At EVP we love backing "industry insiders" - founders who emerge from within a particular industry with a unique perspective and a deep understanding of the problem to be solved.
Over time, it’s this heightened sensitivity to the needs of their customers that often becomes a core competitive advantage.
Nowhere is this more the case than with Practice Ignition.
When Guy Pearson founded Practice Ignition, he did so with a unique understanding of the particular challenges faced by small to medium sized accounting practices. These businesses, having long been slow to adopt new technologies, were looking to streamline their client engagement processes and shift from an historic model of time-based billing towards a retained subscription model, all while migrating core systems to the cloud.
Guy was an accountant. (He still is I guess!) He had built his own accounting practice and was looking for productivity tools to address these very challenges. Guy is not only the founder of Practice Ignition. He’s also the archetypal customer.
A deep customer centricity runs through every aspect of the company, from the product development framework through the go-to-market activities to the customer support processes. And it’s largely this - a genuine affinity for the customer, matched by an ability to build market leading product perfectly tuned to that customer’s needs - that has underpinned the company’s exceptional performance over recent years.
When we first invested five years ago, Practice Ignition was a scrappy seed stage business beginning to find product market fit in its home market of Australia. Today the business serves thousands of mid-market professional service firms across six core geographies. These customers in turn rely on Practice Ignition to manage over 300k end-client relationships, processing hundreds of millions of dollars in payments through the platform every quarter.
Our decision to double down in the current Series C was straightforward. There is no longer any question of product market fit. After five years of customer led product evolution, the Practice Ignition platform is today the best-in-class client engagement software servicing the professional services market. The product delivers transformational productivity gains to its customers, evidenced by the company’s exceptional retention profile and raving customer advocacy.
Equally clear is the market opportunity, as tens of thousands of professional service firms scramble to migrate their activities to the cloud, to streamline their client engagement processes, and to reinvent themselves as retained advisers, rather than as tax agents paid by the hour. The shift has been accelerated by COVID, with client expectations increasingly driving professional firms towards digital solutions.
And finally, the leadership team has well and truly proven its credentials. Co-founder Dane Thomas’ meticulous approach to product design has proven the perfect match for Guy’s vision of the accounting firm of the future. And CFO Mark Bartels brings a disciplined focus on execution, driving both high levels of accountability and an effective operating cadence through the organisation.
With relative surety in relation to both market opportunity and product capability, the next phase of growth is all about go-to-market execution. It’s about investing in partnerships, marketing, brand and sales as Practice Ignition seeks to drive awareness and adoption across APAC, EMEA and North America. The playbook is well understood. The company has long shown an ability to establish a beachhead in a new market, to build early customer advocacy and to drive adoption. Of equal importance, the business has proven an ability to progressively activate its base over time, driving engagement, upgrades and payment volumes, underpinning healthy expansion and strong revenue retention.
The Series C provides the business ample funding to double down on the customer-centred growth model it has deployed successfully to date. A confluence of product excellence, customer need and market timing will underpin Practice Ignition’s market opportunity over coming years. With the company already delivering every day on its mission to “transform the way accountants, bookkeepers, and their clients do business together”, its continued success is virtually assured.
At EVP we love backing "industry insiders" - founders who emerge from within a particular industry with a unique perspective and a deep understanding of the problem to be solved.
Over time, it’s this heightened sensitivity to the needs of their customers that often becomes a core competitive advantage.
Nowhere is this more the case than with Practice Ignition.
When Guy Pearson founded Practice Ignition, he did so with a unique understanding of the particular challenges faced by small to medium sized accounting practices. These businesses, having long been slow to adopt new technologies, were looking to streamline their client engagement processes and shift from an historic model of time-based billing towards a retained subscription model, all while migrating core systems to the cloud.
Guy was an accountant. (He still is I guess!) He had built his own accounting practice and was looking for productivity tools to address these very challenges. Guy is not only the founder of Practice Ignition. He’s also the archetypal customer.
A deep customer centricity runs through every aspect of the company, from the product development framework through the go-to-market activities to the customer support processes. And it’s largely this - a genuine affinity for the customer, matched by an ability to build market leading product perfectly tuned to that customer’s needs - that has underpinned the company’s exceptional performance over recent years.
When we first invested five years ago, Practice Ignition was a scrappy seed stage business beginning to find product market fit in its home market of Australia. Today the business serves thousands of mid-market professional service firms across six core geographies. These customers in turn rely on Practice Ignition to manage over 300k end-client relationships, processing hundreds of millions of dollars in payments through the platform every quarter.
Our decision to double down in the current Series C was straightforward. There is no longer any question of product market fit. After five years of customer led product evolution, the Practice Ignition platform is today the best-in-class client engagement software servicing the professional services market. The product delivers transformational productivity gains to its customers, evidenced by the company’s exceptional retention profile and raving customer advocacy.
Equally clear is the market opportunity, as tens of thousands of professional service firms scramble to migrate their activities to the cloud, to streamline their client engagement processes, and to reinvent themselves as retained advisers, rather than as tax agents paid by the hour. The shift has been accelerated by COVID, with client expectations increasingly driving professional firms towards digital solutions.
And finally, the leadership team has well and truly proven its credentials. Co-founder Dane Thomas’ meticulous approach to product design has proven the perfect match for Guy’s vision of the accounting firm of the future. And CFO Mark Bartels brings a disciplined focus on execution, driving both high levels of accountability and an effective operating cadence through the organisation.
With relative surety in relation to both market opportunity and product capability, the next phase of growth is all about go-to-market execution. It’s about investing in partnerships, marketing, brand and sales as Practice Ignition seeks to drive awareness and adoption across APAC, EMEA and North America. The playbook is well understood. The company has long shown an ability to establish a beachhead in a new market, to build early customer advocacy and to drive adoption. Of equal importance, the business has proven an ability to progressively activate its base over time, driving engagement, upgrades and payment volumes, underpinning healthy expansion and strong revenue retention.
The Series C provides the business ample funding to double down on the customer-centred growth model it has deployed successfully to date. A confluence of product excellence, customer need and market timing will underpin Practice Ignition’s market opportunity over coming years. With the company already delivering every day on its mission to “transform the way accountants, bookkeepers, and their clients do business together”, its continued success is virtually assured.