Maiden Exit from Foresight Scottish Growth Fund Achieves 2.4x Return
- Innovative business opens technology hub in Edinburgh, creating skilled jobs as it scales rapidly following investment in 2020.
- Foresight actively invests in growing companies across Scotland and is set to ramp up activity across a wide range of sectors and transaction types.
Foresight Group (“Foresight”), a leading regional private equity and infrastructure investment manager, has successfully exited Substantive Research (“Substantive” or “the Company”), an industry-leading FinTech company that provides in-depth product and pricing comparison for investment research, market data, and content.
With bases in London and Edinburgh, Substantive provides research and market data benchmarking to over 100 global clients, including asset managers, hedge funds, wealth managers, sell-side institutions, and private markets across Europe and North America.
Following the exit, Substantive has joined Euronext, a pan-European stock exchange and market infrastructure provider headquartered in the Netherlands. Foresight has achieved a 2.4x return on its original investment, marking the first successful exit from the Foresight Scottish Growth Fund, which is backed by the Scottish Government.
Substantive was founded in 2015 by Chief Executive Mike Carrodus, who partnered with Foresight in 2020. This partnership enabled significant growth, including the launch of a technology hub in Edinburgh and the development of new products such as market data and ESG research benchmarking tools. Foresight also brought in Graham Paterson, an experienced private equity and FinTech founder, as Chair to support the company’s scaling efforts. Additionally, a new Chief Technology Officer was appointed to oversee the technology hub, driving the automation of Substantive’s products and supporting its rapid expansion.
Foresight specializes in regional growth and buyout deals, helping founders, entrepreneurs, and management teams achieve their growth ambitions or release equity from their companies. They also provide venture capital to fast-growing, innovative companies in the enterprise software, advanced engineering, and deep-tech sectors looking to scale responsibly.
Mike Carrodus, CEO of Substantive Research, said:
“Foresight has been an excellent partner for us as we’ve grown rapidly. They brought a flexible approach, great industry knowledge, connections, and funding.
Euronext’s acquisition of Substantive Research highlights our team’s hard work in creating a unique price benchmarking database for investment research and market data. With the market poised for more regulatory-driven changes and rising costs, we’re excited to accelerate our growth and provide greater market transparency.”
Daniel Halliday, Director at Foresight Group, commented:
“We’re thrilled with our first exit from the Foresight Scottish Growth Fund. Substantive Research is a true entrepreneurial success story, and it’s been a pleasure working with Mike and the team to build a tech-enhanced business to benchmark price and supply in investment research and data markets.
Establishing the tech hub in Edinburgh has brought investment and highly skilled jobs to the Scottish economy. With significant funding available, we’re eager to meet entrepreneurs, management teams, and their advisers to support their growth strategies.”
This success showcases Foresight’s commitment to investing in Scotland’s growing businesses and their ability to provide both financial and strategic support to help companies scale.