As part of Real Deal’s feature on organic growth, Toby Fitzherbert, Investment Director at ECI, shared some of the key drivers that enabled MiQ to deliver such exceptional growth during our investment that delivered a 6.1x return. Read the full piece here.
Geographic expansion
“International expansion was a large growth opportunity for the business, especially in North America, which is a key market for MiQ. Before our investment, the business was already achieving good growth there, but there was still a huge amount of opportunity to exploit, and the team managed to deliver on that strategy. At the time of our investment, North America contributed 40% of revenues and, at exit, that had grown to 80%.
We also helped the business scope out the Asian market opportunity, with the business opening commercial offices in China, India and Singapore during our investment period. The business operated out of 30 offices across 10 countries on exit, up from nine and five respectively at entry.”
Team growth
“The business was growing so quickly that we definitely needed to hire people to help with that expansion, which was a good problem to have. We helped augment the management team beneath the founders, including managing directors for all of MiQ’s major markets.
The quality of the team and culture throughout the organisation is very strong and is a hallmark of the business. They continued to attract and hire high-quality people, especially in their centre of excellence in India because their proprietary technology is so important to the business and a real differentiator. The scale-up of people meant the business grew from 350 people when we invested, to over 1,000 when we exited.”
Product expansion
“There was also a large investment in channel diversification and product expansion within the business, both of which also helped the organic growth story. In terms of the routes to market, when we invested the business only worked with the large holding-company agencies and independent agencies, who would act on behalf of their end customers. However, there was an opportunity for MiQ to deal directly with some of those larger end customers, as opposed to through the advertising agencies. This route to market grew to 15% on exit from a standing start.
Through product extension, the business expanded into areas where it previously hardly had a presence, particularly through mobile and connected TV. That technology has grown a lot since 2017, so there was a gap in the market for MiQ to fill. As new areas, these were incredibly fast growing.”
Read the full article here. If you would like to find out how we helped MiQ deliver its 6.1x return or to talk about the growth potential of your business, please reach out here.
