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This week threw up a couple of emotive examples of why humans – for now at least – prefer honest use of AI imagery in the media.
Firstly, much news coverage has been given to The Cass Review, an independent review of gender identity services for children and young people. Amongst the many discussions this prompted in the media was one around some of the people imagery in the report looking AI-generated (e.g., see p233). The Cass Review team used Adobe stock imagery, which it would appear contained both real and AI-generated images (some of which might be considered to be stereotypical). However, several media outlets pointed out that this does not seem to have been made clear in the report. Given the sensitivity of the subject matter – not least the degree to which some of the children the report is centred around will be dealing with complex issues of self-image – one can see why this could be problematic.
Secondly, beauty brand, Dove, launched The Code campaign, which takes an incredibly strong stance against the use of AI generated images – specifically for the representation of women in beauty campaigns. The campaign launch video shows the results you get from prompts such as “perfect skin” or “gorgeous woman”. The pictures generated (showing actual results from an AI tool) are stereotypical images of beauty in women (e.g., blond/slim/white/young).
The video then proceeds to show what happens if you add “according to Dove Real Beauty Ad” (the firm’s been running its Real Beauty campaign for 20 years) to the prompt. This throws up an entirely different set of images, including women with disabilities, older women, women from around the world, and women with different skin colour. The brand then makes the pledge to “never use AI to create or distort women’s images”. Dove has worked with AI experts to create its Real Beauty Prompt Playbook to help “set new digital standards of representation”, which contains tips on how to create “real beauty images” and make prompting “more inclusive”.
AI-generated imagery of people raises all sorts of complex issues and discussion points around how we are ALL represented – or under-represented – online. Furthermore, given that so much online content will be generated by AI over a very compressed timeline, the issue will be anything but easy to solve. However we ultimately address these issues, it would seem ‘honesty is the best policy’, at least for now.
Read TechMarketView’s latest research on AI: Artificial Intelligence: Market trends, use cases, and suppliers
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Posted by: Kate Hanaghan at 09:55
Tags: AI AI_ethics AI_images
Yesterday Meta announced the launch of Llama 3, the latest version of its open-source AI large language model.
The announcement debuts two new pretrained and fine-tuned language models with 8 billion and 70 billion parameters respectively. These are described by Meta as a major leap in performance compared to previous models in Llama 2. It is becoming commonplace with such LLM announcements to see claims proving that models perform better than competitors across a range of benchmarks. In this case Meta show Llama 3 (8bn) beating Googles Gemma and Mistrals 7bn parameter models, and the 70bn Llama 3 model beating Gemini 1.5 pro and Anthropic’s Claude 3 Sonnet model. As ever take these benchmarks with a pinch of salt.
The Llama 3 models will soon be available through a range of partner platforms including; AWS, Databricks, Google Cloud, Hugging Face, Kaggle, IBM WatsonX, Microsoft Azure, NVIDIA NIM, and Snowflake. Versions optimised for specific hardware from AMD, AWS, Dell, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm will also be released down the line. Meta also said that it is dedicated to developing Llama 3 in a responsible way, and is providing various resources to help use it responsibly including a new tool, Code Shield – which is designed to detect code from generative AI models that might introduce security vulnerabilities.
The company’s AI assistant ‘Meta AI’ is also being rolled out to more countries and enhanced through the latest Llama 3 models. Meta AI will be available across Facebook (where it will be popping up in your feed so you can ask it questions about posts), Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and for the first time through a standalone website. You will also be able to create images from text in real-time using Meta AI’s Imagine feature. You’ll see an image appear as you start typing — and it’ll change with every few letters typed!
And there is more to come, Meta claims its largest models still in training are over 400B parameters. Over the coming months we can expect to see the release of multiple models with new capabilities including multimodality, the ability to converse in multiple languages, a much longer context window, and stronger overall capabilities.
What does this all mean for enterprise organisations and end users? Well, it all just boils down to more choice, better performance across a number of use cases, and more flexibility in creating what is quickly become a multi-model AI strategy for many organisations. However, with so many different AI models to choose from, navigating this ever-evolving AI ecosystem is becoming increasingly complex.
Posted by: Simon Baxter at 09:37
Tags: AI ArtificalIntelligence
Earlier this week it was announced that Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz had raised a whopping $7.2bn to invest in a range of start-ups across areas including gaming, apps, and AI. One of the largest VC raises in several years.
Whilst it may be based ‘states-side’ Andreessen Horowitz is a name that crops up regularly in TMV funding posts (see here and read back) as a supporter of UK-based start-ups and scale-up businesses. Capital raised is to be split across several different funds. $3.75bn is to go into the firm’s growth fund, whilst $1.25bn will go into fund focused on AI infrastructure, with another $1bn going to support AI application development.
AI investment has grown significantly over the last couple of years and has pushed up company valuations accordingly, particularly around those businesses that provide the large language models. This in turn has made it tough going for some VC businesses to underwrite. It looks like Andreessen Horowitz sees value in investing in the applications and infrastructure developed on top of, and underpinning, the highly valued AI-model providers.
The firm also earmarked two blocks of $600m for funds focused on gaming and its ‘American Dynamism’ strategy, where it is looking to back US based start-ups in aerospace, defence, and manufacturing.
Posted by: Marc Hardwick at 09:33
Tags: funding venturecapital AI
A flat growth final quarter left Infosys slightly shy of its most recent bottom end revenue guidance for FY24. The 2.2% sequential constant currency decline constrained company turnover for the three months ended 31st March to $4.56bn. Full year sales improved by 1.4% yoy to $18.56. Operating margin for the period decreased by 30 bps against the prior year to 20.7%.
The results narrative for Q4 remains largely unchanged from that for the previous two quarters. From a geographic perspective, it was continuing shrinkage in Infosys North America that most adversely impacted the offshore major’s top line performance. Accounting for three fifths of firm-wide sales, revenue in this region was down yoy by 2.2% and 1% respectively for the final quarter and full year. Demand for the company’s services held up better in Europe where turnover rose by c.6.4% yoy to a tad over $5bn in FY24.
In terms of industry verticals, only sales to the company’s Manufacturing clients remained in double digit growth territory in Q4. This improvement was, however, more than offset by an 8.5% decline in turnover in the Infosys’s Financial Services vertical which generates over a quarter of the firm’s global revenue.
A significant inflow of large deals during both the final quarter and the full year (Q424: +114% yoy to $4.5bn, FY24: +80% yoy to $17.7bn) does not appear to have had a commensurate effect on Infosys’s nearer term growth prospects. Company guidance for the current financial year anticipates that FY25 revenue will increase by 1%-3% in constant currency to deliver an operating margin of 20%-22%. The trading headwinds in the IT services market look set to remain strong during the coming months.
Posted by: Duncan Aitchison at 08:43
Tags: results offshore IT+services
After five consecutive years of double-digit top line growth, PA Consulting’s forward progress all but ground to a halt in FY23. Firm-wide fees for the twelve months ended 31st December increased by just 0.5% yoy to £790m. The loss of momentum took a toll on the bottom line with adjusted EBITDA margin for the period dipping by 200 bps against the prior year to a still very respectable 21%.
The results made for a slow start to the tenure of new CEO, Christian Norris. He took up the reins at PA following the unexpected and hasty departure of his predecessor last August (see here). The FY23 performance has also almost certainly put paid to the firm’s objective set four years ago of becoming a £1bn turnover business by the end of 2024.
The going proved toughest for PA in its Americas region last year. Fee income in this territory fell by 11.4% yoy to c.£97m. The firm’s UK business, which accounts for three quarters of global revenue, inched ahead by 0.3% against FY22 to generate fees of £593m in 2023.
There were some brighter spots reported across PA’s business portfolio. The firm saw strong demand for its Defence and Security services last year. We highlighted the consultancy as ‘one to watch’ in our latest UK Defence SITS Suppliers, Trends & Forecasts report and at the end of 2023 PA was awarded a place on all six Lots within the Ministry of Defence’s Digital and IT Professional Services framework (see here). Sustainability-centric projects, including work to respond to regulatory changes, secure energy supply chains, and exploit new technologies such as hydrogen, also enjoyed an uptick in sales during FY23.
Little by way of commentary on the outlook for the current year was provided by the firm. Our most recent forecast for the UK SITS Consulting Market, however, projected a further cooling of demand in this segment during 2024. PA will have its work cut out to reinvigorate growth in the nearer term.
Posted by: Duncan Aitchison at 09:46
Tags: results defence consulting public sector
Banking technology specialist Finastra has partnered with TradeSun to integrate the latter’s CoriolisESG AI-powered ESG (environmental, social and governance) scoring capabilities into its Trade Innovation working capital solution.
The partnership actually encompasses the full TradeSun Intelligence platform (which includes OCR, document checking, real-time compliance, and global markets analytics), with ESG assessment built-in.
The combination will enable Trade Innovation customers to bring automated ESG scoring insights into the management of trade and supply chain finance, giving them better oversight of the sustainability impact of trade operations and helping them make more sustainability-informed decisions.
ESG data gathering, analysis (especially when combined with other business data), and reporting encompass the main use case areas featured in TechMarketView’s Sustainability Technology Activity Index (our unique take in the sustainability technology landscape).
Subscribers to our SustainabilityViews research stream can download the Index now. If you are not yet a subscriber, or would like to learn more about our sustainability research, please contact Deb Seth for more information.
Posted by: Craig Wentworth at 09:41
Tags: partnership esg supply chain trade finance
Law enforcement organisations and technology companies have joined forces to disrupt the LabHost Phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) operation.
The site, which the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) says was used by more than 2,000 criminals, was established in 2021. In exchange for a monthly subscription fee of between $179 and $300 paid via BitCoin, LabHost (also known as LabRat) offered turnkey phishing kits to enable the creation of websites, emails and campaigns designed to trick victims into revealing personal information. This included branded kits, featured multi-factor authentication (MFA) phishing, for banking organisations, healthcare providers and postal services mostly in the UK and North America.
The MPS, which led the operation, said that by the start of 2024 more than 40,000 fraudulent sites had been created using the service. Just under 70,000 UK citizens are known to have fallen victim to this fraud, resulting in criminals obtaining 480,000 card numbers, 64,000 PIN numbers and more than one million passwords; however, the MPS warns the total number of victims is likely to be higher.
The work to disrupt LabHost started in 2022 following intelligence from the Cyber Defence Alliance, the coalition of financial institutions established to improve cyber defence and counter cyber threat networks. The MPS Cyber Crime Unit partnered with the National Crime Agency (NCA), City of London Police, Europol, Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) across the UK, and international police forces to disrupt LabHost. Technology partners including Chainalysis, Intel 471, Microsoft and Trend Micro, as well as The Shadowserver Foundation, were also part of the efforts to counter the criminal operation.
Over the last few days over 70 addresses in the UK and beyond were searched and 37 suspects have been arrested. This includes arrests at Manchester and Luton airports as well as addresses in Essex and London. Yesterday (17 April), LabHost and its associated websites were seized, and 800 users were sent a message stating that law enforcement know who they are and what they’ve been doing.
The operation follows several high-profile attempts to tackle significant online fraud and cybercrime in recent months, including the NCA-led Operation Cronos aimed at disrupting LockBit (see LockBit ransomware disrupted by law enforcement). As was the case with LockBit, which was up and running again shortly after its servers were seized, this is unlikely to be the end of the story for LabHost. The distributed structure of these criminal networks means the target is always adapting and evolving, and LabHost is just one of many other PhaaS operations out there e.g. Frappo, Greatness, Robin Banks and Darcula.
Posted by: Dale Peters at 09:38
Tags: police fraud cyber law+enforcement public+safety cybercrime phishing phaas crime
FYLD, a London based supplier of an AI-powered field work execution platform has raised £12m in Series A funding, led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
FYLD was co-founded in 2020 by CEO Shelley Copsey, COO Anish Patel and Chief Futurist Karl Simons OBE. The company provides a field work execution platform for the infrastructure sector, particularly utilities and heavy civil construction. FYLD initially collaborated with UK Gas utility provider SGN to test and validate its technology. To date, the company has raised a total of £26m, and achieved 3x revenue growth in 2023.
The management team boasts a broad range of experience, with CEO Shelley Copsey holding a number of senior roles helping to scale innovative startups, COO Patel helped to form UK taxi app FarePilot, which was spun out of BCG and later acquired by Shell, whilst Chief Futurist Simons has acted as an advisor to the UK Cabinet office, as well as holding senior roles at Thames Water and Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor.
The FYLD digital platform empowers field managers to make proactive, data-led decisions in real time and transform operational processes and procedures with data. Critical infrastructure organisations from utilities through to heavy civil construction and highway maintenance – use FYLD to drive operational efficiency and reduce safety incidents with data. Using natural language processing, computer vision and artificial intelligence, FYLD analyses what is taking place in the field in real time, helping managers and operational teams make better decisions and drive more jobs to completion.
Commenting on the news, CEO Shelley Copsey said: “…typical customers achieve over 8% productivity uplift in just 6 weeks. With this short time to value, we are feeling market pull for our solution and buy-in on our vision of the future of fieldwork.”
FYLD intends to use the new funds to scale its commercial team, accelerate product development, enhance its AI-driven predictive analytics platform, and expand in its existing markets and into new markets globally.
Posted by: Simon Baxter at 09:28
UK based, Wagestream, has successfully raised £17.5m in new funding for its financial benefits proposition. The cash injection was provided by a variety of investors including British Patient Capital, Lombard Odier Investment Managers, and existing backer Northzone.
Wagestream’s app-based proposition, which is aimed at both companies and individuals, provides a variety of budgeting tools, including allowing employees early access to a percentage of their earned income. Wagestream has taken its offering to mainland Europe and the US and is continuing to grow its footprint and expand its international operations.
In October 2023 Wagestream expanded its array of services with the acquisition of financial inclusion focused startup, Keebo, for an undisclosed. Keebo uses open banking data flows to assess the credit worthiness of applicants based on their financial behaviour, rather than a simple credit score.
Wagestream’s Keebo deal was followed in November with a new partnership with public sector software specialist, Civica. The tie up enables Civica’s clients to offer Wagestream’s fair financial toolkit to their employees as a way of supporting financial wellbeing, as well as recruitment, retention, and productivity strategies (see: Civica focuses of financial wellbeing). Wagestream also works with a variety of other major UK biggest brands including Asda, BUPA, Greene King, Next, Pizza Express, and the NHS.
Posted by: Jon C Davies at 08:19
Tags: funding
Version 1 has announced it has acquired Farsight Consulting, helping enhance its digital transformation and design expertise across the public sector.
The London-based consultancy company was founded in 2010. It provides a suite of services covering digital, cloud, technology, analysis, business transformation and delivery. Farsight currently generates revenue of c.£17m, with the majority of its income derived from work with the Department for Education (DfE) and Ministry of Justice (MOJ). In 2024, it has secured significant new deals with MOJ to help design, build and deliver software to replace prison legacy systems and to enhance prison video link functionality. It was also awarded a contract to provide digital, data and user centred design support for UK Export Finance.
Version 1 already partners with Farsight on several large-scale government projects, but the acquisition will help strengthen its value proposition to both current and prospective public sector customers. It will see an additional 133 people join the business, adding extensive creative problem-solving, user-centred design, research, analysis, and digital service creation skills to Version 1.
The deal, which is subject to National Security and Investment Act 2021 clearance, follows the acquisitions of Automation Logic and Qubix, which were announced last year (see Version 1 acquires Automation Logic and Qubix). Given the existing relationship and strong synergies between the organisations it represents a low-risk deal that should enhance Version 1’s public sector proposition and accelerate its growth in the UK.
Posted by: Dale Peters at 11:13
Tags: acquisition digital public+sector service+design central+government
Phlo has raised £9m in a funding round led by Par Equity with participation from Thairm Bio and Scottish Enterprise. It follows a £10m Series A round in February 2023, which was led by Thairm Bio with participation from Scottish Enterprise and angel investors, and a £2m crowdfunding campaign in 2020.
The Glasgow-based business was founded in 2017 by CEO Nadeem Sarwar. Its platform launched in 2019 and is now a fully registered NHS Digital Pharmacy offering a range of services, including same-day delivery options in London and Birmingham.
In 2023, Phlo acquired the UK arm of US-based rival Truepill including its partnerships with digital healthcare providers, its UK technology stack and its NHS patient base (see Phlo scales in digital pharmacy with UK Truepill acquisition). As well as its digital pharmacy, the company now provides a wider range of services including Phlo Connect (API-driven pharmacy infrastructure platform), Phlo Clinic (on-demand prescription treatments) and Hello Eve (healthcare services designed for women).
Following the latest funding round, Phlo plans to invest in strengthening its UK footprint, extending its range of services, and expanding its technology-based partnerships. Digital pharmacy is a competitive part of the healthcare market—NHS England currently lists over 400 internet pharmacies—so Phlo will need to continue to extend and enhance its services wisely to stay ahead of its competitors.
Posted by: Dale Peters at 09:46
Tags: nhs funding startup digital healthcare pharmacy
AIM listed process management app supplier Crimson Tide reported strong double digit revenue growth for FY23, including important wins in utilities and healthcare.
UK based Crimson Tide is the provider of mpro5, a process management app which aims to improve the efficiency of staff working & capturing data out in the field (whether that is an engineer, store worker or a nurse). The app provides job management, compliance and scheduling features, whilst the mpro5 platform, hosted on Microsoft Azure, provides business intelligence reporting, and dashboards, along with IoT automation and integration with tools such as UiPath, SAP, Sage and Connectwise. Customers include the likes of Tesco, Morrisons, McColls, Compass Group and the NHS Coventry and Warwickshire partnership.
Revenue grew 15% yoy to £6.2m in 2023, with Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) stable at £5.8m. The business did face some challenges last year with a large retail customer going into administration and the loss of a rail customer following commercial cost-cutting. Together these impacted full-year revenue by c£0.5m. A key win was with Cadent, one of the UK's largest utilities companies which, with a significant SAP integration, has taken 6 months to implement. The deal provides the business with a flagship client in the utilities sector, while the ability to offer full SAP integration provides a significant market opportunity. Another contract win in the NHS (unnamed) has yet to be rolled out, however the customer is a major user of sensor devices with a complex array of internal process, the business expects this to also yield significant further opportunities.
According to founder and chairman, Barrie RJ Whipp, mpro5 now has an upgraded front and back end, with a rollout expected to be complete in Q324. The company will invest approximately £1.25m in additional marketing and the mpro5 product in 2024, alongside the implementation of a partner acquisition strategy. COO Phil Meyers will also shortly be appointed as Group CEO, Meyers has previous experience with process management and IoT as VP for Technology at British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat.
Posted by: Simon Baxter at 09:45
NHS England has hired KMPG to help drive the rollout of the Federated Data Platform (FDP). The call-off agreement is worth £8.5m over the next 24 months and it will see the Big Four player work with NHSE, trusts and ICBs to both develop and execute strategies to promote the adoption of nationally provided solutions, and support ICBs and trusts in implementing their individual federated platforms.
The seven-year £330m contract to deliver FDP was awarded last November to a group led by Palantir Technologies (see here). The selection of a US-based big data analytics software provider with a background in security and surveillance has been the subject of significant concern from civil liberties organisations and healthcare associations. The programme is, however, seen by NHSE as an essential enabler to transformational improvements across the NHS. FDP is expected to deliver better joined-up care, help tackle waiting lists and reduce hospital discharge delays. Every hospital trust and Integrated Care System (ICS) will have their own platform, but they are able to connect and share information between them where this is helpful.
The win will come as welcome news for the consulting arm of KMPG UK, albeit the assignment will not be without its challenges. The practice has been finding the going tougher of late and in real terms all but stood still in FY23 (see here). In moves no doubt in part designed to improve operational efficiency, the firm has recently both made the decision to combine its deals and consulting practices into a single entity and begun exploratory merger discussions with KPMG Switzerland.
Posted by: Duncan Aitchison at 09:23
Tags: nhs contract consulting health big+4 data
UK fintech Wise plc, (formerly Transferwise) has released a trading update highlighting the company’s impressive, sustained growth in revenue during its most recent fiscal. For the twelve months ended 31 December 2023 the company's total revenue grew by 24.3% to reach £1.052bn.
Wise has been successful in continuing to attract new customers and during FY23 the company’s total number of accountholders grew by 29% to reach 7.9m. Meanwhile, revenue derived from personal account customers rose by 24.2% to reach £815.3m whilst business customers accounted for revenue of £236.7m (an increase of 24.7%).
In September 2023, Wise announced a major collaboration with Swift to increase cross-border payment options for financial institutions and their customers. The deal enables financial institutions to route Swift payment messages directly to the Wise platform, via the fintech’s Correspondent Services Solution. This allows Swift customers to utilise Wise infrastructure and services without making major system changes.
Despite its commercial success, the story of Wise is not entirely without its setbacks. In May 2023, CEO and founder, Kristo Käärmann started a sabbatical whilst under investigation by the FCA following his HMRC fine for deliberately defaulting on his taxes. As a result, CTO, Harsh Sinha has been acting up in interim CEO. Meanwhile, CFO Matt Briers recently stepped down and was replaced in March 2024 by Emmanuel Thomassin, formerly CFO of Berlin-based food delivery platform Delivery Hero SE.
Ignoring the boardroom changes, Wise has been making great progress and continues to achieve impressive growth whilst also establishing important new partnerships (see: Wise delivers excellent financials amid boardroom uncertainty). The fintech looks to have good reason to be confident for its performance during FY24.
Posted by: Jon C Davies at 08:47
Tags: payments
Tel-Aviv and London-based Bridgewise, a platform provider of AI-based analysis for global securities, has raised $21m in a funding round led by SIX Group with participation from Group11 and L4 Venture Builder.
A quick look on the Bridgewise website reveals a company promising “AI Analysis of any Global Security, in any Language” working on the theory that most global securities aren’t covered or analysed by financial institutions, and language barriers limit accessibility for investors. Bridgewise looks to Machine Learning to generate reports and recommendations on “more than 90% of global securities traded on 130 exchanges worldwide”.
Central to company’s offer is, a natural-language AI conversational chat bot – 'Bridget', a robo advisor that provides recommendations based on users existing portfolios. It claims over 50 institutional clients with over 10m analyses delivered to date, all in 22 different languages.
Distributors and customers include exchanges, banks, trading platforms, investment houses, wealth advisors, and financial media and education platforms. The company currently has clients and operations in over 15 countries including Australia, Brazil, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, UAE, UK and US.
This is an extremely competitive market that Bridgewise is looking to tackle for which it will need deep pockets. The new funding round brings total capital raised to $35m, now being used to expand internationally and further support development of its ML-enabled recommendations.
Posted by: Marc Hardwick at 08:31
Tags: funding investment analytics
Learning Technologies Group (LTG) has released its full year results for FY23 (ended 31 December 2023). Revenue for the year was down 2% in constant currency to £562.3m, with adjusted EBIT down 1% to £98.5m – both in line with expectations but slightly better than the indications given (revenue “not less than £560m” and Adjusted EBIT of £98m) in the company’s trading update in January (see LTG FY23 revenue down, margins flat - but H2 showed improvements).
As we commented in January, H1 2023 was dominated by efforts to bring LEO Learning (created by LTG in 2014) and GP Strategies (acquired in 2021) together to form its GPLX division – see LTG H1 results flat as GP Strategies acquisition continues to embed. That work that reportedly resolved at the start of H2, with LTG also further streamlining operations by integrating Watershed into Rustici Software (acquired in 2018 and 2016 respectively), and Reflektive into Bridge (both acquired in 2021) over the course of the year.
LTG began a temporary pause on bolt-on acquisitions in FY22 (a stance which continued into FY23), to enable it to focus on bringing more coherence to its portfolio. In addition, the company has also been disposing of non-core offerings, with the sale of Lorien Engineering Solutions completing in January 2024.
The company expects 2024 revenues to be in line with FY23 (after disposals) but has confidence that its “strong cash generation” performance (LTG reported record net cashflow for FY23 of £79.5m) will enable it to return to its pursuit of “value-accretive acquisitions” during 2024. However, LTG’s Board has revised its medium-term targets, concluding that “the 2025 goal to achieve run-rate revenues of £850 million and £175 million run-rate adjusted EBIT is no longer appropriate”.
Posted by: Craig Wentworth at 09:44
Tags: results
AIM-listed SME payment platform provider, Equals Group plc, has published its latest annual results, revealing a year of strong growth for both revenue and profitability. Revenue for the twelve months ended 31 December 2023 was up 37% to £95.7m whilst profit after tax more than doubled to reach £7.7m.
Underlying transaction values saw Equals’ Solutions Platform deliver the strongest growth, up 118% to £4,368m. Meanwhile Banking transactions were up 25% to £2,178m and FX rose by 7% to reach £5,866m.
Alongside the publication of the annual results, Equals also issued an update on the progress of H1 24 up to 12 April. The statement revealed that YTD revenue had increased by 30% to reach £31.9m and that revenue from Solutions was already up by 74% at £13.2m. As at 12 April 2024 Equals held total cash worth £21.6m.
Equals vision is the simplification of global money movement for business customers which it delivers via its B2B platforms, Equals Money (for SMEs) and Equals Solutions (for larger corporates). In part the company’s current success has been fuelled by its previous investments in its technology, including multi-currency IBANs and bank-grade connectivity and clearance. These are highly complex and time consuming to replicate and Equals early-mover advantage appears to be paying dividends.
In March this year, Equals confirmed that it had received an indicative offer from a consortium comprising London-based fintech Railsr (Embedded Finance Ltd) and TowerBrook Capital. The bid follows a Strategic Review initiated by Equals last November and comes on top of ongoing discussions with Madison Dearborn about a possible takeover (see: Equals confirms bid interest). The interested parties have until 17 April 2024 to confirm their formal interest.
Posted by: Jon C Davies at 09:38
Cambridge based life sciences startup Qureight has raised £6.8m ($8.5m) in Series A funding for its AI driven data platform helping to accelerate drug development.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Cambridge, Qureight is initially targeting clinical trial imaging analysis and data curation in lung and heart disease. Its platform is used by NHS foundation trusts including University Hospitals Birmingham, Royal Papworth and Guy’s and St Thomas. The company also partners with a number of Biopharma companies including AstraZeneca and Roche.
Complex lung and heart diseases, such as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) and Pulmonary Hypertension, currently have limited treatment options and poor survival rates. Typically, high-value data from patient scans and records is stored across numerous platforms and databases in an unstructured form. Researchers must manually extract relevant data from sources for their research, an expensive and time-consuming process.
The Qureight platform allows companies to run AI based data analytics on complex trial data including images, clinical data and biomarkers. Qureight has access through data contracts across NHS England and can collect CT scans, biomarkers and other trial endpoints directly from hospitals or clinical research organisations in real-time as a complex disease drug trial progresses. This information is securely collated and structured, ready for analysis. The insights from this analysis can be used to look for drug responses and find new endpoints. The structured data can also be used to build virtual trial patients, making it easier to run AI models and compare disparate data sets.
AI is already playing a key role in drug development, allowing for the design of more resource-efficient clinical trials, the improvement of existing disease treatments, and the development of powerful new drugs.
Tags: lifesciences ArtificalIntelligence
Shoreham-by-Sea headquartered, Focus Group, has secured investment from new backer, Hg Capital.
After four years with Bowmark Capital (whose other investments include managed IT and cyber services provider, Little Fish), the reseller and solutions provider has now secured “significant investment” from its new backer. Hg Capital invests in software and services firms across both Europe and the US with proven expertise in bringing on SME tech companies.
Bowmark invested back in 2020, in part attracted to the excellent management team that has continued to deliver. As a measure of its progress, Focus Group has driven both double-digit organic growth alongside undertaking 21 acquisitions. CEO, Barney Taylor, joined the firm in 2021 and has had previous leadership positions at NTT Ltd (was Dimension Data) and Ensono.
Focus was founded 21 years ago and provides a range of technology offerings including workplace, cyber, telecoms, connectivity, mobile, and energy. It has around 30,000 customers, many of them smaller firms. Tech providers with a broad range of offerings are crucial to small and medium organisations that value the 'one-stop-shop' aspect. But it is much more than that. Partnering with a tech provider that is not a mega-corporate and that has an intimate understanding of SMB needs – and how tech can address their specific challenges and opportunities – can be transformational. For that reason, high quality channel players are crucial for our UK market.
We recently spoke to a group of small and medium-sized firms to understand how they’ve been working with their tech providers and how it is impacting their productivity growth. TechMarketView clients can read it here: SMB Productivity: Driving value through modernisation.
Hg currently has $65bn in funds under management supporting a portfolio of more than 50 businesses. Expect to see it invest in Focus's offering development and supporting the current trajectory in terms of both underlying and inorganic growth. Congratulations to Focus Group founders, Chris Goodman and Ralph Gilbert, on the journey so far!
Posted by: Kate Hanaghan at 09:25
Tags: investment channel SMB
AIM-listed construction SaaS specialist, Eleco has bought Romania-HQ’d software developer Vertical Digital. The terms of the purchase, which was made by the company’s Elecosoft Ltd subsidiary, consist of an initial consideration of €1.3m and an earn out of up to €250k payable in 2026. The deal, which is being financed exclusively by internal cash resources, aims to enhance the platform providers systems integration and implementation capabilities.
Founded in 2017, the acquired services firm comprises Vertical Digital SRL and Sons of Coding SRL. The group provides agile software development, technical consulting and upskilling solutions to European and multinational end-customers. Vertical Digital’s clients include Lufthansa Technik, PwC, VW Financial Services, Deloitte and Zoopla. Last year the company delivered revenue of €1.2m and a net profit before taxation of €0.3m.
Eleco has been making good progress over the last couple of years on its strategy to move to a customer-centric, SaaS-based business model (see here). According to its most recent trading update, the company is on track to deliver yoy revenue growth of 11% for the twelve months ended 31st December. Acquisitions are playing a significant role in the reshaping of the enterprise. Last year Eleco bought BestOutcome, a UK provider of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software. The purchase of near-shore developer Vertical Digital should now enable the London-HQ’d company to both further extend its offering and augment its internal R&D capacity.
Posted by: Duncan Aitchison at 09:25
Tags: acquisition saas software construction nearshore
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