Manchester-based business intelligence platform Red Flag Alert has received a 拢3.5m private equity investment from Foresight Group.
Red Flag Alert has modernised the way that companies consume data, with real-time information on over聽15 million UK businesses. With a unique insolvency scoring metric, alongside sales and marketing enablement, they power better business decisions.
Foresight鈥檚 investment will support the company鈥檚 growth ambitions 鈥� providing the capital to continue to invest in product development, create high-quality, sustainable jobs and to expand its commercial capabilities and reach.
As part of the investment experienced John Lord will join the board as non-executive chair.
Lord previously spent eight years as group managing director of listed data provider GB Group and six years as managing director of Dun & Bradstreet (UK&I).
He recently founded a leading customer onboarding platform which he exited to LexisNexis and he鈥檒l help the company significantly increase its market share.
The company, which employs more than 50 people, has developed a proprietary SaaS business intelligence platform with modular capabilities spanning credit security compliance, sales prospecting, risk management and financial health assessments sold into a growing corporate customer base.
Red Flag Alert recently launched its third-generation platform with much improved user interface and functionality which accelerated growth with ARR increasing by 25 per cent in the last year alone.
Commenting on the investment, Richard West, CEO of Red Flag Alert, said: 鈥淚n the fast-paced 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鈥檚 mission and our value in the industry. We are proud to work alongside them to grow our market share and continue our journey.鈥�
Fiona Hatch, senior investment manager at Foresight, added: 鈥淩ed Flag Alert has built an impressive product and customer base. With our investment and support, the team will be in a great position to benefit from the potential market opportunities. We look forward to working with Richard and the rest of the team to enable the next phase of their growth.鈥�
Foresight completed more than 90 investments into SMEs in 2022, alongside a number of strong exits.
In the same year, Foresight鈥檚 Private Equity team announced three new funds, a ventures fund acquisition and expanded its regional office network, opening offices in Dublin and Leeds.
So far in 2023, Foresight has invested into 35 SMEs, announced it will open an office in Newcastle, and has announced a number of successful exits, including Datapath (11.7x money), Mowgli (3.5x money) and GovGrant (4.5x money).