Behavioural marketing firm SaleCycle to open international offices with £11.5m investment

SaleCycle, a behavioural marketing business whose clients include Tommy Hilfiger and Nike, has received an £11.5m investment from BGF.

The business, headquartered at Rainton Bridge, will use the funding to open two new international offices in Japan and New York.

Founded in 2011 by CEO Dominic Edmunds with the support of angel investors, SaleCycle helps online retailers to increase conversion rates, recover abandoned sales, gain visitor insights and drive customer loyalty through a software platform and email remarketing service.

The business aims to capture a market for recovering lost online sales, with eMarketer estimating that around 74% of global online shopping baskets were abandoned in 2017.

SaleCycle currently generates £15m in sales to a global blue-chip customer base across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific to customers including Radisson Hotels, Ralph Lauren, Ikea and Virgin Atlantic.

As part of BGF’s investment, SaleCycle plans to roll out its new online platform architecture which is based on Amazon’s cloud computing platform AWS.

The deal was led for BGF by Barry Jackson, Richard Taylor and John Eggleston and represents the fourth investment by BGF’s Leeds team this year.

Dominic Edmunds, CEO of SaleCycle, said: “We have been through a period of significant growth in a relatively short period of time. That is testament to the hard work and inventive ideas from right across the team.

“This is an exciting time for the business as we continue to grow upwards and outwards, and commit to ongoing investment in our platform. Now is the right time to bring on board an investor that can support that growth over the longer-term, while retaining control of the company. We are pleased to be working with BGF and looking forward to driving the future growth of the business.”

BGF investor Barry Jackson, who originated and led the deal for BGF, added: “SaleCycle’s disciplined focus on innovation and service, alongside a natural drive towards efficiency has enabled it to succeed in becoming a highly profitable and scalable business. In a competitive landscape, we believe that this focus and energy will service the team and the business well over the longer-term, and we’re delighted to be working with them.”

Legal advisors to the transaction: Ward Hadaway – BGF (Martin Hulls and James Nightingale) and Watson Burton – SaleCycle (Duncan Reid and Kirsty Adamson).