Organic Growth Masterclass: Candela Medical, backed by APAX Private Equity

Candela is a global medtech company providing practitioners and medical spas with advanced solutions for a range of aesthetic treatments including hair removal, vascular lesions, pigmented lesions and wrinkle reduction, amongst others.

When Apax Funds acquired the business in a public-to-private transaction in 2017, it had a great brand, great products and a really interesting global footprint, but it was performing poorly, especially in the US and Europe.

CHANGES AT THE TOP

Steven Dyson, APAX partner says: “The first action was to bring in a very experienced CEO - who had been working with us through the due diligence process. He hired a totally new leadership team, including a chief commercial officer, who he had worked with before.”

ACCELERATING GROWTH

Dyson says: “The CCO’s priority was to bring the US and Europe back to growth, by providing better customer service and focusing on the right products. Clinical, R&D and commercial investments were directed to products underpinned by high demand, while others were rationalised. This part of the business is now growing by double digits.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the full growth potential was released by shifting from a distributor to a direct model across key Asian markets, for example, in China, Japan and Korea, and investing significantly in sales and marketing.

Since 2017, the business has been able to grow its commercial workforce in APAC by 2.5x and increase growth to above 20 per cent per annum.”

LEVERAGING DIGITAL TOOLS

Dyson says: “Another growth enabler for Candela has been the extensive use of digital tools to empower our customers and our salesforce. For example, we have developed digital platforms and run hundreds of virtual events per year for clinical education, post-purchase onboarding and advanced training to increase knowledge, utilisation and ultimately ROI for our customers.”