Organic Growth Masterclass: Bright Network, backed by Maven Capital Partners

Founded in 2013, Bright Network is a media technology platform that enables employers to reach, identify and recruit high-quality graduates and young professionals. The London-based business is led by serial entrepreneur James Uffindell, who founded his first business, Oxbridge Applications, in his university bedroom in 1999 before scaling and selling it in 2013. Bright Network is chaired by Zach Miles, who was the founder and CEO of Vedior, a multinational recruitment company bought by Randstad for €3.3bn in 2007.

Bright Network’s platform uses data analytics and technology to pre-screen candidates and ensure that its membership contains only the top 20% of graduate talent. The goal of the model is to drive efficiencies in the recruitment process and improve candidate shortlisting outcomes for employers. The business’s 250-strong client base includes Bloomberg, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, PwC, P&G SkyScanner and Vodafone, among others.

“Maven Capital Partners first invested in Bright Network in July 2018, when we had decided to seek institutional investment after a period of self-funding and support from high-net-worth individuals,” Uffindell tells GBI. “We had a track record of building a previous successful business, which I had sold to a private investor. Maven also came highly recommended to us, thanks to their strong reputation of supporting high-potential SMEs to reach the next stage of their growth.”

Established in 2009, Maven’s growth capital team backs smaller companies with annual revenues of at least £1m, investing £1-6m per transaction. Maven initially led a £2.5 million series-A funding round in July 2018, including a £2.15m investment by Maven VCTs together with £400,000 from existing and new angel shareholders. This was followed by Maven taking the lead on a further £3.5m investment in March 2020 alongside Seneca Partners.

This funding enabled Bright Network to invest in three key areas, says Uffindell: the technology, the sales engine and the marketing function. “This, in turn, has helped us develop proper AI and machine learning functions to match students with well-suited employers, and allowed our platform to reach a 500,000-member milestone,” he continues. “It has also ensured that, while we experienced a slowdown in lockdown in line with broader economic conditions, we still finished the year with revenue up 9% on the end of 2019.”

Pandemic relief

Given the unprecedented impact of the pandemic on the education sector, Bright Network launched Internship Experience UK, a programme designed to build skills in the absence of in-person work experience. “With more than 150,000 students empowered to connect remotely with prospective employers, the success of this scheme really differentiated us in the market,” Uffindell says. “This was possible thanks to the £250,000 that we put into the programme as part of Maven’s investment.”

Bright Network also benefited from its private equity backing in non-financial ways too, says Uffindell. The leadership team has been able to rely on strategic advice from Melanie Goward, the Maven partner who led the 2018 investment and took a seat on the board. “Furthermore, they have connected us with potential new investors, as well as potential clients from their stable of portfolio businesses,” adds Uffindell. “All of this, alongside the funding itself, has been crucial in contributing to our growth.”

Having managed to emerge from 2020 with a 9% uptick in revenues, Bright Network almost doubled turnover in the next year, and is well-positioned to achieve further growth of approximately 60% during 2022, Uffindell says. Headcount has also grown significantly over the period, going from around 20 people in 2018 to roughly 150 now. Many of these hires joined the expanded sales and marketing departments, while others work in the newly launched Technology Academy brand.

Focused on the software engineer sector, the academy identifies top talent from diverse socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.”We then support them through a 12-week boot camp that develops their skills, before placing them at our client companies. Our aim is to alleviate the UK’s skills gap that will only worsen without more software engineers entering the workforce in the coming years,” explains Uffindell.

Now that the company has reached 600,000 members on its platform, Bright Network is aiming for the one-million mark. It is also planning to launch internationally in the next 12 months, Uffindell adds: “We are excited about the opportunities and challenges ahead, and are confident that our strong relationship with Maven will put us in a strong position to continue our impressive growth.”