Saepio’s new Co-CEOs have opened up on why they invested in the fast-growing cyber specialist, claiming “all the research we did pointed to them”.
The High Wycombe-based outfit sold a majority stake to tech investors Amir Nooriala and Daniel Cardenas-Clark in April, concluding an internal project it had codenamed ‘Impetus’.
Founders Rob Pooley and Andy Pitt, who launched Saepio in 2016, have stayed on as shareholders and board members.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Nooriala said he and Cardenas-Clark first resolved to acquire a tech services business 18 months ago.
“We both come from the tech industry, myself as a C-level operator and Daniel as an investor,” he said.
“We researched 4,000 companies and it was clear that there is growing demand for cyber specialists; you don’t want a generalist partner responsible for securing your network and data, the cost of getting it wrong is too high.
“We were very much focused on finding a company in this space that had top decile levels of customer satisfaction. All the research we did pointed to Saepio.”
Next phase of growth
Saepio ranked 18th in IT Channel Oxygen’s recent Fast-Growth 50 on the back of its average monthly headcount trebling from 14 to 42 between its fiscal 2020 and 2023. Serving around 700 customers, its headcount now stands at 70.
It supports around 70 vendors, including Rapid7, CrowdStrike, Wiz, Abnormal, Secureworks, Druva, Egress and Varonis.
Before the acquisition, Saepio was being approached by buyers “more than once a week”, Pooley told us at the time of the Fast-Growth 50’s publication.
“If an event does happen, it wouldn’t change our mission – it would only allow us to carry on with our mission. We won’t want to stop until we’ve got to that goal of being the UK’s number one cyber security partner,” he said.
Behind the scenes, however, Saepio had been hunting for fresh investment to grow the business further under the ‘Project Impetus’ banner.
“They were looking for someone to help them take the company to the next level,” Nooriala explained.
The two parties first spoke around a year before the deal was signed.
“It takes a while to build credibility, on both sides,” Nooriala said.
Expansion agenda
The priority now is to “double down” on Saepio’s business model of selling cyber advice, services and solutions into the UK midmarket.
“The obvious one everyone asks us about is geographic expansion. We will be opening offices across the UK and then moving into Europe and expanding from there,” Nooriala said.
“There is still a lot more we can do in our target market in terms of helping companies right size their cyber risk whether that be through our CISO practice or our solutions teams ensuring they have the right portfolio of products and procedures to meet their needs.”
Nooriala characterised the management buy-in as “focused on being additive rather than changing things that are already working just for the sake of it”.
“We want to keep growing organically and carry on with what’s been a successful journey so far,” he concluded.
