A North Tyneside software business has raised £3.1m in new equity to ramp up development of its workplace safety platform.
Notify Technology was founded five years ago by Duncan Davies and Andy Dumbell to drive an online platform enabling businesses to improve health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace.
Now the firm has completed its latest funding round led by Calculus Capital who invested £1.85m alongside the North East Venture Fund (NEVF), supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Mercia, and private investors, in one of the largest recent VCT investments in the North East.
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The Wallsend-based business will use the funds to accelerate investment in sales and marketing, as well as product development to deliver artificial intelligence capability to the Notify platform. It will also make additions to help Notify’s clients to meet the growing demands of ESG reporting.
The company, based in Cobalt Business Exchange, created the mobile-first software platform so clients can deliver improvements to their safety, wellbeing and sustainability culture and compliance. It counts the likes of Travis Perkins, Siemens Mobility, Birmingham City University and Cazoo as clients and has users in over 100 countries.
Incoming investors, Calculus Capital and Gavin Disney-May, will also join Notify’s board, bringing valuable sector experience. The funding round marks the third investment involving Mercia, coming two years after it secured £370,000 from the Mercia-managed North East Venture Fund.
Mercia first backed the company through the fund with an initial £500,000 investment in November 2018.
Mr Davies, Notify’s CEO and co-founder, said: “We’ve delivered consistently strong subscription growth over the last three-and-a-half years since Mercia first invested - including 105% growth during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic – and we see the increasing importance organisations are placing on keeping their people safe and well. We’re confident we can do more with more capital.
“I’m really grateful to the team at Mercia who first invested back in 2018, and are backing us in this latest funding round. Mercia has supported us in getting to the point where we’re able to attract new investors of the calibre of Calculus Capital into the syndicate. We’ve also benefited from having a fantastic chair and early-investor, Jayne Archbold, who has shaped our team and strategy.
“We see significant opportunities to help clients solve some of their key challenges around employee wellbeing, sustainability and ESG, and we are delighted to welcome Calculus and Gavin on board.”
Richard Moore, co-head of investments at Calculus Capital said: “Notify has developed fantastic software that is easily configured to suit a wide range of businesses. It is great to be investing in a business that’s built around modern, mobile-first technology, where deployments are rapid and where customers have so much flexibility on how they utilise the digital tools. On top of that, the team have built a brilliant service-led culture as evidenced by their market leading client retention rate.
“Calculus has been interested in EHS Software for some time and tracked the growing demands for ESG compliance, so we are excited to support Duncan, Andy and the team to grow awareness of Notify, which helps companies make their workforce safer and healthier, and reduces their environmental impact. We believe this is an exciting stage in the development of a ‘Tech for Good’ award winner with strong growth potential both in the UK and globally “
Jan Oosthuizen, investment manager for Mercia, said: “It has been great to support the team at Notify once again and see them go from strength to strength. We very much look forward to further developing an already effective team dynamic with the addition of Calculus and Gavin to help the company achieve its potential.”
Notify Technology were advised by Sahil Nayyar at Cavu Corporate Finance, Oliver Rickett at Womble Bond Dickinson and Alistair Wilson at Azets. Calculus were advised by Ben Walmsley at Peregrine Law, Mercia were advised by Adam Rayner and Stephanie Brown at Muckle LLP.
