight be able to invest further in internal processes and infrastructure and add additional senior talent with a longer term goal to grow the business’s total headcount from approximately thirty to sixty by 2018. There are also plans for further investment in proprietary software and the development of additional services for the NHS.

Following the investment Pete Clarke and Louise Kingston from Livingbridge will join the board.

Dr Henry Carleton, co-founder and CEO at Four Eyes Insight, commented:

“Since our inception just over three years ago, we have worked hard to establish ourselves as a key partner for the Trusts we work with, turning medical productivity plans into an operational reality and helping them to achieve significant efficiency gains and cost savings. Growing our team will now be a primary focus for the business and we are actively recruiting across all areas of the firm as we look to build on the strong momentum we have generated to date.”

Pete Clarke, Partner at Livingbridge said:

“Livingbridge has a track record of working successfully with consultancy businesses and companies working with the NHS so Four Eyes Insight is in our sweetspot. We are very excited about working with such a passionate and well respected management team and see significant growth potential for the business. We will look to invest further in the products, services and software solutions for the NHS, given the constrained funding backdrop and the great work that the team do to help NHS Trusts ‘achieve more with less’”

 

Livingbridge dials up investment in telecoms specialist

Livingbridge has invested in Southern Communications, one of the UK’s oldest telecoms firms which can trace its roots back to 1965.

Today, Southern Communications provides
SME businesses across the UK with a range of services including fixed-line, data, mobile and cloud based services alongside sale, installation and maintenance of telephone systems.

Over the past three years, Southern Communications has completed the acquisition of eight businesses, transforming itself into one of the UK’s largest providers of business-to-business telecoms services in the UK with turnover of over £30 million, over 6,600 business customers and a workforce of over 160 employees operating from four locations in the UK.

Livingbridge have taken a minority stake in the business and, following the investment, will work with the management team to help grow the customer base, introduce new product lines and services and execute strategic acquisitions to augment the firm’s organic growth plans.

As part of the transaction, the business has also secured a new, £36 million loan facility from Santander and HSBC. In addition, David Goldie, former CEO of TalkTalk, will join the business as Chairman and work alongside Paul Bradford, CEO, who originally joined the Group in 1995 and led a management buyout of the firm in 2002.

Livingbridge is an experienced TMT investor and Southern Communications will join a portfolio which includes IT and managed services provider CableCom, internet services provider Metronet and call recording software business Redbox Recorders..

Paul Bradford, CEO, Southern Communications, said:   “I am really excited about working with both Livingbridge and David Goldie to continue the Southern Communications journey.  David brings with him significant experience having acquired over 40 businesses during his time at TalkTalk and, alongside the investment from Livingbridge, I feel like we have secured the perfect team to drive our ongoing development.  This investment will provide us with significant firepower to acquire complimentary businesses as we seek to build on the strong momentum we have generated and move towards our stated aim of doubling in size over the next three to five years.”

Matthew Caffrey at Livingbridge said:  “Southern Communications has a strong and consistent track record of both organic and acquisitive growth and has a fantastically well positioned product portfolio to service SMEs IT service and telecommunications needs. They are a real market leader in their field with recurring revenues of more than 90% and an industry leading customer retention rate.  We’re looking forward to working with Paul and the team and helping them build on the strong progress the business has made to date.”