Phil Jones

iStrategy provides an independent expert opinion on the how well placed a leading travel technology platform is to expand in the enterprise-scale market of tour providers in Europe and North America.

iStrategy provides expert advice and guidance on the technology opportunities and challenges in the global maritime industry.

iStrategy provides independent expert technology advice and guidance as part of a competitive bidding process.

iStrategy provides expert advice and guidance on payment processing in the global hospitality industry.

iStrategy advises a leading private equity firm in Turkey on evaluating an investment in an E-commerce technology platform that enables merchants to establish an online storefront and to grow their online commerce presence through social channels.

iStrategy provides independent advice on how greater digital engagement could create value for clients and contribute to the delivery of the business plan.

An international travel management provider with a presence in more than 100 countries was seeking independent advice on how effectively it was managing its transition from an on-premise to a hybrid cloud environment. Drawing on our experience of helping investors to evaluate comparable initiatives iStrategy was able to offer practical advice on how to meet the objectives of the transformation programme and ultimately how to realise the promise that cloud technologies offer.

Turkish online furniture platform has secured $130 million investment from Turkish private equity firm Actera Group.

Founded in 2013 by Kemal Erol, Vivense’s online platform sells furniture all over Turkey. The platform is complemented by Vivense’s 53 experience centers (small showrooms) across the country that employ interior designers to help customers make their purchase decisions. The startup sources furniture from about 500 manufacturers in Turkey and claims to have served over 1… Show more

Turkish online furniture platform has secured $130 million investment from Turkish private equity firm Actera Group.

Founded in 2013 by Kemal Erol, Vivense’s online platform sells furniture all over Turkey. The platform is complemented by Vivense’s 53 experience centers (small showrooms) across the country that employ interior designers to help customers make their purchase decisions. The startup sources furniture from about 500 manufacturers in Turkey and claims to have served over 1 million households in almost seven years of its existence.

Vivense manages the entire sales cycle with fulfillment centers spread over a total area of 50,000 squarer-meters its own last-mile delivery teams (with branded vehicles) who also assemble the furniture for customers. The platform sells tens of thousands of products in across different categories of home furniture. Show less

GNS, the maritime technology company, has been acquired by Cornes Chart Group, a leading charts business. The combination of the two companies creates the largest provider of navigation software, data and products in the world serving more than 10,000 vessels.

"This acquisition delivers a proprietary technology platform and highly experienced team which will accelerate the transformation of Rank and create one of the UK's leading online gaming businesses. Our focus now turns to ensuring we successfully integrate Stride into Rank and realise the potential of our new enlarged digital business." John O'Reilly, Rank Chief Executive

A prospective investor was seeking independent advice on the technology capabilities of Getir, a fast-growing last-mile grocery delivery service to consumers in Turkey. Drawing on our experience of evaluating business with comparable operating characteristics and growth trajectories we were able to offer advice on how well placed the technology architecture and organisation was to support the growth ambitions of the business.

Magenta Partners has acquired a stake in FastPayHotels (FPH), a fast growing, dynamic rate hotel wholesaler, connecting sources of supply (hotels) with sources of demand (travel agencies and tour operators).

Progress review of the findings of the technology due diligence work undertaken previously by iStrategy on behalf of Silverfleet Capital as part of its investment in Riviera Travel, a leading UK-based provider of European tours and cruises with an education and entertainment focus to the over 55s market.

Clanwilliam Group Ireland, has announced the completion of a €200m debt placement with Alcentra. The funding will provide Clanwilliam Group with an initial €200m of committed capital to refinance existing facilities and to finance near term acquisition opportunities. A further €100m of follow-on capital is earmarked for future growth in order to accelerate the Group’s global M&A ambitions.

Duke Street, the UK based mid-market private equity firm, has acquired Great Rail Journeys (‘GRJ’), the world’s leading provider of escorted rail holidays. York based Great Rail Journeys offers almost 400 itineraries to over 50 countries globally.

Ferd has entered into an agreement to invest in the Norwegian cybersecurity company mnemonic. Headquartered in Oslo, mnemonic is one of the largest cybersecurity service providers in Europe, and the preferred security partner of many of the region’s top organisations. The company is also a trusted source of threat intelligence to Europol and other law enforcement agencies globally. The new partnership aims to secure a long-term ownership between mnemonic’s employees and Ferd, and strengthen… Show more

Ferd has entered into an agreement to invest in the Norwegian cybersecurity company mnemonic. Headquartered in Oslo, mnemonic is one of the largest cybersecurity service providers in Europe, and the preferred security partner of many of the region’s top organisations. The company is also a trusted source of threat intelligence to Europol and other law enforcement agencies globally. The new partnership aims to secure a long-term ownership between mnemonic’s employees and Ferd, and strengthen mnemonic’s international expansion. Show less

CitNOW is a specialist provider of video applications that create a more transparent, easier car buying and owning experience for automotive dealership customers. Its applications improve performance of automotive dealerships by allowing staff to send personalised, branded video presentations of vehicles for sale. In addition, workshop technicians use CitNOW’s Workshop app to send videos to customers to evidence parts that need replacing when cars are brought in for service.

Founded in 1984 and based in Burton-on-Trent in the UK, Riviera is a leading operator of escorted tours with a focus on the over 55s market. The Company provides European tour holidays, river and ocean cruises, city breaks, and long-haul tours with varied itineraries combining leisure with education and entertainment. Riviera continues to diversify its range of holidays and currently offers tours and cruises to 50 countries, attracting over 118,000 customers per year.

Intuitus is pleased to have provided technology due diligence advice to Souter Investments, the family investment office of Sir Brian Souter, co-founder and Chairman of Stagecoach Group plc, on its investment in CoachHire.com, a market leading ‘EdTech’ transport specialist and provider of coach and minibus transport services across the UK and to more than 100 cities worldwide. CoachHIre provides technology-led passenger transport services, vehicle tracking and passenger safeguarding solutions… Show more

Intuitus is pleased to have provided technology due diligence advice to Souter Investments, the family investment office of Sir Brian Souter, co-founder and Chairman of Stagecoach Group plc, on its investment in CoachHire.com, a market leading ‘EdTech’ transport specialist and provider of coach and minibus transport services across the UK and to more than 100 cities worldwide. CoachHIre provides technology-led passenger transport services, vehicle tracking and passenger safeguarding solutions to the education, corporate and leisure sectors nationwide through its SchoolSafe and TripBooker software. Show less

Inflexion Private Equity announces that funds managed by Inflexion have acquired ATCORE Group (‘ATCORE’), a leading travel technology company which provides specialist software platforms for the global leisure travel sector.

With clients such as TUI, Thomas Cook and Mark Warner, ATCORE designs, builds and maintains reservation software for leading global tour operators. Its proprietary reservation system is highly complex, and supports sophisticated business models which allow clients to… Show more

Inflexion Private Equity announces that funds managed by Inflexion have acquired ATCORE Group (‘ATCORE’), a leading travel technology company which provides specialist software platforms for the global leisure travel sector.

With clients such as TUI, Thomas Cook and Mark Warner, ATCORE designs, builds and maintains reservation software for leading global tour operators. Its proprietary reservation system is highly complex, and supports sophisticated business models which allow clients to manage large volumes of search requests, optimise customer experience and enhance profitability. Show less

Virgin Experience Days offers curated experiences to consumers and corporates, from flying Spitfires to short luxury breaks, selling over 750,000 experiences annually. A high-growth business, revenue has doubled to £50m in three years, driven by a seamless tech-enabled customer experience and the ongoing consumer shift to sharing experiences over tangible goods. Virgin Experience Days operates B2C and B2B divisions. Virgin Incentives, the B2B division, offers experience days for employee… Show more

Virgin Experience Days offers curated experiences to consumers and corporates, from flying Spitfires to short luxury breaks, selling over 750,000 experiences annually. A high-growth business, revenue has doubled to £50m in three years, driven by a seamless tech-enabled customer experience and the ongoing consumer shift to sharing experiences over tangible goods. Virgin Experience Days operates B2C and B2B divisions. Virgin Incentives, the B2B division, offers experience days for employee rewards and recognition programmes, with clients such as Barclaycard and Samsung. Show less

Nano specialises in advertising technology focused on the emerging search and intent based targeting sector.

Search targeting is a form of online advertising where relevant display, mobile and video advertisements are served to internet users based on their recent search history. Using its proprietary data management platform, Audience Manager, Nano has developed a network comprising 500 million unique profiles and captures more than five billion searches per month. Nano works with over… Show more

Nano specialises in advertising technology focused on the emerging search and intent based targeting sector.

Search targeting is a form of online advertising where relevant display, mobile and video advertisements are served to internet users based on their recent search history. Using its proprietary data management platform, Audience Manager, Nano has developed a network comprising 500 million unique profiles and captures more than five billion searches per month. Nano works with over 500 clients globally including T-Mobile, Volkswagen and MediaMarkt and has offices in Munich, Hamburg, London, Paris, Belgrade and Warsaw.

With Foresight’s investment, Nano will accelerate its plans to expand internationally and make further investments in sales, marketing and product development. The investment will also support the roll-out of INSIST, Nano’s brand safe solution for advertisers. Show less

Cruise.co is a specialist online travel agent serving the UK ocean cruise market. Originally part of Carnival Corporation from which it spun out in 2007, the company is based in the Midlands, employs 170 people and is the leading online player in its space thanks to a strongly differentiated proposition and its content driven website and highly personal customer service. It also has a market-leading social media presence and online cruise review forum with over 110,000 members and 17 million… Show more

Cruise.co is a specialist online travel agent serving the UK ocean cruise market. Originally part of Carnival Corporation from which it spun out in 2007, the company is based in the Midlands, employs 170 people and is the leading online player in its space thanks to a strongly differentiated proposition and its content driven website and highly personal customer service. It also has a market-leading social media presence and online cruise review forum with over 110,000 members and 17 million web visits per annum. Show less

Advisor to The Gym Group Board of Directors on the selection of a strategic partner to redevelop its online presence.

Panther, which is headquartered in Northampton, specialises in two-man and one-man assisted delivery services for major brands and retailers, including Dunelm, Silent Night and Bosch Siemens Group.

Guestline serves a broad customer base of independent hotels, hotel chains, pub companies and serviced apartments; delivering proprietary hospitality software solutions via the cloud. Guestline’s services essentially pay for themselves by driving up occupancy, average room rate and yield. Guestline is a trusted partner for properties in 20 countries across four continents. Guestline’s range of products cover all areas of hospitality and hotel management, including property management software,… Show more

Guestline serves a broad customer base of independent hotels, hotel chains, pub companies and serviced apartments; delivering proprietary hospitality software solutions via the cloud. Guestline’s services essentially pay for themselves by driving up occupancy, average room rate and yield. Guestline is a trusted partner for properties in 20 countries across four continents. Guestline’s range of products cover all areas of hospitality and hotel management, including property management software, channel distribution, digital marketing, payment card industry compliance and electronic point-of-sale systems. Show less

FSN Capital IV has signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Netcompany A/S. Netcompany has achieved great success as an IT supplier to both the public and private sector and plans to develop an even greater presence in other Northern European countries through both organic growth and acquisitions. For FSN Capital, the partnership provides strong potential to export Netcompany’s strengths in the large, mission-critical IT projects to the rest of Northern Europe.

VULOG, the European leader in carsharing technologies, closes a €8.4 million growth capital financing led by the Ecotechnologies Fund and the Environmental Technologies Fund to accelerate the deployment of its new generation carsharing solutions.
Based in Nice, VULOG was founded in 2006 by two INRIA (French Research Institute) engineers, Georges Gallais and David Emsellem, and develops innovative hardware and software end-to-end solutions responding to the mobility needs of individuals and… Show more

VULOG, the European leader in carsharing technologies, closes a €8.4 million growth capital financing led by the Ecotechnologies Fund and the Environmental Technologies Fund to accelerate the deployment of its new generation carsharing solutions.
Based in Nice, VULOG was founded in 2006 by two INRIA (French Research Institute) engineers, Georges Gallais and David Emsellem, and develops innovative hardware and software end-to-end solutions responding to the mobility needs of individuals and companies alike. VULOG is recognized as a pioneer in new generation carsharing referred to as “free floating” (or “one-way”), offering no constraints of pick-up points and return stations, while eliminating the need for advance reservations. Users can therefore benefit from a flexible and on-demand mobility solution. Show less

NVM Private Equity (NVM) has invested £4.5 million development capital into Love Energy Savings (LES), a comparison and procurement service specialising in helping SMEs identify the optimal gas and electricity supplier and tariff to suit their needs.
Bolton based LES offers full market comparison across a wide range of panel suppliers and manages any resultant switching process on behalf of the SME from initial agreement to completion. This is achieved through a sophisticated bespoke… Show more

NVM Private Equity (NVM) has invested £4.5 million development capital into Love Energy Savings (LES), a comparison and procurement service specialising in helping SMEs identify the optimal gas and electricity supplier and tariff to suit their needs.
Bolton based LES offers full market comparison across a wide range of panel suppliers and manages any resultant switching process on behalf of the SME from initial agreement to completion. This is achieved through a sophisticated bespoke technology platform which has been developed by the LES in-house team. Show less

Captify Media Limited (“Captify”), one of the fastest growing advertising technology businesses in Europe, and a market leader in search retargeting, has secured £8 million of series B funding, led by Smedvig Capital with follow on commitments from all existing investors including Panoramic Growth Equity. The company has developed the largest independent search data network in Europe, covering 550m unique users globally and billions of searches. Captify works with over 88 media agencies in… Show more

Captify Media Limited (“Captify”), one of the fastest growing advertising technology businesses in Europe, and a market leader in search retargeting, has secured £8 million of series B funding, led by Smedvig Capital with follow on commitments from all existing investors including Panoramic Growth Equity. The company has developed the largest independent search data network in Europe, covering 550m unique users globally and billions of searches. Captify works with over 88 media agencies in the UK and over 100 in Europe; and runs campaigns on behalf of the world’s largest brands including Microsoft, British Airways, Barclays, Warner Brothers, SKY, BMW, Hilton and American Express; all of whom use its proprietary technology to engage with consumers at the key point of intent.
Captify is a multi-award winning business, named as UK’s number 1 Startup (Startups100), described by SMARTA as “the most original, exciting, resourceful and disruptive business in the UK”, and listed among the top 50 fast growth companies in the UK by Santander Breakthrough 50 (2014). The London based founders, Dominic Joseph (aged 30) and Adam Ludwin (aged 27) who set up the business in 2011, have also been named Young Entrepreneurs of the Year by the Great British Entrepreneur Award and the WCIT awards. Both came from digital media backgrounds on both the buy and sell sides of the industry, before combining to form Captify. Show less

Lyceum Capital has backed the management buyout of fast-growing business information company Briefing Media Group.
Briefing Media owns Farmers Guardian as well as a growing portfolio of other online and print agriculture brands, including Agrimoney.com. It also owns a number of events and exhibitions, including LAMMA, the UK’s largest agriculture event, and the British Farming Awards. The group also operates The Media Briefing, which provides strategy insight and market intelligence for… Show more

Lyceum Capital has backed the management buyout of fast-growing business information company Briefing Media Group.
Briefing Media owns Farmers Guardian as well as a growing portfolio of other online and print agriculture brands, including Agrimoney.com. It also owns a number of events and exhibitions, including LAMMA, the UK’s largest agriculture event, and the British Farming Awards. The group also operates The Media Briefing, which provides strategy insight and market intelligence for senior decision makers in the media industry. Show less

Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has led a $22 million investment in Babbel, the leading app for language learning. Funding will drive further growth and product development at the Berlin based business.
Babbel has been profitable since 2011 with its mobile app seeing up to 120,000 downloads per day – currently the highest grossing language learning app in both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. With its recently released app for Apple Watch, Babbel presents a strong vision for the… Show more

Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has led a $22 million investment in Babbel, the leading app for language learning. Funding will drive further growth and product development at the Berlin based business.
Babbel has been profitable since 2011 with its mobile app seeing up to 120,000 downloads per day – currently the highest grossing language learning app in both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. With its recently released app for Apple Watch, Babbel presents a strong vision for the future of language learning. Show less

One of the UK’s fastest growing technology companies, MVF (mvfglobal.com), has announced that Bridgepoint Development Capital (‘BDC’) has taken a 40% stake in the business to facilitate accelerated growth, potential acquisitions and continued international expansion.

Big Bus Tours is the largest operator of open-top sightseeing bus tours in the world, providing tours in sixteen cities across Europe, the US, and Asia. The company was formed in 2011 by the merger of UK-based Big Bus Company Ltd and Paris-based Les Cars Rouges, with each company being family owned and having over 20 years of successful tour experience.

ECI Partners (‘ECI’), the UK’s leading growth-focused, mid-market private equity firm, has invested in Investis, the leading independent global specialist in digital corporate communications. ECI will provide support and additional capital to the business to accelerate its global growth strategy.
Over the past two years, Investis has expanded rapidly by opening offices in the US (New York, San Francisco, and Palm Beach, Florida) and through the acquisitions of global3digital in the UK and… Show more

ECI Partners (‘ECI’), the UK’s leading growth-focused, mid-market private equity firm, has invested in Investis, the leading independent global specialist in digital corporate communications. ECI will provide support and additional capital to the business to accelerate its global growth strategy.
Over the past two years, Investis has expanded rapidly by opening offices in the US (New York, San Francisco, and Palm Beach, Florida) and through the acquisitions of global3digital in the UK and Alert IR in the Nordic region. The funding from ECI will enable Investis to build on this success and to establish itself as the global leader in its market.
Headquartered in London, Investis provides digital services that enable companies to manage their corporate communications and investor relations. Investis has over a decade of expertise in managing digital corporate communications for public companies and has been one of the pioneers and innovators in this space. Investis currently works for more than 70% of the companies in the FTSE 100 and a total of nearly 2,000 clients across Europe and the US. Its clients include Alibaba, Anglo American, BAE Systems, BMW, Capita, Chevron, easyJet, GDF Suez, GE, Novartis, Prudential and Rolls-Royce. Show less

IT due diligence

Based in London, ICS is a leading provider of staffing, complex care services and administrative outsourcing for clients in the healthcare sector. Its database of 20,000 on-call temporary healthcare professionals provide a critical balancing service which ensures hospitals and GP surgeries can find key workers with specialist skills at short notice.

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT advisory services

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT due diligence

IT advisory services

CRUISE.co.uk, the specialist online travel agent serving the UK ocean cruise market, is to be acquired by Bridgepoint Development Capital from Risk Capital Partners in a transaction totalling £52 million.

Originally part of Carnival Corporation from which it spun out in 2007, the company is based in the Midlands, employs 170 people and is the leading online player in its space thanks to a strongly differentiated proposition and its content driven website and highly personal customer… Show more

CRUISE.co.uk, the specialist online travel agent serving the UK ocean cruise market, is to be acquired by Bridgepoint Development Capital from Risk Capital Partners in a transaction totalling £52 million.

Originally part of Carnival Corporation from which it spun out in 2007, the company is based in the Midlands, employs 170 people and is the leading online player in its space thanks to a strongly differentiated proposition and its content driven website and highly personal customer service. It also has a market-leading social media presence and online cruise review forum with over 110,000 members and 17 million web visits per annum. Show less