Richard Shaw speaks at BVCA Accelerate

Alongside senior figures from Puma PE, White Star Capital, and the BVCA, Richard outlined the significant growth opportunities that fast growth businesses can enjoy through international expansion, supported by private equity investment.

Having supported a wide range of international expansion strategies, most recently with GCP portfolio businesses Cubelogic, Indigo, Bridewell and Plenitude, Richard also spoke about how B2B businesses focused on enterprise customers can gain early traction and manage the risk of international expansion through the use of land and expand strategies supported by existing global clients, and working alongside partners/other technology vendors to leverage their networks and relationships and build market profile in new territories.

The panel ultimately concluded that international expansion can and often should be a key shareholder value creation initiative for fast growth companies, but that focusing on the specific “right to win” in targeted sub-sectors of new markets and determining how best to get cost effective traction to enable prioritisation of effort and investment, is often key to success in this area.