FPE Capital invests in Global App Testing

The growth investment marks the GP's third deal from FPE Fund III, the firm's latest software and services-focused fund, according to a press release. The sponsor held a final close for FPE Fund III on its GBP 185m hard-cap in April 2022, as reported. 

The vehicle is expected to make 11-13 platform deals, deploying GBP 5m–GBP 25m per company, as reported. The fund will continue to target businesses with enterprise values of GBP 10m-GBP 50m, generally taking majority stakes.

"This was not off-market, but as a growth deal, it was quickly apparent that it fitted well with our investment thesis and we moved quickly to secure exclusivity with the founders," managing partner David Barbour told Unquote.

The investment will back co-founders Ronald Cummings-John and Owais Peer as they accelerate the company's growth on the back of earlier stage investment. Existing investors will be reinvesting alongside FPE, according to a press release.

With FPE's support, the business is now planning to invest further into product development and autonomous testing and to scale the business further in the US market.

"M&A is unlikely to be a part of the growth plan as the company is already a major player in this emerging market for testing, and the investment includes primary capital to support a focused organic expansion of market share, particularly further into North America," said Barbour.

Santander provided debt facilities to the company as part of the investment.

Before the investment in GAT, Fund III made its first platform deal in April 2022, acquiring a majority stake in cloud data migration software developer Egress. FPE expected to make a further three to four deals in 2022 following this, as reported. It invested in Dynamic Planner, a software provider to the UK wealth management sector, in July 2022. 

Company
Founded in 2013, Global App Testing (GAT) combines a proprietary autonomous testing platform with a crowd testing network to deliver bug testing to Quality Assurance (QA) and development teams.

The business, which has achieved 50% growth in ARR in recent years, operates in the software crowd testing market, which is estimated to be GBP 1.3bn globally with a forecast to grow at 17% per annum to 2026, according to a press release. GAT works with brands including Google, Microsoft, General Electric and Booking.com.

People
FPE − Llewellyn John (partner); David Barbour (managing partner); Henry Sallitt (managing partner);
Chris Kay (investment director); Claire Sweet (investment manager).
Global App Testing − Ronald Cummings-John, Owais Peer (co-founders).

Advisers
Equity − Stephenson Harwood (legal); Fairgrove Partners (commercial due diligence); Intechnica (IT diligence); RSM (corporate finance); Continuum (management due diligence); FRP (debt advisory).
Global App Testing − AGC Partners (corporate finance), Grant Thornton (tax); Osborne Clarke, Ashfords (legal).

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