Investment
Manchester-based business intelligence platform Red Flag Alert has received a £3.5 million private equity investment from Foresight Group.
Red Flag Alert has modernized the way businesses consume data, providing real-time information on over 15 million UK businesses. With a unique insolvency score, in addition to sales and marketing support, they support better business decisions.
Foresight’s investment will support the company’s growth ambitions – providing the capital to continue investing in product development, creating quality, sustainable jobs and expanding commercial capabilities and reach.
As part of the investment, veteran John Lord will join the board as non-executive chairman.
Lord previously served as group managing director of listed data provider GB Group for eight years and as managing director of Dun & Bradstreet (UK&I) for six years.
He recently established a leading customer onboarding platform, which he left for LexisNexis, and will help the company significantly increase its market share.
The company, which employs more than 50 people, has developed a proprietary business intelligence SaaS platform with modular capabilities for credit security compliance, sales prospecting, risk management and financial health assessments, selling to a growing corporate customer base.
Red Flag Alert strengthens team with two senior employees
Red Flag Alert recently launched its third-generation platform with a much-improved user interface and functionality that accelerated growth, with ARR increasing 25 percent in the past year alone.
Commenting on the investment, Richard West, CEO of Red Flag Alert, said: “In the rapidly changing world of financial risk and data insights, innovation and disruption are vital. From the beginning of our conversations with Foresight, they understood Red Flag Alert’s mission and our value in the industry. We are proud to partner with them to increase our market share and continue our journey.”
Fiona Hatch, senior investment manager at Foresight, added: “Red Flag Alert has built an impressive product and customer base. With our investment and support, the team will be in an excellent position to take advantage of the potential market opportunity. We look forward to working with Richard and the rest of the team to enable the next phase of their growth.”
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Foresight completed more than 90 SME investments in 2022, in addition to a number of strong exits.
In the same year, Foresight’s Private Equity team announced three new funds, an acquisition of a venture capital fund and expanded its regional branch network by opening offices in Dublin and Leeds.
To date, Foresight has invested in 35 SMEs by 2023, announced it will open an office in Newcastle and announced a number of successful exits including Datapath (11.7x cash), Mowgli (3.5x cash) and GovGrant (4.5x amount of money). ).
