October 18, 2017 | Deals
GCA Altium advises Mobysoft on the minority investment from Livingbridge
GCA Altium acted as exclusive financial advisor to Mobysoft, a provider of predictive analytics software to the UK social housing market, on its minority investment from private equity house Livingbridge. The deal represents GCA's 24th transaction in the software and tech-enabled services sectors since the start of 2017, firmly positioning the business as one of the world’s largest tech-focused investment banks.
Mobysoft’s core product, RentSense, is a Software as a Service (SaaS) based predictive analytics tool which helps social housing landlords manage arrears collection more efficiently. Using a range of data, including historic trends, RentSense’s algorithms flag potential issues to social housing officers, saving them time, improving efficiency in rent collection and cutting arrears by tens of millions of pounds a year. Mobysoft’s software is used daily by 80 social housing operators managing c.900,000 properties, almost a fifth of the sector’s 5.2 million UK based properties.
Growing rent arrears is an issue for the UK’s 1,650 social housing providers with the largest 100 alone facing more than £700m of gross arrears in 2016. Rent reductions, welfare reform including Universal Credit and increased numbers of tenants are adding to cost pressures in the sector and driving the need for greater efficiency.
Founded in 2003 by Derek Steele, Mobysoft has a team of c.35, headquartered in Manchester. Livingbridge’s investment will enable Mobysoft to grow UK social housing market share, expand its geographical presence, increase investment in people and roll-out its predictive analytics software into new verticals.