FlyForm, an Elite ServiceNow partner in the United Kingdom, has received a growth capital investment from Lloyds Bank, in partnership with Izy Capital as lead advisor.
ChannelE2E checked to see if FlyForm may seek to acquire peer ServiceNow partners while marching toward annual revenue of £1 billion (US$1.23 billion) over the next 10 years.
The company's response:
"In regards to your questions re: acquisitions. Though we’re not ruling out that possibility over the next 10 years, at the moment, our immediate growth plan will focus on investing in and growing our team of core FlyFormers, as well as diversifying our offerings as there are still so many potential workflows and revenue streams within the world of ServiceNow – especially in the U.K. and the wider European market."
For its part, ServiceNow is seeking to build $1 billion revenue partnerships with multiple IT consulting firms, global systems integrators and strategic alliance partners. The partnerships often start with IT service management (ITSM) projects, but ServiceNow deployments increasingly involve HR, finance, DevOps, security operations (SecOps) and more.
Amid ServiceNow's rapid growth, M&A activity and funding in the company's partner ecosystem have been strong. Key buyers have included DXC Technologies, Fully Managed and KPMG, among others. ChannelE2E has tracked nearly 20 M&A deals involving ServiceNow partners from 2017 through May 2020.
FlyForm Funding: Executive Perspectives
FlyForm, founded in 2015, is led by co-founders Philip Davies (CEO) and Arron Davies. The company has generated a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 261 percent since the business launched, though actual revenue and profit figures have not been disclosed.
In a prepared statement about the funding, Davies said:
"We are beyond grateful to Lloyds Bank and the Izy Capital team for their help in achieving this massive opportunity. I look forward to working with my co-founder Arron and our growing team toward our vision of building Wales' first global technology consultancy with £1bn in annual revenue. This injection of capital will help us accelerate even faster into the next level, as well as being a huge vote of confidence in our vision to continue supporting the local economy with hundreds of jobs in the near future."
Added Seb Fitzjohn, ServiceNow's VP of alliance & channel ecosystem EMEA:
"FlyForm are a fantastic example of the vibrancy and the growth opportunity within the ServiceNow partner ecosystem. A big part of ServiceNow's strategy is to create the conditions for our partners to invest and scale, based on delivering customer success, and amazing experiences on the NOW platform."
Christopher Ryan, relationship manager at Lloyds Bank, noted:
"We are delighted to support FlyForm with their scale objectives. Their growth trajectory over the past several years has been remarkable and we very much look forward to a long-term relationship as digitisation is forced to the top of all enterprise agendas."
Concluded David Rees, managing partner at Izy Capital:
"We have been working with FlyForm for several years. They are an awesome bunch of guys as borne out by CAGR since 2016 of 261%. With the widescale migration to enterprise cloud digitisation and the support of the incredible ServiceNow ecosystem, our clear sense is this is just the beginning."
