A US VC has made a £75 million majority investment into mobile workforce management technology company BigChange.
Boston-based Great Hill Partners, the growth-oriented private equity firm behind Wayfair, ZoomInfo and Reward Gateway, has invested significant capital to drive further growth and innovation at the Leeds-headquartered company which serves the service and transport sectors.
BigChange’s management team, led by founder and CEO Martin Port, will retain a significant minority stake in the company, which is now valued at £100m.
This team will continue to lead the business, which employs 170 people, as it moves into the next phase of development.
Port, a serial entrepreneur, founded the software-as-a-service company in 2013. Its field service management technology is the core workflow tool for businesses employing field service technicians and operators, providing job scheduling, customer invoicing and payments automation, mobile workforce management, and client engagement.
The platform serves 50,000 workers at 1,500 small–to–enterprise clients spanning more than 20 industries, from plant hire to drainage and waste, and social housing to food service. Clients include Sunbelt Rentals, Silentnight, Recycling Lives, HSS and EDF.
“We are incredibly excited to partner with Great Hill and leverage their successful track-record scaling vertical and enterprise software companies both in the UK and overseas,” said Port.
Writing on the company’s website, he said in a message to his team: “We plan to double the size of the team over the next three to five years, taking us to 400 people. This is only the beginning, the next chapter in the story of BigChange.
“I wanted to write this post because it’s easy to scroll past a deal announcement without really knowing what – or who – went into making it happen. I’m so proud of all we have built and how hard we have all worked to get us to this point – and so grateful.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to work tirelessly, alongside my management team and new partners from GHP, to build BigChange into a tech unicorn, worth £1 billion.”
A substantial tranche of this investment will be put towards innovation and product development as the company expands into new territories and drives additional growth within the UK to maintain its trajectory across large, valuable end markets such as the US, continental Europe and Asia Pacific.
Drew Loucks, a partner at Great Hill Partners, commented: “Unlike niche players that focus on smaller customers and specific sub-verticals, Martin and his accomplished team have built a flexible, all-in-one platform for field service professionals and operators.
“BigChange’s technology is differentiated not only by its ability to serve commercial and residential clients of nearly any scale or vertical, but also by its award-winning product development and customer service capabilities.”
BigChange has experienced 50 percent average year-over-year revenue growth since inception.