Data science consultancy Optima Partners has been backed by a £2.3m investment from BGF.
The money should support scaling by growing its workforce and further developing its software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.
Edinburgh-headquartered Optima was founded in 2013, with offices in London and Bristol.
It offers design-led customer and digital transformation services to clients across the carbon and health sectors. Using machine learning, the company identifies opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of customer engagement and marketing to maximise client return on investment.
Optima achieved 55% year-on-year growth, delivering £5.75m in full year revenue at the end of June, with a headcount of 44.
BGF’s investment will now boost the company’s aim of reaching 100 employees and expanding into new markets and sectors.
Karen Thomas-Bland has also been appointed as a non-executive chair as the result of an introduction from BGF’s Talent Network, pool of non-executive directors.
Investing alongside BGF, she brings consulting and data science experience, with former roles including partner of strategy and transformation at IBM Global, executive director of strategy and transformation at KPMG, as well as providing buyside investment assessment for Accenture and EY.
Alan Crawley, chief executive at Optima, said: “BGF’s investment will help us scale our business, allowing us to serve more customers.
“Karen’s appointment as our non-executive chair will be of great value given her considerable consulting and data science expertise.”
Euan Baxter, investor at BGF, said: “Rooted in Edinburgh as a centre of data excellence, the company has built on strong academic foundations to prove its credentials through innovative work with some of the biggest names in financial services, energy and pharmaceuticals.”
Optima has long-standing ties with academia, with an office at the University of Edinburgh and links in the business school and medical genetics.
It leads a consortium including academic colleagues and a leading pharmaceutical business driving innovation through advanced mathematics and software development in early phase drug discovery.
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