Livingbridge announces sale of Mobysoft

Livingbridge, one of the UK’s leading mid-market private equity investors, has agreed the sale of Mobysoft, a market leader in predictive software for social housing providers.

Founded in 2003 by Derek Steele and headquartered in Manchester, Mobysoft’s core product, RentSense, delivers accurate and prioritised workload to social landlords. Using a range of data, RentSense’s algorithms present social housing officers accurate workload information, saving them time, improving efficiency in rent collection and enabling social landlords to mitigate welfare reform and reduce arrears by tens of millions of pounds a year.

Livingbridge invested in Mobysoft in October 2017, having identified the potential to grow the firm’s UK social housing market share and extend the use of predictive analytics into other areas of social housing.

During Livingbridge’s investment, Mobysoft’s customer base has increased by c. 80% and its software solutions are now used by 145 social housing operators managing 1.7m properties. This success was driven by significant investments in a number of areas, including a strengthened management team to support its founder Derek Steele execute the growth strategy; new technology systems to enable the firm to manage and retain its growing customer base; new products designed to enable customers to spend more time with tenants; and a new, larger premises in Manchester, for Mobysoft’s growing number of employees.

Simon Hollingsworth at Livingbridge said: “We are thrilled with how Mobysoft has developed since our investment less than three years ago. Mobysoft has gone from strength to strength and is in a tremendous position to continue its growth journey, led by an outstanding Management team. We are therefore happy to announce that we will be continuing our partnership with the business by reinvesting into Mobysoft alongside the new investor.”

Derek Steele, founder of Mobysoft, commented: “We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Livingbridge over the last three years. Their expertise and financial support have been invaluable in taking us to the next level and we look forward to working with them during the next chapter of our growth journey.”

Livingbridge has a strong track record of investing in software businesses, having previously invested in Exclaimer, CSC, Eque2, Scriptswitch and Kirona. The sale of Mobysoft marks yet another successful exit for Livingbridge in this sector.

Livingbridge was advised by GCA Altium (Corporate Finance), PwC (Commercial), Ernst & Young (Financial) and DLA Piper (Legal).