BGF announces its successful exit from Optima Partners Limited, an Edinburgh-headquartered, rapidly growing professional services business. Optima specialises in applied data, and machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence) transformation. The business has been acquired by Growth Capital Partners (GCP).
The exit has delivered a 4x MM return and an IRR of more than 50% for BGF. As part of the transaction, BGF has reinvested, alongside GCP, and will continue to support Optima as a minority shareholder.
BGF first backed Optima in October 2022, completing a multi-million-pound investment, to support its ambitious growth plans. Since then, Optima has performed strongly, with 40% revenue growth delivered in 2024. The company has also increased headcount by more than 90% in the last two years, with additional offices opening in London and Bristol.
Founded in 2013 by Alan Crawley, as an associate-led customer experience and data transformation consultancy, Optima gained strong momentum in 2021, when Alan partnered with Dr Chris Foley, a leading academic and expert in the advanced maths that underpins cutting-edge ML and AI applications.
Alan Crawley, Founder of Optima, said: “Since founding Optima Partners in 2013, the business has gone from strength to strength, expanding our capabilities, growing our team, and deepening our impact across a range of critical sectors. The launch of our health data science division, bioXcelerateAI, has been a major milestone, reflecting the scale of opportunity we see, as organisations look to make better use of data and advanced analytics.”
This was accelerated with the investment from BGF in 2022 and, together, Alan and Chris built Optima into a market-leading applied data and AI transformation partner, trusted by global blue-chip businesses.
