Status:

Current

Commitment:

£25m

Date of investment:

2019

Sector:

Data & Analytics

Buy & Build:

6 Completed Acquisitions

“Horizon Capital has a proven track record of building quality, high growth technology service businesses and I am looking forward to developing Ascent in partnership with them.”

Stewart SmytheCEO, Ascent

Background

Ascent is a UK-headquartered digital transformation business specialising in data engineering, business intelligence, advanced analytics, data science, software product development, and IoT solutions. With global delivery, Ascent serves mid-market and enterprise clients across a range of private and public sector clients

The outsourced data analytics and custom software development market is growing rapidly and is extremely fragmented across Europe with Ascent well positioned to grow both organically and via acquisition. Horizon Capital have worked with both existing and incoming management to refine a growth strategy, identify and execute on acquisitions and provide the required capital for accelerated growth.

The Journey so far

Horizon Capital worked closely with the founding management team to develop a vision for a pan European data, analytics and software development business any for 12 months before investing.

Since our investment in 2019, Ascent has completed three acquisitions. This has deepened the data analytics capability, broadened the client base and enabled the business to expand into new geographies.

In that time we have also worked closely with the business to build out the management team and invest in the go to market and sales engine.  We have also worked with the CFO to implement new ERP and CRM systems to create a business that can rapidly scale.

Buy and Build

Ascent has completed six acquisitions across UK, Bulgaria, Portugal and Germany, all sourced from our market mapping programme.  Further international and UK acquisitions are under review.

News & Insights

Related Infomation

November 19, 2020 in Ascent, News

Ascent dips into £75M war chest to acquire data science consulting firm, Mango Solutions

London, UK - 9th November, 2020 – Horizon Capital today announces that its portfolio company Ascent, a UK software strategy and development firm, has acquired Mango Solutions, one of the…
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December 8, 2019 in Ascent, News

Horizon Capital invests in Ascent Software and TechHuddle in a £30m deal

We are pleased to announce that we've made a majority investment in Ascent Software and completed the simultaneous acquisition of TechHuddle in a £30m transaction. This is the third technology services…
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September 1, 2022 in Ascent, News

Ascent enters second market in Germany with Tekaris acquisition

Ascent, a trailblazing pan-European digital services business, has announced the acquisition of Tekaris, a German software development house with strong data analytics and cloud integration capabilities. This is a significant…
Read More