YFM and Mavern inject £5million into software firm
YFM Equity Partners and Maven Capital Partners have invested in digitial contracting firm Summize.
YFM and Maven Capital both have offices in Reading. Manchester based Summize offer SaaS digital contracting solutions, digitizing contract life cycles by integrating with established communication platforms.
YFM Equity Partners and Maven Capital Partners made a £5m Series A investment in the firm.
The funding was raised through YFM’s British Smaller Companies VCTs and the Maven VCTs. Summize state they will use the finance to fund US expansion and develop Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) technology.
The YFM investment team included Laura Sisson, Mike Clarke and Ian Waterfield.
Mike Clarke, investment partner at YFM, said: “Summize are deliberately different and we like their disruptive approach.
"They have developed a really effective solution to help drive legal departments and processes on the digital journey, and one which is attractive to users as it operates as an extension of existing ways of working. The efficiency benefits are quickly apparent to clients with estimates that users of the platform save 85 per cent in time spent reviewing contracts."
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James Darlington, investment director at Maven, said: “Maven is delighted to be backing Summize. It is an attractive opportunity for the Maven VCTs to invest in a rapidly growing business which has made strong commercial progress in terms of sales growth and new customer wins.
"We have been impressed with the ambition, skill and knowledge of the management team.”
Tom Dunlop, Summize CEO, added: “Summize aims to drive greater value from business contracts by automating end-to-end process from creating a contract through to analytics and summaries.
"Unlike many of our competitors, our system integrates directly with existing collaboration tools, which is vital for adoption across the business."
Other advisers on the deal included: Graph Strategy (James Tetherton and Matt Harrison); James Bagan; Chris Waterhouse, BHP (Fletcher Adamowicz); David Gallimore; Vista (Peter Warburton and Daniel Blake); Shoosmiths (James Foster, Sophie Davies and Miranda Foy); Catalysis (Mike Hicks); and Philip Hare & Associates (Philip Hare and Tom Hopley).
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Main image The Summize management team with Mike Clarke (far left) and Laura Sisson (second left) of YFM, and Jeremy Thompson (back left) of Maven. Image credit Appeal PR.
