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Lightfoot
Automotive & Aerospace • South West • Growth
Company
information
Total BGF investment
£3.2m
Investment date
Nov 2018 - Oct 2021
“We love BGF. We were wary about going for our first institutional investor, but we had been speaking to BGF for years because of their reputation. Finally, we had the scale and then off we went.”
Founder of Lightfoot
BGF & Lightfoot
In 2018, we invested £3.2m into Exeter-based Lightfoot, to help drive the automotive tech company’s growth. As part of the deal, we also introduced Lightfoot to Martin McCourt. The former Dyson CEO and experienced non-exec joined the company as an investor and its non-executive chair.
BGF’s funding enabled Lightfoot to accelerate its recruitment drive and ambitious expansion plans. Over the next three years, the company saw the number of fleet vehicles adopting its technology grow from 14,000 to 50,000, with blue-chip clients including Tesco, Asda and Virgin Media. Lightfoot’s revenues also grew almost four times, from £3m in 2018 to over £11m in 2021.
Following this period of impressive growth, Lightfoot was acquired by pan-European private equity firm Volpi Capital in 2021. The exit delivered a 3.1x money multiple (MM) return for BGF and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 51%.
