Venture Builder Blenheim Chalcot Announces US Expansion

NEW YORK, October 2, 2018 (Newswire.com) - Blenheim Chalcot, the U.K.'s leading digital venture builder, today announces a major international expansion to the U.S. The move to New York will build a bridge to support world-class firms founded in the U.K. as they lead a charge on Wall Street.

Specializing in building digital businesses that transform industries, Blenheim Chalcot has made the move to capitalize on the rapid growth of its FinTech, EdTech, and AI-powered companies, having tracked the growing demand for these technological solutions and the benefits they can bring to businesses and the public in North America.

The U.K. is established as a world-leader in FinTech and the time is ripe for the talent and technology within these companies to make their move in the U.S. market. We're going to be working closely with the firms to help them navigate the regulatory divergence across states, which often restricts the ability of FinTech businesses to scale in the U.S. There is huge demand for the products they've developed, and New York is the perfect launchpad for making new connections with potential customers.

Dan Cobley, Managing Partner FinTech at Blenheim Chalcot

The New York expansion will extend the reach of Blenheim Chalcot's venture building services, which now has a team of 200 people in the U.K., U.S., and India, providing everything a high-growth business needs to scale successfully and sustainably.

Founded in the U.K. in 1998, Blenheim Chalcot has assets of $1.1(1) billion under management, over 3,000 employees, and it supports the growth of 20 companies across a wide variety of sectors, including IT services and outsourcing, education, software, financial services, sport, and media. The U.S. (New York) location joins existing offices in India (Mumbai) and UK (Nottingham and London).

Blenheim Chalcot's model supports talented entrepreneurs by alleviating the stresses and strains that often hamper a company's growth, including fund-raising and support services. This gives them more time to focus on the disruptive products and services that can transform industries. Alongside its for-profit ventures, Blenheim Chalcot supports four high-impact charities. It will be bringing its successful venture building model to the US.

Blenheim Chalcot's award-winning FinTech ventures, Salary Finance and Liberis, are two of seven companies now entering the U.S. market. The U.K. has led the way in FinTech investment, with over $15 billion raised in the first half of 2018(2). Entry into the rapidly-growing FinTech market in the U.S. will offer the companies more room to grow and a larger pool of customers to do business with.

• Salary Finance partners with employers to help staff move from debt to savings, and recently announced a $20 million funding round that will support the company's expansion in the U.S.
• Liberis provides simple, flexible funding to help small businesses.

Blenheim Chalcot has also identified huge potential for its EdTech companies to help businesses develop the skills they need to keep pace with change, in what is a nascent marketplace with a much larger number of organizations and independent learners. This comes at a time when the global training market is estimated to be worth over $360 billion(3).

The Blenheim Chalcot EdTech companies expanding in the U.S. include:

• Hive Learning, founded by rugby World Cup-winning coach and high-performance expert Sir Clive Woodward, helps organizations embed the behaviors critical for enterprise growth. Combining a learning experience platform with guided transformation programs in areas like Diversity and Inclusion, Growth Mindset and Innovation, Hive Learning accelerates the pace of change. Hive Learning's New York expansion follows the success of their partnerships with global businesses including Deloitte, Barclays, and Jaguar Land Rover.
• AVADO Learning is bringing its high-impact learning formula to the U.S. to help transform individuals' and organizations' digital capabilities. AVADO is already working with major U.S. global clients, like Estée Lauder, to digitally upskill hundreds of brand marketers using a customized version of Squared Online, the digital marketing leadership program that AVADO developed with Google. This forms part of a wider suite of learning solutions in digital leadership, transformation, marketing, data, and analytics.

The final three Blenheim Chalcot companies expanding in the U.S. this year are:

• Contentive - the global publishing company reinventing B2B media and events. Contentive specializes in developing online business communities across Financial Services, Digital Marketing, HR, and FinTech.
• Fospha - the data science venture that uses machine learning and data analytics to help companies maximize their potential in marketing, media, and business transformation.
• Instrumental - the company behind the leading scouting platform for the music industry. The Instrumental platform monitors billions of data points each day to unearth emerging artists and tracks with the biggest potential.

Charles Mindenhall, Co-Founder of Blenheim Chalcot, said: "We're very proud of what these companies have achieved in the U.K. with the technological solutions they've brought to market. As the pace of change in business continues to accelerate as a result of these advancements in tech, it's vital that everyone in the workforce has access to the training they need to move forward in their careers. Our EdTech companies have been playing their part in making this possible and they can have an even bigger impact in the U.S. We're so pleased that Blenheim Chalcot is able to support these impressive businesses with a new home in New York and all the venture builder services that have been available to them in the U.K."

Lee Arthur, General Manager of Blenheim Chalcot North America, said: "The AI and machine-learning products developed by companies within our portfolio have been of great benefit to others as a result of the collaboration that we've fostered amongst them. It's been so exciting to see the businesses working together and today represents a major milestone for all of us as we take these technologies to market in the U.S."

The U.S. move coincides with Blenheim Chalcot's 20th anniversary and caps a landmark year for the company.

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Media Contact:
Lee Arthur
Email: lee.arthur@blenheimchalcot.com

(1) *GBP£/US$ exchange rate of 1.33 as of 20 September 2018.

(2) KPMG (includes M&A, private-equity and venture capital deals)

https://www.ft.com/content/3bcad1be-b1d7-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c

(3) Training Industry research and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data: https://trainingindustry.com/wiki/outsourcing/size-of-training-industry

Source: Blenheim Chalcot