WatchMyCompetitor, a competitor intelligence platform that enables businesses to track the activity of its peers to assist in their own strategy and decisions, has raised £1.8 million investment.
£1m of this was from Wealth Club clients under the Enterprise Investment Scheme, nearly twice its original target, while existing institutional investor Blackfinch supported the round.
For a business to grow it must outpace its competitors and this has become increasingly crucial in a fast-moving digital world, where emerging players and new technologies mean the competitive landscape changes faster than ever before. Without access to relevant and timely intelligence, an organisation can’t adapt or respond fast enough to what’s happening in the market.
Companies that track their competitors and market in real-time can gain a real advantage – research shows they are 19 times more likely to be profitable. Indeed, demand for real-time data is at a record high.
WMC was set up to help large companies keep their competitive edge. Its Software as a Service competitor intelligence platform uses proprietary machine learning technology to track competitors and provide real-time information to senior managers – from changing prices to launching and removing products.
Combining machine learning technology with expert human analysis, WMC provides its clients with actionable intelligence to help protect and grow revenue.
Since the launch of the platform in 2018 the company has achieved consistent year-on-year growth. It is now used by more than 90 international clients across a range of industries, including the likes of Santander, Legal & General and Abbott Health.
The business has achieved 83% growth in the last 12 months, with over a third of its recurring revenues coming for major US companies. The company aims to break-even next year at the same time as maintaining high growth rates.
“Our own research suggested that over half of companies plan to increase their investment in competitor intelligence in the coming years,” said Richard Jackson, CEO. “We believe we are the only platform on the market which uses market analysts to prepare daily, curated intelligence reports from the data automatically gathered.
“This saves our clients time, money, and energy. Our enterprise design – makes it very easy to deploy the software across complex global organisations without code changes. We believe that most medium to large commercial organisations in the world should use our service which has been developed and enhanced through client feedback over a number of years.
“With a growing list of clients, and in excess of 2,000 users across 45 countries, we now have a mature platform that is being taken to market. This was further validated by the fantastic service and response from Wealth Club.”
The capital raised will be used to continue to grow the business through expanding the sales and client success teams as well as marketing the platform, with a plan to achieve a market valuation of £70m in the next three years.
“With over 50% of revenue now coming from outside the UK, our next steps are to continue to grow the business internationally,” added Jackson.
Gayle Bowen, head of direct company investments at Wealth Club, said: “WMC is yet another example of a commercially compelling EIS qualifying company being oversubscribed by members of Wealth Club.
“WMC has a sophisticated and proven product in a fast growing market with global customers on multi year contracts, consistent sales growth and a sound business model with strong margins. Customer retention is exceptional and the demand for the WMC service looks set to continue.
“With break-even estimated to be a few months away, WMC looks like it has the ability to be both high growth and profitable. The team boot strapped the company in its early days and there remains in place today a great culture, discipline and governance which has impressed us further.”