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THE WINNING
COMPANIES
2019
Recognising the UK's most exciting
scale-up technology companies
As defined by the
2
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The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
Our Award Series
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Emerging Stars
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meaningful, forward looking advice. In the UK,
we support over 40,000 privately held businesses,
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Contact:
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Revealing the UK's Top 50
best-performing, privately-owned,
mid-market technology companies.
Talent spotting the UK's future
mid-market leaders among earlier stage
public and privately-owned companies.
Looking beyond share price to identify
the UK's best-performing, publicly-listed
mid-market technology companies.
Megabuyte Award Series
Identifying the best-performing companies in the UK technology sector
3
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
Welcome & Contents
Ian Spence
FOUNDER & CEO, MEGABUYTE
Accelerating
Welcome to the 2019 Emerging Stars report. Before you dive into what is
once again a fascinating insight into the health of UK enterprise technology
scale-ups, I wanted to make a few high-level observations. The title of my
foreword last year was 'Rude Health' reflecting the fact that the Emerging
Stars companies were demonstrating fantastic metrics, especially organic
growth. Fast forward 12 months and our annual Scorecard Lite exercise
has revealed that this outstanding financial performance has actually
been bettered by the 2019 cohort. Average organic growth from this year's
Emerging Stars companies topped 50%, up from 37% in 2018. And that's
average growth. Even taking into account that these companies are
growing from a smaller base, this is an outstanding performance.
WELCOME TO THE
Emerging Stars awards 2019
Glossary
Report Acronyms
MBO Management Buyout
SBO
Secondary Buyout
P2P
Public to Private
IPO
Initial Public Offering
FPO
Follow on Public Offering
Peer Group Acronyms
Software
AES
Accounting & Enterprise Software
BIS
Banking & Insurance Software
GHS
Government & Healthcare Software
ISS
Industry Specific Software
SIS
Security & Infrastructure Software
ICT Services
DCH
Data Centre & Hosting Services
IS
Infrastructure Services
ITC
IT Consulting
TS
Telecoms Services
And this performance is all the more impressive when
we consider that the vast majority of these companies
are profitable; some very profitable. This year's top
company ENSEK demonstrates this point better than
any, with revenues more than doubled in the year, and
yet generating margins of over 30%. At a time when
so many smaller tech companies wear their losses as
a badge of honour, the Emerging Stars prove that the
best companies can generate fantastic growth and
make a decent profit. As I assess the funding outlook
for loss-making tech businesses, I have a strong feeling
that the notions of profit and sustainability will return
to fashion before too long.
Given the outstanding growth and profit metrics of
our Emerging Stars cohort, it is little wonder that the
private equity industry is increasingly looking to this
group of companies for returns. It is striking that, last
year, all of the top five Emerging Stars companies were
owner managed whereas, this year, all have external
backing. Indeed, only three of the top ten are owner
managed this year compared to nine last year. As well
as established lower mid-market investors, a clutch
of new tech-focussed funds have sprung up to target
the lower mid-market. I believe that this trend is to be
celebrated for two reasons. If founders are able to take
some money off the table at a relatively early stage of
a company's development and de-risk their personal
financial situation, then their companies are more likely
to continue on as independent entities for longer, to
the benefit of the UK tech sector. Also, the rigour of
private equity ownership should, by-and-large, make
them stronger companies. Arguably the downside of
greater PE ownership is focus on the five-year plan at
the expense of longer-term ambition, but I see this as
a fair trade-off.
So, these are my key take-aways from the report but
there is much more detail to get your teeth into so
please read on. As ever, I must close with a heart-felt
thank you to all of our Emerging Stars sponsors, and to
our programme partners NatWest and Grant Thornton in
particular. Their ongoing support enables us to celebrate
these great companies, which represent the future of
this increasingly important part of the UK economy.
Document Information
All share prices and valuations quoted are
as at the close of business on 8 February 2019.
Published by the team at megabuyte
The Blade, Abbey Square, Reading RG1 3BE
0118 948 5850 | info@megabuyte.com
www.megabuyte.com
megabuyte 2019
CONTENTS
Executive Summary
4
The Megabuyte Scorecard
6
The Emerging Stars Performance Overview
8
The Emerging Stars Top 25 Rankings
10
The Emerging Stars Individual Award Winners
12
The Strongest Performing Peer Groups
18
Ownership Structure
20
Corporate Activity
22
Prospects for Megabuyte50 & Megabuyte Quoted25
24
Executive Summary
As a research team, our workflows depend on our ability to draw on and
comprehend a significant amount of available company data, especially
when trying to evaluate broader sector trends and a company's place
within them. The Megabuyte Scorecard is now an intrinsic part of this
process and, having tailored the methodology to businesses with revenues
of between 3m and 10m, we have been able to identify and celebrate
the latest batch of top performing scale-up companies. In this report,
we expand on the Scorecard methodology, provide analysis on the 2019
Emerging Stars, review what last year's winners have been up to, and look
at which companies might break out into our two other flagship Awards
programmes: Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25.
The INDUSTRY
LEADERS OF
THE FUTURE
4
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
5
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
Executive Summary
Shaun Lynn
CEO, Agilitas IT Solutions
Best Performing Company 2019 (IS)
Emerging Stars 2018 Top 25 Company
Being recognised as part of the Emerging Stars
programme in both 2017 and 2018 highlights the stellar
progress our organisation has made in delivering not only
strong growth but in a sustainable, profitable way as well.
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
DEFINING A SCALE-UP BUSINESS
We officially launched the Megabuyte Scorecard in early 2015,
which now not only underpins our day-to-day research work at
Megabuyte but also our annual Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte
Quoted25 Awards. However, in analysing smaller companies, we
needed a system that reflected the differing priorities of earlier
stage companies, namely on growth. So, in early 2017, we developed
Scorecard Lite which still uses three years of accounts and relies on
a full financial model for each company. Unlike the Megabuyte50
and Megabuyte Quoted25 Awards, Emerging Stars looks at both
public and private companies within the revenue size range.
INVESTING FOR GROWTH
Now in the third instalment of the Emerging Stars programme,
we have grown the pool of companies that fit the Emerging Stars
revenue criteria to around 250. Hence, the 25 companies to make
it into this year's Emerging Stars can be confident that they are
among the top 10% of all companies we track in that size range.
With an average organic growth in their last financial year of 50%
and average EBITDA margins of 16.0% this is a formidable group
indeed; Emerging Stars companies are growing twice as fast as
the 2018 Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25 winners, albeit
at circa half the average profit margin, reflecting their focus on
investing for growth.
Delving into the 25 Emerging Stars in greater detail shows that
only five of the businesses from last year's Emerging Stars retained
a top 25 ranking, with the high levels of churn reflecting the fact
that many of these business find themselves more of a target than
an acquirer, and there is an inherently higher volatility in financial
performance in this size range, while some outgrew the revenue
criteria. Looking at the distribution by sector shows an even split
between Software and ICT Services, marking a shift from last
year's skew towards the latter. Accompanying this resurgence in
Software companies was a greater proportion of externally funded
companies, which broadly matched the total of owner managed
businesses, while the number of publicly-listed companies remained
limited, albeit increasing on last year's first ever publicly-listed
Emerging Star.
2019 AWARDS
In addition to identifying the 25 Emerging Stars, the programme
also recognises the very best companies in all nine Software and
ICT Services peer groups, as well as the leading company overall and
the highest-growth company. As a result, there are 11 Awards, all
identified on pages 12-17.
EMERGING STARS ATTRACT OVERSEAS BUYERS
Looking back at the corporate activity of last year's Emerging Stars
class shows a limited level of deal activity over the last year, reflecting
the fact that Emerging Stars find themselves as more of a target
than an acquirer. Key highlights include five being acquired by trade
buyers, including a clear interest from North American trade buyers
in UK software companies, and four companies receiving investment
for the first time.
THE NEXT MID-MARKET COHORT
As well as spotting the future of the UK tech industry, the
Emerging Stars programme acts as an early warning system for the
Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25 companies, as highlighted
by four Emerging Stars from previous classes finding success in
our Megabuyte50 Awards. From the 25 Emerging Stars, we have
identified 10 prospects that, based on their current revenue growth
trajectories, look likely to exceed the Emerging Stars upper revenue
limit of 10m in their next set of results, and, assuming continued
profitability, are strong candidates for the next edition of our private
company-focused Megabuyte50 Awards. There are no prospects
for the Megabuyte Quoted25 programme, although there is every
chance that one or more of this year's Emerging Stars could
undertake an IPO.
6
WHAT DOES A 'GOOD' TECH SCALE-UP
COMPANY LOOK LIKE?
The Emerging Stars programme aims to talent
spot future mid-market leaders among smaller,
UK private and publicly-listed companies. While
some of these companies are relatively young,
many have been operating for many years but have
recently found a rich growth seam. While there are
many awards programmes in the UK tech sector,
Megabuyte Awards are unique in being based purely
on publicly available information or undisclosed
audited numbers provided in confidence, on which
the Megabuyte research team builds financial
models for each company, that are evaluated by our
proprietary Scorecard methodology. We feel that
this trumps other awards, which rely on one narrow
measure, or (often over-optimistic) self-certification
by nominated companies.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Megabuyte Scorecard is a proprietary
benchmarking methodology developed by the
research team at Megabuyte, pooling over 60 years
of combined experience assessing the performance
of software, IT and telecoms services companies.
Compared with the seven key measures used
for the Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25
methodology, the Scorecard Lite system used for
Emerging Stars assesses five key measures and
is more focused around growth; two for revenue
growth, one for profit margin and one for margin
improvement, as well as one for overall size. These
measures are then weighted to provide what we feel
is the optimum balance for scale-up companies.
Our PROPRIETARY
BENCHMARKING
METHODOLOGY
An expert tool for companies and the investor and advisory communities
seeking to understand companies' performance relative to peers.
How to track Scorecard performance
on a rolling basis
Megabuyte Scorecard ratings for companies, peer groups
and sectors are produced on a rolling basis, adjusted daily,
and available to Megabuyte subscribers via the megabuyte.com
content platform. Selected Scorecard rankings are also published
in our report series, available to non-subscribers to purchase at
www.megabuyte.com/reports
Research
Resources
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Megabuyte Scorecard
WHO QUALIFIES?
Companies eligible for the Emerging Stars programme are drawn from the peer groups we cover in the broader Megabuyte universe; namely
software and ICT companies. For a company to be considered, it must also be UK-headquartered and domiciled, have generated revenues of
3-10m in its latest financial year, and have up-to-date accounts for a three-year period. Companies that have undergone significant M&A
or other such transformational events are excluded.
A Growth
In assessing a company's revenue
growth, we have struck a balance
between our view that organic
growth is preferable, whilst still
acknowledging that acquisitions are
an additional way to grow.
A Profitability
Whilst scale-up companies quite often
lose money during their formative
years to support growth, we reward
companies who also do so profitably,
using EBITDA margins as the optimal
measure of P&L profitability. Margin
improvement is also a key measure
used in Scorecard Lite.
A Size
While size does not mean that a
company is good or bad, the law of
large numbers does mean that it is
harder to generate organic growth, in
percentage terms, as a company gets
larger. As a result, we give some credit
to the larger companies.
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE QUARTILES
Once we have assembled all the data, we group performance
in all five categories into quartiles and apply a score to each
quartile this gives each company a primary score. By segmenting
performance in this way, the potential distortion from outliers
is neutralised and it also gives a clear view of strong areas, and
areas of improvement for each company. Throughout the report,
readers will see a company's primary score represented in our
Quartile Radar charts, an example of which is shown in Figure 2.
Each company's primary score is then weighted according to our
proprietary methodology, and each company is ranked within its
quartile to provide the final Megabuyte Scorecard rating.
FIGURE 2: ...To Generate a Score
FIGURE 1: Combining Factor Performance...
Source:
Megabuyte
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
7
VIEW OUR AWARD SERIES, VISIT
www.megabuyte-awards.com
Analysing the
EMERGING STARS
OF 2019
Investing for growth
Megabuyte is now tracking more than 1,200 companies across Software,
ICT and Business Services sectors in the UK mid-market. Within this, we track
more than 250 UK Software and ICT businesses that sit in the Emerging Stars
programme's 3-10m revenue criteria, of which an overwhelming majority
are privately owned and 162 have a Scorecard Lite rating. These figures do,
however, understate the total number of smaller, more 'emerging' companies
known to Megabuyte, as we are tracking more than 1,000 monitor list
companies, which are yet to publish detailed accounts.
Table 1 shows the quartile performance of the entire
162 Scorecard Lite dataset. When we look at the
Emerging Stars companies in the context of the
data, we can see that, on average, Emerging Stars
companies produce financial metrics in the top/fourth
quartile, and often well above the quartile boundary.
As a group, the 2019 Emerging Stars companies
delivered average organic growth in their last financial
year of 50% and an average revenue CAGR over the
last three/four years of 48%, both more than double
the top/fourth quartile boundary. While many of
these businesses are investing heavily to support this
growth, with a few loss-making businesses present in
the 25 this year, the cohort averaged 16.0% EBITDA
margins and had a median year-on-year margin
improvement of 3.6 percentage points (pp), both
positioned in the fourth quartile. The average revenue
size of the Emerging Stars is 7.1m (third quartile).
For added context, this year's Emerging Stars
generated similar margins to last year's winners but
outperformed in terms of growth metrics; the 2018
cohort averaged 37% organic growth, a 35% CAGR
and 2.7pp average margin expansion. Additionally,
the growth metrics from this year's Emerging Stars
are more than double that of the 2018 Megabuyte50
and Megabuyte Quoted25 winners, although margins
are closer to half, reflecting greater growth investment
at this size range.
8
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Emerging Stars
Performance Overview
Paul Ellis
CEO, Wax Digital
Emerging Stars 2019 Top 25 Company
Emerging Stars 2018 Top 20 Company
Being part of the Megabuyte Emerging Stars Awards
programme provides independent validation of our
relative financial performance in what is a competitive
and fragmented e-learning software market. What's
more, alongside our strengths, the Megabuyte Scorecard
is a useful tool to see where we can continue to improve.
TABLE 1: How the Megabuyte Emerging Stars Universe Performs
Size
Revenues (m)
Organic Revenue
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA
Margin
EBITDA Margin
Improvement
1st Quartile
Boundary
4.6
-3.3%
-1.2%
-7.0%
-3.2
2nd Quartile
Boundary
6.4
5.0%
5.2%
5.7%
-0.2
3rd Quartile
Boundary
8.5
20.0%
14.8%
13.7%
2.2
4th Quartile
Source:
Megabuyte
BALANCED SECTOR SPLITS
Looking at the distribution of Emerging Stars companies across our two tech Sectors, this year featured a more balanced split between
Software (13) and ICT Services (12). Segmenting it further shows that our most populous peer groups, Telecoms Services and Accounting
& Enterprise Software, accounted for ten of 25 companies, followed by Government & Healthcare Software and IT Consulting at three each.
The peer group with the fewest Emerging Stars was Banking & Insurance Software with one company.
FIGURE 4: Composition of ES by peer group
FIGURE 3: Composition of ES by sector
9
Source:
Megabuyte
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
TS
DCH
ITC
IS
AES
BIS
SIS
ISS
GHS
2017
2019
Software
ICT Services
9
13
16
9
12
16
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
EMERGING STARS
2019 RANKINGS
Presenting the 2019 Emerging Stars
The tables in this section summarise the key data, Scorecard rankings
and scores of the class of 2019, as well as how the companies have moved
relative to last year. We focus on the peer group category Award winners in
greater detail in the next section but, here, it is interesting to look at some
of the high-level dynamics of the group.
When we look at who's in, who's out, who's up and
who's down, it is clear that the number of new entrants
was similarly high this year (20 in total), which is driven
by the fact that half of last year's Emerging Stars have
either been acquired (more details on which can be
found on page 23) or outgrown the size criteria. Close
to half of this year's new entrants have been added to
Megabuyte coverage since the last Awards, including
the winners of this year's overall best performing
company ENSEK and the fastest growing company
HeleCloud. Of the five returners, three have climbed the
rankings, including Beeks and Agilitas breaking into the
top ten and Wifinity maintaining a top five spot for the
third year running.
Breaking down the 25 by ownership shows that, while
owner managed businesses are fairly balanced with
externally funded ones 12 to 10, externally funded
vendors dominate the top half of the table, including
holding the top four spots. The top owner managed
business is PRISYM ID, which placed sixth overall. The
top publicly-listed company is Beeks Financial Cloud,
which became the first publicly listed Emerging Star
in last year's Awards and improved its ranking this
year to break into the top five.
As we saw in the sector analysis in the prior section,
this year's Emerging Stars were evenly split between
Software and ICT Services companies, which fed into
a similarly even split in the top 10.
Jon Slade
CEO, ENSEK
Overall Winner 2019 & Best Performing Company 2019 (ISS)
Being recognised in the Emerging Stars
Awards independently validates the strength
of ENSEK's business model and strategy to our
Board, employees, customers and investors.
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
10
11
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Emerging Stars
Top 25 Rankings
Rank
Trend Company
Peer
Group
Ownership
Investor
Revenue
(m) Score
Prev
Rank
1
NEW
ENSEK
Overall Winner & Best Performing Company (ISS)
ISS
Externally Funded
LDC
6.2
95
2
Wifinity
Best Performing Company (TS)
TS
Externally Funded
Literacy Capital
8.8
87
3
3
NEW
Ticketer
ISS
Externally Funded
Tenzing Private Equity
9.4
84
4
NEW
HeleCloud
Overall Fastest Growing Company &
Best Performing Company (ITC)
ITC
Externally Funded
BGF
3.1
83
5
Beeks Financial Cloud
Best Performing Company (DCH)
DCH
Public
5.6
83
24
The Top 5 Performing Companies
Higher
Lower
New entrant
NEW
Rank
Trend Company
Peer
Group
Ownership
Investor
Revenue
(m) Score
Prev
Rank
6
NEW
PRISYM ID
Best Performing Company (GHS)
GHS
Owner Managed
7.5
83
7
NEW
Safety Media
Best Performing Company (AES)
AES
Owner Managed
4.9
83
8
NEW
Celoxica
Best Performing Company (BIS)
BIS
Externally Funded
Oxford Capital Partners
3.6
80
9
Agilitas IT Solutions
Best Performing Company (IS)
IS
Externally Funded
NVM Private Equity
9.5
80
23
10
NEW
Answer Digital
ITC
Owner Managed
6.3
79
11
NEW
Impero
GHS
Externally Funded
Investcorp
6.6
79
12
NEW
CIPHR
AES
Externally Funded
LDC
9.3
78
13
Telesis
TS
Owner Managed
8.1
77
5
14
NEW
Egress Software
Best Performing Company (SIS)
SIS
Externally Funded
FTV Capital
9.4
76
15
NEW
Qubic Group
TS
Owner Managed
5.9
76
16
NEW
Digitalk
TS
Owner Managed
8.7
76
17
NEW
Unicorn Training Group
AES
Owner Managed
9.1
75
18
NEW
Interact
AES
Owner Managed
9.6
75
19
NEW
EU Supply
GHS
Public
4.7
74
20
NEW
Chorus Global
ITC
Owner Managed
5.6
74
21
Wax Digital
AES
Externally Funded
August Equity
6.6
73
18
22
NEW
CloudCall Group
TS
Public
6.9
73
23
NEW
Volta Data Centres
DCH
Owner Managed
5.3
73
24
NEW
Freestyle IT
IS
Owner Managed
9.0
72
25
NEW
IMS Evolve
SIS
Owner Managed
8.6
72
Emerging Stars companies 6-25
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
EMERGING STARS
Award Winners
Recognising the UK's best-performing future mid-market leaders
among smaller, private and publicly-listed companies.
In addition to the accolade of being a Megabuyte
Emerging Star, we also recognise the leading companies
in all nine peer groups, the Fastest Growing Company
and the Best Performing Company overall. Here, we
congratulate our 2019 award winners and provide
some detail on their Scorecard performance.
Before we look at each of these companies
individually, first a word on our overall winner. ENSEK
is an LDC-backed provider of SaaS-based end-to-end
software solutions to the UK retail energy market
which, in its latest year to March 2018, grew revenues
an all-organic 2.4x to 6.2m at an adjusted EBITDA
profit of 2.1m. ENSEK's rapid (and profitable) growth
trajectory is supported by its ability to solve issues
faced by larger incumbent suppliers, where legacy
technologies remain widely present, combined with
offering pre-configured solutions to get new entrants
up and running.
Monitoring company performance
The Megabuyte database is the most comprehensive research
asset of its type and contains detailed proprietary data on the
corporate and financial profiles of some 800 UK mid-market and
scale-up technology companies alongside dedicated director,
corporate activity and peer group data. The Megabuyte database
is available to Megabuyte subscribers.
Research
Resources
12
VIEW OUR AWARD SERIES, VISIT
www.megabuyte-awards.com
13
The Emerging Stars
Individual Award Winners
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE AWARDS
Recognising outperformance across
the Emerging Stars universe
ENSEK provides retail energy providers with end-to-end
solutions to operate in the UK market, from initial contact
and pricing through to billing, CRM, settlements and revenue
& margin management.
Megabuyte view: ENSEK's rapid and profitable growth trajectory is
underpinned by its SaaS-based model and its broad focus on exploiting
demand from the smallest to the largest energy suppliers in the UK. At
the top end, ENSEK is helping energy suppliers shift away from legacy
technologies to leverage the lower cost and flexibility of a SaaS model,
in addition to supporting new entrants into the UK energy market.
Supplementing its expansion going forward is also a growing partner
network, with collaboration with the likes of Flextricity.
ENSEK
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
OVERALL
COMPANY SCORE
SPONSORED BY
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
HeleCloud is an AWS partner that provides management and
business transformation consulting, technology consulting/
engineering and managed services.
Megabuyte view: HeleCloud's growth has been rapid with its success
to date being led by its Cloud-driven approach, which has seen it develop
a highly-qualified workforce (circa 220 AWS qualifications) that is led by
an experienced management team. Overall, with HeleCloud's progress to
date, nearshore model, increasing headcount and growth in managed
services, combined with the hype of AWS, there is plenty more to come,
with the company aiming for triple-digit growth in the current year.
HeleCloud
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Fastest Growing Company
OVERALL
COMPANY SCORE
SPONSORED BY
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
SOFTWARE PEER GROUP AWARDS
Recognising best-in-class performance
within individual peer groups
Safety Media provides a range of fully-integrated software and
e-learning solutions, focused on health and safety challenges
including incident reporting, risk management and audit.
Megabuyte view: Safety Media is one of several emerging software
businesses that cross both health and safety compliance and training to
come under the Megabuyte microscope. In recent years the company has
performed well with accelerating growth and widening profit margins, no
doubt helped by its shift away from DVD sales towards e-learning software
and content. The company continues to invest in its product offering and
looks set to exploit various revenue streams in the coming years.
Safety Media
OWNERSHIP: Owner Managed
Best Performing Company
ACCOUNTING & ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
SPONSORED BY
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
Celoxica provides low latency trading and market data solutions
for high frequency traders and brokers across the globe.
Megabuyte view: Following several years of flat growth, Celoxica's recent
growth spurt comes on the back of securing contracts from large tier one
banks as well as exploiting opportunities from MiFID II, where trading firms
are required to perform more stringent real time risk checks across multiple
asset classes. The group's performance is underpinned by a drive to innovate
and leverage partners to develop more solutions that provide a competitive
edge in high volume trading environments and access more sales channels
direct to trading firms. Going forward, the main challenge will be securing
further projects with large customers to maintain its growth trajectory.
Celoxica
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
BANKING & INSURANCE SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
14
15
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Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Emerging Stars
Individual Award Winners
PRISYM ID provides label management software solutions primarily
to the medical device, clinical trials and pharmaceuticals markets.
Megabuyte view: PRISYM ID is certainly a business that is unique within
the Megabuyte universe with its recognition of Emerging Stars status
coming after recording a notable increase in scale and profitability in
fiscal 2018. Considering that software players focused on the life sciences
sector under Megabuyte coverage tend to be strong performers over the
long term, PRISYM ID seems well placed to continue to prosper.
PRISYM ID
OWNERSHIP: Owner Managed
Best Performing Company
GOVERNMENT & HEALTHCARE SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
Egress' offering comes in the form of its proprietary unstructured
data security platform, which offers a range of solutions to help
customers communicate, manage files and use web services securely.
Megabuyte view: Strong organic growth, and a relatively recent $40m
fundraising for the business highlights a step up for Egress and the next
stage of the company's growth ambitions. There is a clear opportunity
for Egress' user-centric data security platform in the US (and Europe),
especially with macro tailwinds such as GDPR and high-profile data
breaches that are helping spur conversations about how businesses
handle sensitive data. The new investor, FTV Capital, also helps add
validity and firepower to the US strategy.
Egress Software
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
SECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
ENSEK provides retail energy providers with end-to-end solutions
to operate in the UK market, from initial contact and pricing through
to billing, CRM, settlements and revenue & margin management.
Megabuyte view: ENSEK's rapid and profitable growth trajectory is
underpinned by its SaaS-based model and its broad focus on exploiting
demand from the smallest to the largest energy suppliers in the UK.
At the top end, ENSEK is helping energy suppliers shift away from legacy
technologies to leverage the lower cost and flexibility of a SaaS model,
in addition to supporting new entrants into the UK energy market.
Supplementing its expansion going forward is also a growing partner
network, with collaboration with the likes of Flextricity.
ENSEK
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
INDUSTRY SPECIFIC SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
SPONSORED BY
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
ICT SERVICES PEER GROUP AWARDS
Recognising best-in-class performance
within individual peer groups
Beeks Financial Cloud provides low latency access to futures and
forex financial products on behalf of institutional investors and
retail traders via a presence in eleven data centres.
Megabuyte view: Beeks first year as a public company was a strong one,
with EBITDA to June 2018 rising 258% to 1.95m on revenues up 41% to
5.6m, albeit that revenues were impacted by the timing of larger, complex
contracts. All the signs are that 2019 will be equally strong, with consensus
of 49% EBITDA growth on 43% revenue growth, with the company likely
to feature again in next year's Emerging Stars, assuming it doesn't get
acquired before then.
Beeks Financial Cloud
OWNERSHIP: Public
Best Performing Company
DATA CENTRE & HOSTING SERVICES
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
Agilitas' USP is a highly-scalable maintenance support service
focused on IT infrastructure and data centre equipment, offering
a 2hr SLA, 24x7x365 white-labelled service for parts replacement,
repair and redeployment.
Megabuyte view: The scalability of Agilitas' model is what impresses us
the most, with a focus on the parts management process and outsourcing
of the actual field repair process to vendor services/field force specialists
helping drive strong EBITDA growth alongside top-line improvements. It's a
simple idea executed well and with good success based on strong retention
rates with its main client base, so in our view, the only limiting factor is
how quickly/efficiently the business can win and onboard new vendors,
products-under-SLA, systems integrators and distributors.
Agilitas IT Solutions
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
16
VIEW OUR AWARD SERIES, VISIT
www.megabuyte-awards.com
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Emerging Stars
Individual Award Winners
Wifnity specialises in the provision of WiFi services in hard to
reach campus-type environments, including military barracks,
holiday parks, schools and retail environments.
Megabuyte view: Wifinity's market niche has served it well, with revenues
up 3.5x to 6.8m from 2013 to 2017, whilst EBITDA has grown faster, with
margins almost doubling from 24% to 41% over the same period, and with
a strong order book. Whilst the company has funded capex out of EBITDA in
recent years, a 10m debt facility in early 2017 and a subsequent equity
funding round suggests bigger ambitions going forward.
Wifinity
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
TELECOMS SERVICES
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
17
HeleCloud is an AWS partner that provides management and
business transformation consulting, technology consulting/
engineering and managed services.
Megabuyte view: HeleCloud's growth has been rapid with its success to
date being led by its Cloud-driven approach, which has seen it develop a
highly-qualified workforce (circa 220 AWS qualifications) that is led by an
experienced management team. Overall, with HeleCloud's progress to date,
nearshore model, increasing headcount and growth in managed services,
combined with the hype of AWS, there is plenty more to come, with the
company aiming for triple-digit growth in the current year.
HeleCloud
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
IT CONSULTING
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
SPONSORED BY
SPONSORED BY
18
THE STRONGEST
PERFORMING
PEER GROUPS
The tables below show the top-performing companies in each of the
Megabuyte peer groups, as well as the average scores for each peer group.
For added context, it is interesting to note that there is little variance
between averages for all Software (51) and ICT Services (49) companies.
Leading the peer group averages is Data Centre &
Hosting Services at 65, where high growth metrics are
underpinned by strong demand from hyperscalers and
other Cloud service providers. Leading the Software
sector is Government & Healthcare Software peer
group with an average score of 64. While the Industry
Specific Software peer group yielded two of this year's
top three Emerging Stars, its average score was 47.
Interestingly, the Banking & Insurance Software peer
group, which had yielded the highest peer group
average in the last two Emerging Stars Awards
programmes, recorded the lowest average this year
at 42, although this is partly reflective of inheriting
several poor performing mobile-focused fintech
vendors, which were transferred after we discontinued
our Mobile, Wireless & Satellite peer group.
NB. Peer group averages are from the full qualifying
short list of 162.
Toby Roberts
CEO, Safety Media
Best Performing Company 2019 (AES)
We are delighted to once again be recognised
in this year's Megabuyte Emerging Stars Awards.
The accolade highlights that our strategy to grow
organically and profitably, balancing ongoing
investment with top line growth, continues to
be a winning formula for the business.
19
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Strongest Performing
Peer Groups
Software
Score
Rank
Safety Media
Award: Best Performing Company
83
7
CIPHR
78
12
Unicorn Training Group
75
17
Interact
75
18
Wax Digital
73
21
ACCOUNTING & ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 54
BANKING & INSURANCE SOFTWARE
Score
Rank
Celoxica
Award: Best Performing Company
80
8
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 42
GOVERNMENT & HEALTHCARE SOFTWARE
Score
Rank
PRISYM ID
Award: Best Performing Company
83
6
Impero
79
11
EU Supply
74
19
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 64
INDUSTRY SPECIFIC SOFTWARE
Score
Rank
ENSEK
Award: Overall Winner & Best Performing Company
95
1
Ticketer
84
3
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 47
SECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SOFTWARE
Score
Rank
Egress Software
Award: Best Performing Company
76
14
IMS Evolve
72
25
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 45
ICT Services
IT CONSULTING
Score
Rank
HeleCloud
Award: Fastest Growing Company & Best Performing Company
83
4
Answer Digital
79
10
Chorus Global
74
20
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 51
DATA CENTRE & HOSTING SERVICES
Score
Rank
Beeks Financial Cloud
Award: Best Performing Company
83
5
Volta Data Centres
73
23
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 65
INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES
Score
Rank
Agilitas IT Solutions
Award: Best Performing Company
80
9
Freestyle IT
72
24
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 44
Score
Rank
Wifinity
Award: Best Performing Company
87
2
Telesis
77
13
Qubic Group
76
15
Digitalk
76
16
Cloudcall Group
73
22
TELECOMS SERVICES
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 49
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
Source:
Megabuyte
20
VIEW OUR AWARD SERIES, VISIT
www.megabuyte-awards.com
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
OWNERSHIP
STRUCTURE
Reviewing the ownership structure of the 25 Emerging Stars companies
shows a broadly even split between owned managed and externally funded
companies alongside a few publicly-listed companies.
Of the 2019 Emerging Stars, 12 are owner managed,
10 have received external funding from private
equity, venture capital or other investor institutions,
and three are listed on the public markets. This
highlights a notable rise in the number of externally
funded vendors compared to last year, where owner
managed businesses accounted for 80% (or 20),
while it is interesting to note the high concentration
of externally funded companies in the top half of the
table, including four of the top five, highlighting that
external investment is being used to great effect.
Meanwhile, the three publicly listed companies are
reflective of the scarcity of businesses that choose to
IPO in this size range, accounting for only 17 out of
the entire 162 eligible companies. However, this was
up from last year's single, and first ever, publicly-listed
Emerging Star.
Reviewing the dynamics by sector emphasises the
varying penetration of external investment between
Software and ICT Services. Of the 13 Software
Emerging Stars, more than half are externally funded
(seven externally funded, five owner-managed and
one public), in contrast to a much heavier presence of
owner-managed businesses in the ICT Services sector
(three externally funded, seven owner-managed and
two public).
Source:
Megabuyte
FIGURE 5: Emerging Stars by Ownership
2017
2019
Private Equity
Owner Managed
Public
1
10
13
3
4
12
20
12
FIGURE 6: ICT Sector Ownership
2017
2019
Private Equity
Owner Managed
Public
1
1
3
7
7
2
2
14
21
Ownership Structure
TOP EXTERNALLY FUNDED COMPANIES
The top four externally funded Emerging Stars mirror the overall rankings, as Emerging Stars winner ENSEK is followed by three-time
Emerging Star player Wifinity and new entrants Ticketer and HeleCloud (the winner of the Fastest Growing Award). The fifth spot is taken
by Celoxica, which placed 8th in the overall rankings.
Source:
Megabuyte
Company Accounts
NB:
Organic growth:
ENSEK (138%) and
HeleCloud (293%)
Revenue CAGR:
HeleCloud (477%)
FIGURE 7: Top 5 Externally Funded Companies
TOP OWNER-MANAGED COMPANIES
The top two owner managed businesses are software vendors PRISYM ID and Safety Media, both of which topped their respective peer
groups, while the latter generated the highest EBITDA margin of all the Emerging Stars (at 43%). The remaining trio, Answer Digital, Telesis
and Qubic Group, were all in the ICT Services sector and placed 10th, 13th and 15th respectively in the overall rankings.
FIGURE 8: Top 5 Owner Managed Companies
Source:
Megabuyte
Company Accounts
Revenue (m)
EBITDA (m)
ENSEK
6.2
2.1
Wifinity
8.8
3.6
Ticketer
9.4
2.2
HeleCloud
3.1
0.2
Celoxica
3.6
1.1
Organic Growth
EBITDA Margins
Revenue CAGR
0%
15% 30% 40% 60% 75%
Revenue (m)
EBITDA (m)
PRISYM ID
7.5
2.0
Safety Media
4.9
2.1
Answer Digital
6.3
2.0
Telesis
8.1
2.2
Qubic Group
5.9
1.2
Organic Growth
EBITDA Margins
Revenue CAGR
0%
15%
30%
45%
22
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
CORPORATE
ACTIVITY
A look back at the Emerging Stars class of 2018
In this section, we take a look back at the corporate activity of the 2018
Emerging Stars class. While the number of deals among the 25 Emerging
Stars since the Awards series last year has been relatively low, with nine
deals, this is largely reflective of Emerging Stars being more of a target
than an acquirer, as none have completed any M&A transactions in this
time. Four companies were subject to private equity or growth capital
investment and five were acquired by trade buyers.
NORTH AMERICAN INTEREST IN UK TECH
One visible trend among the acquisition activity is the
corporate interest from North American trade buyers
in UK software assets, as Linguamatics, Invenias
and Greycon were acquired by IQVIA, Bullhorn, and
Constellation Software respectively. Interestingly, this
follows a broader trend across the Megabuyte universe
over the last year, with other notable examples
including Adestra and Rant & Rave (both acquired
by Upland Software), Lumesse (Saba Software),
NewVoiceMedia (Vonage), MetaPack (Stamps.com),
Intelliflo (Invesco), as well as 2017 Emerging Star
Grapeshot (Oracle).
The remaining two Emerging Stars to fall to trade
buyers from the last year's class were in the ICT
Services sector, including thevoicefactory (Evolve IP)
and SICL (MXC Capital & Liberty Global JV), with the
former also involving a US buyer. Meanwhile, in the
time since freezing the data and publishing this report,
an Emerging Star from this year's cohort has already
been acquired, Telesis by Firstcom Europe.
Turning to the fundraising activity, there were first
time investments at Livingstone Technologies (by
Carlyle Group), BCN Group (Beech Tree), SecureCloud+
(Livingbridge) and Wifinity (Literacy Capital).
View all previous years' Emerging Stars
winning companies at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
Corporate Activity
TABLE 2: ES 2018 businesses... where are they now?
Company
Peer Group
2018 Ranking
Transaction Type
Current Investor
Deal EV*
Wifinity
TS
3
GC
Literacy Capital
Invenias
AES
8
Acquired
Bullhorn
43m
BCN Group
IS
9
MBO
Beech Tree
23m
Linguamatics
GHS
10
Acquired
IQVIA
45m
Livingstone Technologies
SIS
11
MBO
Carlyle Group
50m
thevoicefactory
TS
13
Acquired
Evolve IP
10m
SICL
IS
15
Acquired
MXC Capital & Liberty Global
13m
Greycon
ISS
16
Acquired
Constellation Software
15m
SecureCloud+
DCH
20
GC
Livingbridge
Source:
Megabuyte
Company Accounts
NB:
*All deal values
are Megabuyte
estimates
SecureCloud+
received a 5m
investment
Emerging Stars 2018 INDIVIDUAL AWARD WINNERS
invenias
23
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Christian Bleakley
CEO, Telesis
Emerging Stars 2019 Top 15 Company
Emerging Stars 2018 Top 5 Company
Being in the top five of last year's Megabuyte Emerging
Stars awards was a nice recognition of the team's efforts
over the years, and I'm pleased that we have now followed
many other Emerging Stars by being spotted by our recent
buyer, Firstcom Europe.
What now for the class of 2019?
Looking ahead to next year's Emerging Stars, we expect the cohort of
companies to, again, experience a high level of churn, given that companies
in this size range are often subject to M&A, experience greater volatility in
financial performances and, as we detail below, are on track to outgrow the
Emerging Stars revenue criteria.
While we would expect owner-managed businesses to continue to account
for the majority of the Emerging Stars, having been the case for all three
years since starting the programme, we expect the proportion of externally
funded businesses to remain material due to the high levels of private
equity interest in this part of the market.
Prospects for
MEGABUYTE50
& MEGABUYTE
QUOTED25
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
24
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
Prospects for Megabuyte50
& Megabuyte Quoted25
TOP PROSPECTS
We have identified ten prospects from the class of 2019 that,
on their current revenue growth trajectories, look likely to exceed
the Emerging Stars upper revenue limit of 10m in their next set
of results, and, assuming continued/improved profitability, are
strong candidates for the next edition of our private company-
focused Megabuyte50 Awards. In contrast, as all of the publicly-
listed Emerging Stars from this year are in the 5-7m revenues
range, there are few if any prospects for the Megabuyte Quoted25
programme. However, there is every chance that one or more of
this year's Emerging Stars will undertake an IPO.
We'd also like to highlight the financial performance of Livingstone
Technologies and BCN Group which, after appearing in the Emerging
Stars class of 2018, went on to achieve placings in the Megabuyte50
Awards in November, with Livingstone securing the accolades of
Highest New Entrant and Peer Group Award winner. This underpins
the potential for Emerging Stars businesses to maintain their high
growth trajectories and establish themselves in the UK mid-market
tech industry.
TABLE 3: Top prospects for Megabuyte50
Company
Peer Group
Ownership
Revenue (m)
Revenue CAGR
EBITDA Margin
ENSEK
ISS
Private Equity
6.2
72%
34%
Wifinity
TS
Private Equity
8.8
31%
41%
Ticketer
ISS
Private Equity
9.4
38%
23%
Agilitas IT Solutions
IS
Private Equity
9.5
18%
21%
CIPHR
AES
Private Equity
9.3
19%
23%
Telesis
TS
Owner Managed
8.1
31%
27%
Digitalk
TS
Owner Managed
8.7
15%
27%
Unicorn Training Group
AES
Owner Managed
9.1
28%
19%
Interact
AES
Owner Managed
9.6
21%
8%
Freestyle IT
IS
Owner Managed
9.0
15%
4%
Source:
Megabuyte
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
25
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
About Megabuyte
26
The megabuyte Forum
The EMERGING STARS AWARDS is a Megabuyte Forum event.
With around 1000 members, the Megabuyte Forum is unique to the technology sector and offers
unparalleled CXO peer networking.
Forum membership is open to CXOs of UK-headquartered technology companies; you do not have to
be a Megabuyte subscriber. Investor and adviser involvement with the Megabuyte Forum is restricted
to Megabuyte subscribers and, for enhanced Forum access, on a sponsorship basis.
www.megabuyte.com/forum
About megabuyte
Megabuyte is the leading source of independent data and insights on UK technology
and tech-enabled businesses.
We deliver expert, independent and strategically actionable insights addressing the financial and corporate
affairs of some 1500 of the UK's key public and private companies in the ICT Services, Software and Business
Services sectors. A combination of our proprietary content, rigorous analytics and deep domain experience
make our research and opinions highly sought after by those seeking incisive and unvarnished intelligence
and insights.
Our research is available on-line, through subscription or pay-as-you-go, or on a retained or ad-hoc
consultancy basis.
www.megabuyte.com
About megabuyte awards
We run three awards, each focused on different categories of UK technology companies and
at different stages of their development. Together, they are designed to identify the Top 100
companies in the Megabuyte coverage universe of Software and ICT Services companies.
The Megabuyte award series grew out of our daily research activities, specifically scoring companies'
financial performance against peers using our proprietary Megabuyte Scorecard methodology. If we know
who the best-of-the-best are, why would we not share that information more widely within the industry?
Our mid-market focused awards the Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25 focus on privately-owned
and publicly-listed companies respectively.
Our Megabuyte Emerging Stars awards focus on smaller companies who are mid-market leaders of the
future. These awards incorporate both private and public companies.
www.megabuyte-awards.com
27
DISCLAIMER
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otherwise relies on this report. IS Research Ltd has itself relied on information provided to it by third parties or which
is publicly available in preparing this report. While IS Research Ltd has used reasonable care and skill in preparing
this report, IS Research Ltd does not guarantee the completeness or accuracy of the information contained in it and
the report solely reflects the opinions of IS Research Ltd.
The information provided by IS Research Ltd should not be regarded as an offer to buy or sell securities and should
not be regarded as an offer or solicitation to conduct investment business as defined by The Financial Services and
Markets Act 2000 ("the Act") nor does it constitute a recommendation. Opinions expressed do not constitute
investment advice. Any information on the past performance of an investment is not necessarily a guide to future
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has compiled this report on an independent basis.
Disclaimer
INTELLIGENCE
NETWORKING
CONSULTANCY
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www.megabuyte.com
THE WINNING
COMPANIES
2019
Recognising the UK's most exciting
scale-up technology companies
As defined by the
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The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
Our Award Series
PARTNER
SPONSORS
Emerging Stars
Grant Thornton UK LLP is part of one of the world's
leading organisations of independent advisory, tax
and audit firms. We help dynamic organisations
unlock their potential for growth by providing
meaningful, forward looking advice. In the UK,
we support over 40,000 privately held businesses,
public interest entities and individuals nationwide.
Our technology industry specialists across the UK
and around the globe can work with you to scale
your business. Helping you to plan for growth;
adapt your processes and controls for changing
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with our network of partners, the team can deliver
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Contact:
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Revealing the UK's Top 50
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mid-market leaders among earlier stage
public and privately-owned companies.
Looking beyond share price to identify
the UK's best-performing, publicly-listed
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Megabuyte Award Series
Identifying the best-performing companies in the UK technology sector
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Welcome & Contents
Ian Spence
FOUNDER & CEO, MEGABUYTE
Accelerating
Welcome to the 2019 Emerging Stars report. Before you dive into what is
once again a fascinating insight into the health of UK enterprise technology
scale-ups, I wanted to make a few high-level observations. The title of my
foreword last year was 'Rude Health' reflecting the fact that the Emerging
Stars companies were demonstrating fantastic metrics, especially organic
growth. Fast forward 12 months and our annual Scorecard Lite exercise
has revealed that this outstanding financial performance has actually
been bettered by the 2019 cohort. Average organic growth from this year's
Emerging Stars companies topped 50%, up from 37% in 2018. And that's
average growth. Even taking into account that these companies are
growing from a smaller base, this is an outstanding performance.
WELCOME TO THE
Emerging Stars awards 2019
Glossary
Report Acronyms
MBO Management Buyout
SBO
Secondary Buyout
P2P
Public to Private
IPO
Initial Public Offering
FPO
Follow on Public Offering
Peer Group Acronyms
Software
AES
Accounting & Enterprise Software
BIS
Banking & Insurance Software
GHS
Government & Healthcare Software
ISS
Industry Specific Software
SIS
Security & Infrastructure Software
ICT Services
DCH
Data Centre & Hosting Services
IS
Infrastructure Services
ITC
IT Consulting
TS
Telecoms Services
And this performance is all the more impressive when
we consider that the vast majority of these companies
are profitable; some very profitable. This year's top
company ENSEK demonstrates this point better than
any, with revenues more than doubled in the year, and
yet generating margins of over 30%. At a time when
so many smaller tech companies wear their losses as
a badge of honour, the Emerging Stars prove that the
best companies can generate fantastic growth and
make a decent profit. As I assess the funding outlook
for loss-making tech businesses, I have a strong feeling
that the notions of profit and sustainability will return
to fashion before too long.
Given the outstanding growth and profit metrics of
our Emerging Stars cohort, it is little wonder that the
private equity industry is increasingly looking to this
group of companies for returns. It is striking that, last
year, all of the top five Emerging Stars companies were
owner managed whereas, this year, all have external
backing. Indeed, only three of the top ten are owner
managed this year compared to nine last year. As well
as established lower mid-market investors, a clutch
of new tech-focussed funds have sprung up to target
the lower mid-market. I believe that this trend is to be
celebrated for two reasons. If founders are able to take
some money off the table at a relatively early stage of
a company's development and de-risk their personal
financial situation, then their companies are more likely
to continue on as independent entities for longer, to
the benefit of the UK tech sector. Also, the rigour of
private equity ownership should, by-and-large, make
them stronger companies. Arguably the downside of
greater PE ownership is focus on the five-year plan at
the expense of longer-term ambition, but I see this as
a fair trade-off.
So, these are my key take-aways from the report but
there is much more detail to get your teeth into so
please read on. As ever, I must close with a heart-felt
thank you to all of our Emerging Stars sponsors, and to
our programme partners NatWest and Grant Thornton in
particular. Their ongoing support enables us to celebrate
these great companies, which represent the future of
this increasingly important part of the UK economy.
Document Information
All share prices and valuations quoted are
as at the close of business on 8 February 2019.
Published by the team at megabuyte
The Blade, Abbey Square, Reading RG1 3BE
0118 948 5850 | info@megabuyte.com
www.megabuyte.com
megabuyte 2019
CONTENTS
Executive Summary
4
The Megabuyte Scorecard
6
The Emerging Stars Performance Overview
8
The Emerging Stars Top 25 Rankings
10
The Emerging Stars Individual Award Winners
12
The Strongest Performing Peer Groups
18
Ownership Structure
20
Corporate Activity
22
Prospects for Megabuyte50 & Megabuyte Quoted25
24
Executive Summary
As a research team, our workflows depend on our ability to draw on and
comprehend a significant amount of available company data, especially
when trying to evaluate broader sector trends and a company's place
within them. The Megabuyte Scorecard is now an intrinsic part of this
process and, having tailored the methodology to businesses with revenues
of between 3m and 10m, we have been able to identify and celebrate
the latest batch of top performing scale-up companies. In this report,
we expand on the Scorecard methodology, provide analysis on the 2019
Emerging Stars, review what last year's winners have been up to, and look
at which companies might break out into our two other flagship Awards
programmes: Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25.
The INDUSTRY
LEADERS OF
THE FUTURE
4
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
5
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
Executive Summary
Shaun Lynn
CEO, Agilitas IT Solutions
Best Performing Company 2019 (IS)
Emerging Stars 2018 Top 25 Company
Being recognised as part of the Emerging Stars
programme in both 2017 and 2018 highlights the stellar
progress our organisation has made in delivering not only
strong growth but in a sustainable, profitable way as well.
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
DEFINING A SCALE-UP BUSINESS
We officially launched the Megabuyte Scorecard in early 2015,
which now not only underpins our day-to-day research work at
Megabuyte but also our annual Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte
Quoted25 Awards. However, in analysing smaller companies, we
needed a system that reflected the differing priorities of earlier
stage companies, namely on growth. So, in early 2017, we developed
Scorecard Lite which still uses three years of accounts and relies on
a full financial model for each company. Unlike the Megabuyte50
and Megabuyte Quoted25 Awards, Emerging Stars looks at both
public and private companies within the revenue size range.
INVESTING FOR GROWTH
Now in the third instalment of the Emerging Stars programme,
we have grown the pool of companies that fit the Emerging Stars
revenue criteria to around 250. Hence, the 25 companies to make
it into this year's Emerging Stars can be confident that they are
among the top 10% of all companies we track in that size range.
With an average organic growth in their last financial year of 50%
and average EBITDA margins of 16.0% this is a formidable group
indeed; Emerging Stars companies are growing twice as fast as
the 2018 Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25 winners, albeit
at circa half the average profit margin, reflecting their focus on
investing for growth.
Delving into the 25 Emerging Stars in greater detail shows that
only five of the businesses from last year's Emerging Stars retained
a top 25 ranking, with the high levels of churn reflecting the fact
that many of these business find themselves more of a target than
an acquirer, and there is an inherently higher volatility in financial
performance in this size range, while some outgrew the revenue
criteria. Looking at the distribution by sector shows an even split
between Software and ICT Services, marking a shift from last
year's skew towards the latter. Accompanying this resurgence in
Software companies was a greater proportion of externally funded
companies, which broadly matched the total of owner managed
businesses, while the number of publicly-listed companies remained
limited, albeit increasing on last year's first ever publicly-listed
Emerging Star.
2019 AWARDS
In addition to identifying the 25 Emerging Stars, the programme
also recognises the very best companies in all nine Software and
ICT Services peer groups, as well as the leading company overall and
the highest-growth company. As a result, there are 11 Awards, all
identified on pages 12-17.
EMERGING STARS ATTRACT OVERSEAS BUYERS
Looking back at the corporate activity of last year's Emerging Stars
class shows a limited level of deal activity over the last year, reflecting
the fact that Emerging Stars find themselves as more of a target
than an acquirer. Key highlights include five being acquired by trade
buyers, including a clear interest from North American trade buyers
in UK software companies, and four companies receiving investment
for the first time.
THE NEXT MID-MARKET COHORT
As well as spotting the future of the UK tech industry, the
Emerging Stars programme acts as an early warning system for the
Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25 companies, as highlighted
by four Emerging Stars from previous classes finding success in
our Megabuyte50 Awards. From the 25 Emerging Stars, we have
identified 10 prospects that, based on their current revenue growth
trajectories, look likely to exceed the Emerging Stars upper revenue
limit of 10m in their next set of results, and, assuming continued
profitability, are strong candidates for the next edition of our private
company-focused Megabuyte50 Awards. There are no prospects
for the Megabuyte Quoted25 programme, although there is every
chance that one or more of this year's Emerging Stars could
undertake an IPO.
6
WHAT DOES A 'GOOD' TECH SCALE-UP
COMPANY LOOK LIKE?
The Emerging Stars programme aims to talent
spot future mid-market leaders among smaller,
UK private and publicly-listed companies. While
some of these companies are relatively young,
many have been operating for many years but have
recently found a rich growth seam. While there are
many awards programmes in the UK tech sector,
Megabuyte Awards are unique in being based purely
on publicly available information or undisclosed
audited numbers provided in confidence, on which
the Megabuyte research team builds financial
models for each company, that are evaluated by our
proprietary Scorecard methodology. We feel that
this trumps other awards, which rely on one narrow
measure, or (often over-optimistic) self-certification
by nominated companies.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Megabuyte Scorecard is a proprietary
benchmarking methodology developed by the
research team at Megabuyte, pooling over 60 years
of combined experience assessing the performance
of software, IT and telecoms services companies.
Compared with the seven key measures used
for the Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25
methodology, the Scorecard Lite system used for
Emerging Stars assesses five key measures and
is more focused around growth; two for revenue
growth, one for profit margin and one for margin
improvement, as well as one for overall size. These
measures are then weighted to provide what we feel
is the optimum balance for scale-up companies.
Our PROPRIETARY
BENCHMARKING
METHODOLOGY
An expert tool for companies and the investor and advisory communities
seeking to understand companies' performance relative to peers.
How to track Scorecard performance
on a rolling basis
Megabuyte Scorecard ratings for companies, peer groups
and sectors are produced on a rolling basis, adjusted daily,
and available to Megabuyte subscribers via the megabuyte.com
content platform. Selected Scorecard rankings are also published
in our report series, available to non-subscribers to purchase at
www.megabuyte.com/reports
Research
Resources
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Megabuyte Scorecard
WHO QUALIFIES?
Companies eligible for the Emerging Stars programme are drawn from the peer groups we cover in the broader Megabuyte universe; namely
software and ICT companies. For a company to be considered, it must also be UK-headquartered and domiciled, have generated revenues of
3-10m in its latest financial year, and have up-to-date accounts for a three-year period. Companies that have undergone significant M&A
or other such transformational events are excluded.
A Growth
In assessing a company's revenue
growth, we have struck a balance
between our view that organic
growth is preferable, whilst still
acknowledging that acquisitions are
an additional way to grow.
A Profitability
Whilst scale-up companies quite often
lose money during their formative
years to support growth, we reward
companies who also do so profitably,
using EBITDA margins as the optimal
measure of P&L profitability. Margin
improvement is also a key measure
used in Scorecard Lite.
A Size
While size does not mean that a
company is good or bad, the law of
large numbers does mean that it is
harder to generate organic growth, in
percentage terms, as a company gets
larger. As a result, we give some credit
to the larger companies.
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE QUARTILES
Once we have assembled all the data, we group performance
in all five categories into quartiles and apply a score to each
quartile this gives each company a primary score. By segmenting
performance in this way, the potential distortion from outliers
is neutralised and it also gives a clear view of strong areas, and
areas of improvement for each company. Throughout the report,
readers will see a company's primary score represented in our
Quartile Radar charts, an example of which is shown in Figure 2.
Each company's primary score is then weighted according to our
proprietary methodology, and each company is ranked within its
quartile to provide the final Megabuyte Scorecard rating.
FIGURE 2: ...To Generate a Score
FIGURE 1: Combining Factor Performance...
Source:
Megabuyte
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
7
VIEW OUR AWARD SERIES, VISIT
www.megabuyte-awards.com
Analysing the
EMERGING STARS
OF 2019
Investing for growth
Megabuyte is now tracking more than 1,200 companies across Software,
ICT and Business Services sectors in the UK mid-market. Within this, we track
more than 250 UK Software and ICT businesses that sit in the Emerging Stars
programme's 3-10m revenue criteria, of which an overwhelming majority
are privately owned and 162 have a Scorecard Lite rating. These figures do,
however, understate the total number of smaller, more 'emerging' companies
known to Megabuyte, as we are tracking more than 1,000 monitor list
companies, which are yet to publish detailed accounts.
Table 1 shows the quartile performance of the entire
162 Scorecard Lite dataset. When we look at the
Emerging Stars companies in the context of the
data, we can see that, on average, Emerging Stars
companies produce financial metrics in the top/fourth
quartile, and often well above the quartile boundary.
As a group, the 2019 Emerging Stars companies
delivered average organic growth in their last financial
year of 50% and an average revenue CAGR over the
last three/four years of 48%, both more than double
the top/fourth quartile boundary. While many of
these businesses are investing heavily to support this
growth, with a few loss-making businesses present in
the 25 this year, the cohort averaged 16.0% EBITDA
margins and had a median year-on-year margin
improvement of 3.6 percentage points (pp), both
positioned in the fourth quartile. The average revenue
size of the Emerging Stars is 7.1m (third quartile).
For added context, this year's Emerging Stars
generated similar margins to last year's winners but
outperformed in terms of growth metrics; the 2018
cohort averaged 37% organic growth, a 35% CAGR
and 2.7pp average margin expansion. Additionally,
the growth metrics from this year's Emerging Stars
are more than double that of the 2018 Megabuyte50
and Megabuyte Quoted25 winners, although margins
are closer to half, reflecting greater growth investment
at this size range.
8
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Emerging Stars
Performance Overview
Paul Ellis
CEO, Wax Digital
Emerging Stars 2019 Top 25 Company
Emerging Stars 2018 Top 20 Company
Being part of the Megabuyte Emerging Stars Awards
programme provides independent validation of our
relative financial performance in what is a competitive
and fragmented e-learning software market. What's
more, alongside our strengths, the Megabuyte Scorecard
is a useful tool to see where we can continue to improve.
TABLE 1: How the Megabuyte Emerging Stars Universe Performs
Size
Revenues (m)
Organic Revenue
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA
Margin
EBITDA Margin
Improvement
1st Quartile
Boundary
4.6
-3.3%
-1.2%
-7.0%
-3.2
2nd Quartile
Boundary
6.4
5.0%
5.2%
5.7%
-0.2
3rd Quartile
Boundary
8.5
20.0%
14.8%
13.7%
2.2
4th Quartile
Source:
Megabuyte
BALANCED SECTOR SPLITS
Looking at the distribution of Emerging Stars companies across our two tech Sectors, this year featured a more balanced split between
Software (13) and ICT Services (12). Segmenting it further shows that our most populous peer groups, Telecoms Services and Accounting
& Enterprise Software, accounted for ten of 25 companies, followed by Government & Healthcare Software and IT Consulting at three each.
The peer group with the fewest Emerging Stars was Banking & Insurance Software with one company.
FIGURE 4: Composition of ES by peer group
FIGURE 3: Composition of ES by sector
9
Source:
Megabuyte
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
TS
DCH
ITC
IS
AES
BIS
SIS
ISS
GHS
2017
2019
Software
ICT Services
9
13
16
9
12
16
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
EMERGING STARS
2019 RANKINGS
Presenting the 2019 Emerging Stars
The tables in this section summarise the key data, Scorecard rankings
and scores of the class of 2019, as well as how the companies have moved
relative to last year. We focus on the peer group category Award winners in
greater detail in the next section but, here, it is interesting to look at some
of the high-level dynamics of the group.
When we look at who's in, who's out, who's up and
who's down, it is clear that the number of new entrants
was similarly high this year (20 in total), which is driven
by the fact that half of last year's Emerging Stars have
either been acquired (more details on which can be
found on page 23) or outgrown the size criteria. Close
to half of this year's new entrants have been added to
Megabuyte coverage since the last Awards, including
the winners of this year's overall best performing
company ENSEK and the fastest growing company
HeleCloud. Of the five returners, three have climbed the
rankings, including Beeks and Agilitas breaking into the
top ten and Wifinity maintaining a top five spot for the
third year running.
Breaking down the 25 by ownership shows that, while
owner managed businesses are fairly balanced with
externally funded ones 12 to 10, externally funded
vendors dominate the top half of the table, including
holding the top four spots. The top owner managed
business is PRISYM ID, which placed sixth overall. The
top publicly-listed company is Beeks Financial Cloud,
which became the first publicly listed Emerging Star
in last year's Awards and improved its ranking this
year to break into the top five.
As we saw in the sector analysis in the prior section,
this year's Emerging Stars were evenly split between
Software and ICT Services companies, which fed into
a similarly even split in the top 10.
Jon Slade
CEO, ENSEK
Overall Winner 2019 & Best Performing Company 2019 (ISS)
Being recognised in the Emerging Stars
Awards independently validates the strength
of ENSEK's business model and strategy to our
Board, employees, customers and investors.
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
10
11
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Emerging Stars
Top 25 Rankings
Rank
Trend Company
Peer
Group
Ownership
Investor
Revenue
(m) Score
Prev
Rank
1
NEW
ENSEK
Overall Winner & Best Performing Company (ISS)
ISS
Externally Funded
LDC
6.2
95
2
Wifinity
Best Performing Company (TS)
TS
Externally Funded
Literacy Capital
8.8
87
3
3
NEW
Ticketer
ISS
Externally Funded
Tenzing Private Equity
9.4
84
4
NEW
HeleCloud
Overall Fastest Growing Company &
Best Performing Company (ITC)
ITC
Externally Funded
BGF
3.1
83
5
Beeks Financial Cloud
Best Performing Company (DCH)
DCH
Public
5.6
83
24
The Top 5 Performing Companies
Higher
Lower
New entrant
NEW
Rank
Trend Company
Peer
Group
Ownership
Investor
Revenue
(m) Score
Prev
Rank
6
NEW
PRISYM ID
Best Performing Company (GHS)
GHS
Owner Managed
7.5
83
7
NEW
Safety Media
Best Performing Company (AES)
AES
Owner Managed
4.9
83
8
NEW
Celoxica
Best Performing Company (BIS)
BIS
Externally Funded
Oxford Capital Partners
3.6
80
9
Agilitas IT Solutions
Best Performing Company (IS)
IS
Externally Funded
NVM Private Equity
9.5
80
23
10
NEW
Answer Digital
ITC
Owner Managed
6.3
79
11
NEW
Impero
GHS
Externally Funded
Investcorp
6.6
79
12
NEW
CIPHR
AES
Externally Funded
LDC
9.3
78
13
Telesis
TS
Owner Managed
8.1
77
5
14
NEW
Egress Software
Best Performing Company (SIS)
SIS
Externally Funded
FTV Capital
9.4
76
15
NEW
Qubic Group
TS
Owner Managed
5.9
76
16
NEW
Digitalk
TS
Owner Managed
8.7
76
17
NEW
Unicorn Training Group
AES
Owner Managed
9.1
75
18
NEW
Interact
AES
Owner Managed
9.6
75
19
NEW
EU Supply
GHS
Public
4.7
74
20
NEW
Chorus Global
ITC
Owner Managed
5.6
74
21
Wax Digital
AES
Externally Funded
August Equity
6.6
73
18
22
NEW
CloudCall Group
TS
Public
6.9
73
23
NEW
Volta Data Centres
DCH
Owner Managed
5.3
73
24
NEW
Freestyle IT
IS
Owner Managed
9.0
72
25
NEW
IMS Evolve
SIS
Owner Managed
8.6
72
Emerging Stars companies 6-25
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
EMERGING STARS
Award Winners
Recognising the UK's best-performing future mid-market leaders
among smaller, private and publicly-listed companies.
In addition to the accolade of being a Megabuyte
Emerging Star, we also recognise the leading companies
in all nine peer groups, the Fastest Growing Company
and the Best Performing Company overall. Here, we
congratulate our 2019 award winners and provide
some detail on their Scorecard performance.
Before we look at each of these companies
individually, first a word on our overall winner. ENSEK
is an LDC-backed provider of SaaS-based end-to-end
software solutions to the UK retail energy market
which, in its latest year to March 2018, grew revenues
an all-organic 2.4x to 6.2m at an adjusted EBITDA
profit of 2.1m. ENSEK's rapid (and profitable) growth
trajectory is supported by its ability to solve issues
faced by larger incumbent suppliers, where legacy
technologies remain widely present, combined with
offering pre-configured solutions to get new entrants
up and running.
Monitoring company performance
The Megabuyte database is the most comprehensive research
asset of its type and contains detailed proprietary data on the
corporate and financial profiles of some 800 UK mid-market and
scale-up technology companies alongside dedicated director,
corporate activity and peer group data. The Megabuyte database
is available to Megabuyte subscribers.
Research
Resources
12
VIEW OUR AWARD SERIES, VISIT
www.megabuyte-awards.com
13
The Emerging Stars
Individual Award Winners
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE AWARDS
Recognising outperformance across
the Emerging Stars universe
ENSEK provides retail energy providers with end-to-end
solutions to operate in the UK market, from initial contact
and pricing through to billing, CRM, settlements and revenue
& margin management.
Megabuyte view: ENSEK's rapid and profitable growth trajectory is
underpinned by its SaaS-based model and its broad focus on exploiting
demand from the smallest to the largest energy suppliers in the UK. At
the top end, ENSEK is helping energy suppliers shift away from legacy
technologies to leverage the lower cost and flexibility of a SaaS model,
in addition to supporting new entrants into the UK energy market.
Supplementing its expansion going forward is also a growing partner
network, with collaboration with the likes of Flextricity.
ENSEK
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
OVERALL
COMPANY SCORE
SPONSORED BY
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
HeleCloud is an AWS partner that provides management and
business transformation consulting, technology consulting/
engineering and managed services.
Megabuyte view: HeleCloud's growth has been rapid with its success
to date being led by its Cloud-driven approach, which has seen it develop
a highly-qualified workforce (circa 220 AWS qualifications) that is led by
an experienced management team. Overall, with HeleCloud's progress to
date, nearshore model, increasing headcount and growth in managed
services, combined with the hype of AWS, there is plenty more to come,
with the company aiming for triple-digit growth in the current year.
HeleCloud
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Fastest Growing Company
OVERALL
COMPANY SCORE
SPONSORED BY
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
SOFTWARE PEER GROUP AWARDS
Recognising best-in-class performance
within individual peer groups
Safety Media provides a range of fully-integrated software and
e-learning solutions, focused on health and safety challenges
including incident reporting, risk management and audit.
Megabuyte view: Safety Media is one of several emerging software
businesses that cross both health and safety compliance and training to
come under the Megabuyte microscope. In recent years the company has
performed well with accelerating growth and widening profit margins, no
doubt helped by its shift away from DVD sales towards e-learning software
and content. The company continues to invest in its product offering and
looks set to exploit various revenue streams in the coming years.
Safety Media
OWNERSHIP: Owner Managed
Best Performing Company
ACCOUNTING & ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
SPONSORED BY
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
Celoxica provides low latency trading and market data solutions
for high frequency traders and brokers across the globe.
Megabuyte view: Following several years of flat growth, Celoxica's recent
growth spurt comes on the back of securing contracts from large tier one
banks as well as exploiting opportunities from MiFID II, where trading firms
are required to perform more stringent real time risk checks across multiple
asset classes. The group's performance is underpinned by a drive to innovate
and leverage partners to develop more solutions that provide a competitive
edge in high volume trading environments and access more sales channels
direct to trading firms. Going forward, the main challenge will be securing
further projects with large customers to maintain its growth trajectory.
Celoxica
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
BANKING & INSURANCE SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
14
15
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Emerging Stars
Individual Award Winners
PRISYM ID provides label management software solutions primarily
to the medical device, clinical trials and pharmaceuticals markets.
Megabuyte view: PRISYM ID is certainly a business that is unique within
the Megabuyte universe with its recognition of Emerging Stars status
coming after recording a notable increase in scale and profitability in
fiscal 2018. Considering that software players focused on the life sciences
sector under Megabuyte coverage tend to be strong performers over the
long term, PRISYM ID seems well placed to continue to prosper.
PRISYM ID
OWNERSHIP: Owner Managed
Best Performing Company
GOVERNMENT & HEALTHCARE SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
Egress' offering comes in the form of its proprietary unstructured
data security platform, which offers a range of solutions to help
customers communicate, manage files and use web services securely.
Megabuyte view: Strong organic growth, and a relatively recent $40m
fundraising for the business highlights a step up for Egress and the next
stage of the company's growth ambitions. There is a clear opportunity
for Egress' user-centric data security platform in the US (and Europe),
especially with macro tailwinds such as GDPR and high-profile data
breaches that are helping spur conversations about how businesses
handle sensitive data. The new investor, FTV Capital, also helps add
validity and firepower to the US strategy.
Egress Software
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
SECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
ENSEK provides retail energy providers with end-to-end solutions
to operate in the UK market, from initial contact and pricing through
to billing, CRM, settlements and revenue & margin management.
Megabuyte view: ENSEK's rapid and profitable growth trajectory is
underpinned by its SaaS-based model and its broad focus on exploiting
demand from the smallest to the largest energy suppliers in the UK.
At the top end, ENSEK is helping energy suppliers shift away from legacy
technologies to leverage the lower cost and flexibility of a SaaS model,
in addition to supporting new entrants into the UK energy market.
Supplementing its expansion going forward is also a growing partner
network, with collaboration with the likes of Flextricity.
ENSEK
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
INDUSTRY SPECIFIC SOFTWARE
COMPANY SCORE
SPONSORED BY
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
ICT SERVICES PEER GROUP AWARDS
Recognising best-in-class performance
within individual peer groups
Beeks Financial Cloud provides low latency access to futures and
forex financial products on behalf of institutional investors and
retail traders via a presence in eleven data centres.
Megabuyte view: Beeks first year as a public company was a strong one,
with EBITDA to June 2018 rising 258% to 1.95m on revenues up 41% to
5.6m, albeit that revenues were impacted by the timing of larger, complex
contracts. All the signs are that 2019 will be equally strong, with consensus
of 49% EBITDA growth on 43% revenue growth, with the company likely
to feature again in next year's Emerging Stars, assuming it doesn't get
acquired before then.
Beeks Financial Cloud
OWNERSHIP: Public
Best Performing Company
DATA CENTRE & HOSTING SERVICES
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
Agilitas' USP is a highly-scalable maintenance support service
focused on IT infrastructure and data centre equipment, offering
a 2hr SLA, 24x7x365 white-labelled service for parts replacement,
repair and redeployment.
Megabuyte view: The scalability of Agilitas' model is what impresses us
the most, with a focus on the parts management process and outsourcing
of the actual field repair process to vendor services/field force specialists
helping drive strong EBITDA growth alongside top-line improvements. It's a
simple idea executed well and with good success based on strong retention
rates with its main client base, so in our view, the only limiting factor is
how quickly/efficiently the business can win and onboard new vendors,
products-under-SLA, systems integrators and distributors.
Agilitas IT Solutions
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
16
VIEW OUR AWARD SERIES, VISIT
www.megabuyte-awards.com
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
The Emerging Stars
Individual Award Winners
Wifnity specialises in the provision of WiFi services in hard to
reach campus-type environments, including military barracks,
holiday parks, schools and retail environments.
Megabuyte view: Wifinity's market niche has served it well, with revenues
up 3.5x to 6.8m from 2013 to 2017, whilst EBITDA has grown faster, with
margins almost doubling from 24% to 41% over the same period, and with
a strong order book. Whilst the company has funded capex out of EBITDA in
recent years, a 10m debt facility in early 2017 and a subsequent equity
funding round suggests bigger ambitions going forward.
Wifinity
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
TELECOMS SERVICES
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
17
HeleCloud is an AWS partner that provides management and
business transformation consulting, technology consulting/
engineering and managed services.
Megabuyte view: HeleCloud's growth has been rapid with its success to
date being led by its Cloud-driven approach, which has seen it develop a
highly-qualified workforce (circa 220 AWS qualifications) that is led by an
experienced management team. Overall, with HeleCloud's progress to date,
nearshore model, increasing headcount and growth in managed services,
combined with the hype of AWS, there is plenty more to come, with the
company aiming for triple-digit growth in the current year.
HeleCloud
OWNERSHIP: Externally Funded
Best Performing Company
IT CONSULTING
COMPANY SCORE
Size
Organic
Growth
Revenue
CAGR
EBITDA margin
improvement
EBITDA
margin
SPONSORED BY
SPONSORED BY
18
THE STRONGEST
PERFORMING
PEER GROUPS
The tables below show the top-performing companies in each of the
Megabuyte peer groups, as well as the average scores for each peer group.
For added context, it is interesting to note that there is little variance
between averages for all Software (51) and ICT Services (49) companies.
Leading the peer group averages is Data Centre &
Hosting Services at 65, where high growth metrics are
underpinned by strong demand from hyperscalers and
other Cloud service providers. Leading the Software
sector is Government & Healthcare Software peer
group with an average score of 64. While the Industry
Specific Software peer group yielded two of this year's
top three Emerging Stars, its average score was 47.
Interestingly, the Banking & Insurance Software peer
group, which had yielded the highest peer group
average in the last two Emerging Stars Awards
programmes, recorded the lowest average this year
at 42, although this is partly reflective of inheriting
several poor performing mobile-focused fintech
vendors, which were transferred after we discontinued
our Mobile, Wireless & Satellite peer group.
NB. Peer group averages are from the full qualifying
short list of 162.
Toby Roberts
CEO, Safety Media
Best Performing Company 2019 (AES)
We are delighted to once again be recognised
in this year's Megabuyte Emerging Stars Awards.
The accolade highlights that our strategy to grow
organically and profitably, balancing ongoing
investment with top line growth, continues to
be a winning formula for the business.
19
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
Strongest Performing
Peer Groups
Software
Score
Rank
Safety Media
Award: Best Performing Company
83
7
CIPHR
78
12
Unicorn Training Group
75
17
Interact
75
18
Wax Digital
73
21
ACCOUNTING & ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 54
BANKING & INSURANCE SOFTWARE
Score
Rank
Celoxica
Award: Best Performing Company
80
8
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 42
GOVERNMENT & HEALTHCARE SOFTWARE
Score
Rank
PRISYM ID
Award: Best Performing Company
83
6
Impero
79
11
EU Supply
74
19
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 64
INDUSTRY SPECIFIC SOFTWARE
Score
Rank
ENSEK
Award: Overall Winner & Best Performing Company
95
1
Ticketer
84
3
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 47
SECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SOFTWARE
Score
Rank
Egress Software
Award: Best Performing Company
76
14
IMS Evolve
72
25
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 45
ICT Services
IT CONSULTING
Score
Rank
HeleCloud
Award: Fastest Growing Company & Best Performing Company
83
4
Answer Digital
79
10
Chorus Global
74
20
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 51
DATA CENTRE & HOSTING SERVICES
Score
Rank
Beeks Financial Cloud
Award: Best Performing Company
83
5
Volta Data Centres
73
23
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 65
INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES
Score
Rank
Agilitas IT Solutions
Award: Best Performing Company
80
9
Freestyle IT
72
24
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 44
Score
Rank
Wifinity
Award: Best Performing Company
87
2
Telesis
77
13
Qubic Group
76
15
Digitalk
76
16
Cloudcall Group
73
22
TELECOMS SERVICES
PEER GROUP AVERAGE: 49
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
Source:
Megabuyte
20
VIEW OUR AWARD SERIES, VISIT
www.megabuyte-awards.com
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
OWNERSHIP
STRUCTURE
Reviewing the ownership structure of the 25 Emerging Stars companies
shows a broadly even split between owned managed and externally funded
companies alongside a few publicly-listed companies.
Of the 2019 Emerging Stars, 12 are owner managed,
10 have received external funding from private
equity, venture capital or other investor institutions,
and three are listed on the public markets. This
highlights a notable rise in the number of externally
funded vendors compared to last year, where owner
managed businesses accounted for 80% (or 20),
while it is interesting to note the high concentration
of externally funded companies in the top half of the
table, including four of the top five, highlighting that
external investment is being used to great effect.
Meanwhile, the three publicly listed companies are
reflective of the scarcity of businesses that choose to
IPO in this size range, accounting for only 17 out of
the entire 162 eligible companies. However, this was
up from last year's single, and first ever, publicly-listed
Emerging Star.
Reviewing the dynamics by sector emphasises the
varying penetration of external investment between
Software and ICT Services. Of the 13 Software
Emerging Stars, more than half are externally funded
(seven externally funded, five owner-managed and
one public), in contrast to a much heavier presence of
owner-managed businesses in the ICT Services sector
(three externally funded, seven owner-managed and
two public).
Source:
Megabuyte
FIGURE 5: Emerging Stars by Ownership
2017
2019
Private Equity
Owner Managed
Public
1
10
13
3
4
12
20
12
FIGURE 6: ICT Sector Ownership
2017
2019
Private Equity
Owner Managed
Public
1
1
3
7
7
2
2
14
21
Ownership Structure
TOP EXTERNALLY FUNDED COMPANIES
The top four externally funded Emerging Stars mirror the overall rankings, as Emerging Stars winner ENSEK is followed by three-time
Emerging Star player Wifinity and new entrants Ticketer and HeleCloud (the winner of the Fastest Growing Award). The fifth spot is taken
by Celoxica, which placed 8th in the overall rankings.
Source:
Megabuyte
Company Accounts
NB:
Organic growth:
ENSEK (138%) and
HeleCloud (293%)
Revenue CAGR:
HeleCloud (477%)
FIGURE 7: Top 5 Externally Funded Companies
TOP OWNER-MANAGED COMPANIES
The top two owner managed businesses are software vendors PRISYM ID and Safety Media, both of which topped their respective peer
groups, while the latter generated the highest EBITDA margin of all the Emerging Stars (at 43%). The remaining trio, Answer Digital, Telesis
and Qubic Group, were all in the ICT Services sector and placed 10th, 13th and 15th respectively in the overall rankings.
FIGURE 8: Top 5 Owner Managed Companies
Source:
Megabuyte
Company Accounts
Revenue (m)
EBITDA (m)
ENSEK
6.2
2.1
Wifinity
8.8
3.6
Ticketer
9.4
2.2
HeleCloud
3.1
0.2
Celoxica
3.6
1.1
Organic Growth
EBITDA Margins
Revenue CAGR
0%
15% 30% 40% 60% 75%
Revenue (m)
EBITDA (m)
PRISYM ID
7.5
2.0
Safety Media
4.9
2.1
Answer Digital
6.3
2.0
Telesis
8.1
2.2
Qubic Group
5.9
1.2
Organic Growth
EBITDA Margins
Revenue CAGR
0%
15%
30%
45%
22
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
CORPORATE
ACTIVITY
A look back at the Emerging Stars class of 2018
In this section, we take a look back at the corporate activity of the 2018
Emerging Stars class. While the number of deals among the 25 Emerging
Stars since the Awards series last year has been relatively low, with nine
deals, this is largely reflective of Emerging Stars being more of a target
than an acquirer, as none have completed any M&A transactions in this
time. Four companies were subject to private equity or growth capital
investment and five were acquired by trade buyers.
NORTH AMERICAN INTEREST IN UK TECH
One visible trend among the acquisition activity is the
corporate interest from North American trade buyers
in UK software assets, as Linguamatics, Invenias
and Greycon were acquired by IQVIA, Bullhorn, and
Constellation Software respectively. Interestingly, this
follows a broader trend across the Megabuyte universe
over the last year, with other notable examples
including Adestra and Rant & Rave (both acquired
by Upland Software), Lumesse (Saba Software),
NewVoiceMedia (Vonage), MetaPack (Stamps.com),
Intelliflo (Invesco), as well as 2017 Emerging Star
Grapeshot (Oracle).
The remaining two Emerging Stars to fall to trade
buyers from the last year's class were in the ICT
Services sector, including thevoicefactory (Evolve IP)
and SICL (MXC Capital & Liberty Global JV), with the
former also involving a US buyer. Meanwhile, in the
time since freezing the data and publishing this report,
an Emerging Star from this year's cohort has already
been acquired, Telesis by Firstcom Europe.
Turning to the fundraising activity, there were first
time investments at Livingstone Technologies (by
Carlyle Group), BCN Group (Beech Tree), SecureCloud+
(Livingbridge) and Wifinity (Literacy Capital).
View all previous years' Emerging Stars
winning companies at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
Corporate Activity
TABLE 2: ES 2018 businesses... where are they now?
Company
Peer Group
2018 Ranking
Transaction Type
Current Investor
Deal EV*
Wifinity
TS
3
GC
Literacy Capital
Invenias
AES
8
Acquired
Bullhorn
43m
BCN Group
IS
9
MBO
Beech Tree
23m
Linguamatics
GHS
10
Acquired
IQVIA
45m
Livingstone Technologies
SIS
11
MBO
Carlyle Group
50m
thevoicefactory
TS
13
Acquired
Evolve IP
10m
SICL
IS
15
Acquired
MXC Capital & Liberty Global
13m
Greycon
ISS
16
Acquired
Constellation Software
15m
SecureCloud+
DCH
20
GC
Livingbridge
Source:
Megabuyte
Company Accounts
NB:
*All deal values
are Megabuyte
estimates
SecureCloud+
received a 5m
investment
Emerging Stars 2018 INDIVIDUAL AWARD WINNERS
invenias
23
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
Christian Bleakley
CEO, Telesis
Emerging Stars 2019 Top 15 Company
Emerging Stars 2018 Top 5 Company
Being in the top five of last year's Megabuyte Emerging
Stars awards was a nice recognition of the team's efforts
over the years, and I'm pleased that we have now followed
many other Emerging Stars by being spotted by our recent
buyer, Firstcom Europe.
What now for the class of 2019?
Looking ahead to next year's Emerging Stars, we expect the cohort of
companies to, again, experience a high level of churn, given that companies
in this size range are often subject to M&A, experience greater volatility in
financial performances and, as we detail below, are on track to outgrow the
Emerging Stars revenue criteria.
While we would expect owner-managed businesses to continue to account
for the majority of the Emerging Stars, having been the case for all three
years since starting the programme, we expect the proportion of externally
funded businesses to remain material due to the high levels of private
equity interest in this part of the market.
Prospects for
MEGABUYTE50
& MEGABUYTE
QUOTED25
Find out more about our awards and
view all Emerging Stars 2019 winners at
www.megabuyte-awards.com
24
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
Prospects for Megabuyte50
& Megabuyte Quoted25
TOP PROSPECTS
We have identified ten prospects from the class of 2019 that,
on their current revenue growth trajectories, look likely to exceed
the Emerging Stars upper revenue limit of 10m in their next set
of results, and, assuming continued/improved profitability, are
strong candidates for the next edition of our private company-
focused Megabuyte50 Awards. In contrast, as all of the publicly-
listed Emerging Stars from this year are in the 5-7m revenues
range, there are few if any prospects for the Megabuyte Quoted25
programme. However, there is every chance that one or more of
this year's Emerging Stars will undertake an IPO.
We'd also like to highlight the financial performance of Livingstone
Technologies and BCN Group which, after appearing in the Emerging
Stars class of 2018, went on to achieve placings in the Megabuyte50
Awards in November, with Livingstone securing the accolades of
Highest New Entrant and Peer Group Award winner. This underpins
the potential for Emerging Stars businesses to maintain their high
growth trajectories and establish themselves in the UK mid-market
tech industry.
TABLE 3: Top prospects for Megabuyte50
Company
Peer Group
Ownership
Revenue (m)
Revenue CAGR
EBITDA Margin
ENSEK
ISS
Private Equity
6.2
72%
34%
Wifinity
TS
Private Equity
8.8
31%
41%
Ticketer
ISS
Private Equity
9.4
38%
23%
Agilitas IT Solutions
IS
Private Equity
9.5
18%
21%
CIPHR
AES
Private Equity
9.3
19%
23%
Telesis
TS
Owner Managed
8.1
31%
27%
Digitalk
TS
Owner Managed
8.7
15%
27%
Unicorn Training Group
AES
Owner Managed
9.1
28%
19%
Interact
AES
Owner Managed
9.6
21%
8%
Freestyle IT
IS
Owner Managed
9.0
15%
4%
Source:
Megabuyte
PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
Emerging Stars awards and EMERGING STARS SHOWCASE Conference
25
The Emerging Stars awards
THE WINNING COMPANIES 2019
About Megabuyte
26
The megabuyte Forum
The EMERGING STARS AWARDS is a Megabuyte Forum event.
With around 1000 members, the Megabuyte Forum is unique to the technology sector and offers
unparalleled CXO peer networking.
Forum membership is open to CXOs of UK-headquartered technology companies; you do not have to
be a Megabuyte subscriber. Investor and adviser involvement with the Megabuyte Forum is restricted
to Megabuyte subscribers and, for enhanced Forum access, on a sponsorship basis.
www.megabuyte.com/forum
About megabuyte
Megabuyte is the leading source of independent data and insights on UK technology
and tech-enabled businesses.
We deliver expert, independent and strategically actionable insights addressing the financial and corporate
affairs of some 1500 of the UK's key public and private companies in the ICT Services, Software and Business
Services sectors. A combination of our proprietary content, rigorous analytics and deep domain experience
make our research and opinions highly sought after by those seeking incisive and unvarnished intelligence
and insights.
Our research is available on-line, through subscription or pay-as-you-go, or on a retained or ad-hoc
consultancy basis.
www.megabuyte.com
About megabuyte awards
We run three awards, each focused on different categories of UK technology companies and
at different stages of their development. Together, they are designed to identify the Top 100
companies in the Megabuyte coverage universe of Software and ICT Services companies.
The Megabuyte award series grew out of our daily research activities, specifically scoring companies'
financial performance against peers using our proprietary Megabuyte Scorecard methodology. If we know
who the best-of-the-best are, why would we not share that information more widely within the industry?
Our mid-market focused awards the Megabuyte50 and Megabuyte Quoted25 focus on privately-owned
and publicly-listed companies respectively.
Our Megabuyte Emerging Stars awards focus on smaller companies who are mid-market leaders of the
future. These awards incorporate both private and public companies.
www.megabuyte-awards.com
27
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is publicly available in preparing this report. While IS Research Ltd has used reasonable care and skill in preparing
this report, IS Research Ltd does not guarantee the completeness or accuracy of the information contained in it and
the report solely reflects the opinions of IS Research Ltd.
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Disclaimer
INTELLIGENCE
NETWORKING
CONSULTANCY
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