Search British Business Bank
Popular Search placeholder

Data innovator Assured Insights sets sights on Wales growth after investment

Press release 08 October 2024

This news is also available in Welsh Cymraeg

  • Assured Insights receives cash injection for expansion, including new office in the Cardiff area
  • This is the second investment from the £50 million IFW – Foresight Equity Finance, which is managed by Foresight Group as part of the Investment Fund for Wales 
  • Operated by the British Business Bank, the £130 million Investment Fund for Wales supports Wales’ smaller businesses at all stages of their development 
Photo of Assured Insights founders sitting in an office and smiling at the camera

Foresight Group (“Foresight”) - a leading regional private equity and infrastructure investment manager - has announced an equity investment from the Investment Fund for Wales (“IFW”), into Assured Insights (“the Company”), a fast-growing and disruptive data analytics business.

IFW – Foresight Equity Finance has provided an investment into the Company. Foresight has also invested from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (“MEIF”), which is operated by the British Business Bank. Foresight was appointed as fund manager to MEIF in 2018. Alongside Foresight, Assured Insight’s founders have co-invested.

This is the second investment Foresight has made from IFW – Foresight Equity Finance. Assured insights will use the funding to scale its operations, including opening a new office in South Wales where the Company plans to setup its data engineering hub.

Assured Insights has developed DataWorks which supports its clients in consolidating siloed data from business systems into a single, trusted platform. This platform is used to deliver reliable and performant business metrics to the business, providing several use cases such as Business Intelligence, Analytics, Ai.

Current customers include financial services companies and hospitality groups, including The Ivy Restaurant Group, Sucden Financial and Vernon Building Society. Across its clients, DataWorks consolidates siloed data from source systems into a single, trusted view of their core business metrics, delivering easy-to-digest insights.

Foresight has a strong track record of working with fast-growing businesses as they scale up and professionalise. We are pleased to select Foresight as our equity partner as we look to accelerate our growth trajectory.

Assured Insights has discovered that most organisations find themselves in a position where their data capabilities don’t support their aspirations. There are many technologies and solutions which claim to help with this, however, these all rely on good quality data.

Achieving a state of data maturity which sees trusted data being available to the whole business is a big challenge for many companies. DataWorks, by Assured Insights, addresses this and builds a solid data foundation needed to support any modern, data proficient business. The simplicity of delivery, a competitive price point and quick delivery time makes DataWorks an obvious choice.

- Jon Singleton Co-founder and CEO of Assured Insights

Assured Insights is a tremendously exciting, fast-growing business with a hugely ambitious management team. Its new Welsh office will have a positive impact on the local economy through the creation of skills jobs. We are thrilled to be supporting Assured Insights and look forward to partnering with the team on their growth journey.

Businesses with multiple software systems are increasingly managing complex data sets and Assure Insights’ software is a step change in the market. By creating the data architecture and combining it with analytics and visualisation, the software is an excellent end-to-end solution.

- Steve Galvin Principal for IFW – Foresight Equity Finance

We are pleased to see the Investment Fund for Wales actively working for innovative businesses like Assured Insights, who are committed to creating a Wales-based workforce with the opening of their new Cardiff office.

Their activity in the market is impressive and we hope that our support will help them as they continue to scale.

- Mark Sterritt Director, Nations and Regions Investment Funds at the British Business Bank

The £130 million Investment Fund for Wales (“IFW”) covers all areas of Wales and provides loans from £25,000 to £2 million and equity investment up to £5 million to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to start up, scale up or stay ahead.

The purpose of the Investment fund for Wales is to drive sustainable economic growth by supporting innovation and creating local opportunity for new and growing businesses across Northern Ireland. The Investment fund for Wales will increase the supply and diversity of early-stage finance for Wales’ smaller businesses, providing funds to firms that might otherwise not receive investment and help to break down barriers in access to finance.

Foresight invests in promising, growing companies, providing equity or debt to meet the needs of founders, management teams and specialist lenders wherever they are on their journey. Foresight works with the growing companies it supports to enable founders and management teams to build resilient and prosperous companies that have a positive impact on the societies in which they operate.

Further Information

If you are a journalist and have a media enquiry, please contact [email protected].

Notes to editors

About Foresight

Founded in 1984, Foresight is a leading investment manager in real assets and capital for growth, operating across UK, Europe, and Australia.

With decades of experience, Foresight offers investors access to attractive investment opportunities at the forefront of change. Foresight actively builds and grows investment solutions to support the energy transition, decarbonise industry, enhance nature recovery and realise the economic potential of ambitious companies.

A constituent of the FTSE 250 index, Foresight’s diversified investment strategies combine financial and operational skillsets to maximise asset value and provide attractive returns to its investors. Its wide range of private and public funds is complemented with a variety of investment solutions designed for the retail market.

Foresight is united by a shared commitment to build a sustainable future and grow thriving companies and economies.

Visit https://foresight.group for more information.

About the Investment fund for Wales

Operated by the British Business Bank, the IFW provides a mix of debt and equity funding. IFW will offer a range of commercial finance options with smaller loans from £25k to £100k, debt finance from £100k to £2m and equity investment up to £5 million. It works alongside the in-region small business finance ecosystem, including local intermediaries such as accountants, fund managers and banks, to support Wales’s smaller businesses at all stages of their development.

The funds in which the IFW invests are open to businesses with material operations, or planning to open material operations across the whole of Wales.

Supported by Nations and Regions Investments Limited, a subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, the Bank is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government.

Neither Nations and Regions Investments Limited nor British Business Bank plc are authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

For investment by NRIL at the sub-fund level the investment from the Nations and Regions Investments Limited into Assured Insights does not amount to any endorsement or warranty from Nations and Regions Investments Limited, the British Business Bank plc or the government of the United Kingdom.

For investment by IFW sub-fund at the investee company level the investment from The Investment fund for Wales into Assured Insights does not amount to any endorsement or warranty from Nations and Regions Investments Limited, the British Business Bank plc or the government of the United Kingdom.

Quick links

Latest news