Member Article

Leeds private equity firm YFM acquires Reading industrial software firm

Leeds-based private equity house YFM Equity Partner has acquired Business Collaborator, a provider of document and project management tools for the construction and asset maintenance industries.

Manchester-based mid-market advisory firm Clearwater International has advised Business Collaborator’s management, led by Chairman Richard Beaton and CEO Sanjeev Shah, on the deal.

Business Collaborator provides Building Information Modelling (BIM) software tools, designed to ease the transition of asset construction and maintenance projects to an interactive paperless environment.

The Reading-based SaaS business has over 16 years of experience and 160,000 users of its software worldwide..

The investment from YFM will see Business Collaborator exit UNIT4, a Netherlands-based global software company with operations in 26 countries worldwide, employing more than 4000 people.

Business Collaborator will retain a close relationship with UNIT4 who have agreed to resell Business Collaborator’s BIM solutions for an exclusive period of up to three years.

Private equity house YFM has 30 years’ experience of investing and transforming fast-growing businesses.

The funding will enable Business Collaborator to continue to expand its offering of Collaboration and BIM software tools and accelerate its Go To Market strategy.

With 54% of construction professionals in 2014 using BIM systems, compared to 13% in 2011, the deal also offers Business Collaborator the potential to capitalise on this growing market.

As part of the deal, Richard Beaton will join the board as Chairman. Richard has extensive experience in construction technology, having built up an ERP group in this space also with YFM backing, sold it to Sage and then bought it back in 2013, also advised by Clearwater International.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .