Data quality, migration & transformation service provider Intelligent Delivery Operations Group (IDS) has secured a £1.3 million investment from NPIF – Maven Equity Finance, which is managed by Maven and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.
The investment will be used to increase staff numbers and fully deploy its iData toolkit into the SaaS market.
Headquartered in Manchester, IDS provides consultancy services, and system transformation and improvement for a number of blue-chip organisations. It offers enriched data using its Kovenant methodology, providing accurate data migration whilst removing manual error from data processes.
The investment will support the expansion of the company’s development team, as well as its channel specialist sales and marketing staff, to further develop its iData toolkit – a software solution for each stage in the data certainty process. Designed to empower data owners, the toolkit enables users to gain insight without the need for data analytical experience. Further investment into iData toolkit will enable the product to be deployed as a SaaS solution.
Following investment, the business is in a great position to capitalise on the increasing demand in the emerging data quality tools (DQT) market, which is now expected to see an annual growth of 19.2 per cent over the next five years. This is due to these tools being implemented across many industries, resulting in a significant boost in the Business Software and Services Market. The businesses iData product is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the regulatory pressures that large enterprises have been faced with at the forefront of corporate governance.
Over the last 12 months, IDS has been busy enhancing the product with the next version of iData due to be launched in September. iData 2.0 is a huge milestone which significantly improves the user experience via a workflow driven approach, opening up the ability for more user contribution with a reduced dependency on technical capability.
IDS was co-founded by Alasdair Moore and James Briers. Alasdair has decades of experience in technology and strategic planning, mainly as a recruitment professional in the technology sector. He has worked with large corporates such as Siemens, Accenture and KPMG. James is an expert in data quality and transformation and provides solutions to approaching complex data testing projects to customers.
Alex Rothwell, Investment Director at Maven, said “We are delighted to be investing in IDS, who offer their clients an invaluable service, exceeding alternatives in the market. The company has proven its ability to sell to corporates profitably and has received strong references from a range of existing clients. Our diligence has enabled our team to recognize the company’s market leading product and the opportunities that could be had in this evolving sector.”
James Briers, Co-Founder and CTO of IDS, said “To be a recipient of investment from a UK based institution, with fantastic history and pedigree as Maven, is a massive compliment. We have built IDS up to become a solid and profitable business over the last 7 plus years and now, with the help of Maven we get an opportunity to further mature and scale our business. This is an extremely exciting time for IDS.”
Sean Hutchinson from British Business Bank, said “The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund supports businesses across a diverse range of traditional and emerging sectors. It’s positive to see companies such as Intelligent Delivery Operations Group utilise funding to improve their innovative software. It follows the ‘Backing Innovation-led Businesses’ report, that revealed 36% of the NPIF equity portfolio have received funding from Innovate UK or UKRI.’ Innovation and funding go hand-in-hand, and we’re proud that NPIF continue to find innovative companies across the North of England.”
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.
