One of Europe’s most innovative software companies starts buy and build strategy
The company has three divisions: Business and Supply Chain Intelligence for larger manufacturing organisations and industry associations; Valuechain App Store providing productivity improvement solutions for manufacturing companies at all tiers of the supply chain; and Enterprise Systems for manufacturing and surface engineering SMEs to streamline and control business processes.
The designs for the innovative solutions originated from PhD research by the company founders Tom Dawes and Haifeng Guo whilst studying at University of Liverpool. Since forming the business in 2010 the founders have retained 100% of the business by funding product development and commercialisation primarily through organic growth and Government innovation funding. To minimise operating costs from the outset, Valuechain.com established their own offshore development, testing and support teams in China and India with the UK team focused on systems design and business development.
Following several successful pilots with Bentley Motors, Bombardier Aerospace and hundreds of manufacturing and surface engineering SMEs, the Valuechain.com technology is now ready to scale-up and has a multi-stream growth strategy including a buy and build strategy to leverage existing client bases and promote viral growth.
The first acquisition completing on the 31st March 2016 was Tricorn Systems Ltd, based in Farnham Surrey, has been providing enterprise solutions to manufacturing and surface engineering SMEs for more than 20 years. Tom Dawes, CEO of Valuechain.com explained ‘Tricorn really understand manufacturing SMEs and have developed a very loyal client base through continuous technology innovation and excellent customer service. By joining forces we can immediately offer Tricorn clients additional productivity improvement solutions and a collaborative platform to connect with their supply chain partners. The Tricorn team is well established and we plan to build on this core infrastructure to scale up our operations in the UK and overseas through strategic global partnerships. This is the first of several acquisitions we have planned to consolidate niche technology companies that service the manufacturing SME sector and we are really excited about the journey we have started.’
The acquisition of Tricorn Systems Ltd was supported by Rosebud Finance, which is a fund established by Lancashire County Council to grow SMEs in Lancashire and managed by Enterprise Ventures. Brabners LLP, CLB Coopers and Myersons Accountants provided the legal and commercial advisory services.
Visit: www.valuechain.com