Scottish Equity Partners completes 'significant' investment in fintech firm AutoRek

Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has completed a “significant” growth equity investment in Glasgow-based fintech firm AutoRek.

AutoRek has more than 85 staff across its Glasgow, Edinburgh and London offices. Picture: contributed.

AutoRek is behind financial control, regulatory reporting and data management software. The aim is that investment from venture capital and private equity vehicle SEP will enable the company to accelerate its product development plans and further extend its offering internationally, on the back of its cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) platform seeing major growth in the past three years.

The fintech firm has more than 85 staff across its Glasgow Edinburgh and London offices, and it said greater demand for its financial control and regulatory reporting offerings can be attributed to a drive for greater integrity, transparency and accountability in the financial services sector.

Gordon McHarg, co-founder and CEO of AutoRek. Picture: Jo Hanley Photography.

Indeed it said that partnering with SEP will help it further enhance its proposition to address a global regulatory and data management software market worth more than $2 billion (£1.4bn) a year.The deal was led by SEP partner Andrew Davison, and Angus Conroy, a director at the firm, who will both join the AutoRek board.

Mr Conroy said: “AutoRek is a fast-growing and capital-efficient SaaS company, delivering business-critical functionality to financial institutions across the asset-management, banking and insurance sectors. The company has an excellent reputation in the financial and regulatory data management market and a strong focus on product innovation. We are pleased to be working with the management team to help them achieve their growth ambitions.”

Gordon McHarg, co-founder and chief executive of AutoRek, said: “We are delighted to have SEP on board as an investment partner to continue the successful evolution of the AutoRek business. SEP has extensive experience in the software sector and we are looking forward to working with them to build on our recent growth and to capitalise on the substantial opportunity within the global financial services market.”

SEP backed Scotland’s Skyscanner, which grew to a global travel giant. Last year the investment vehicle pumped an undisclosed sum into Icelandic airline software vendor Dohop and in January of this year it was announced that it was among backers of major online crafting community LoveCrafts.

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