Case Study: Managing the £10m Sale of Seccl to Octopus

Founded in 2016, Seccl is a wealth management technology company working with financial advisers, FinTech firms, Wealth Managers, and Fund Managers to deliver better investment platform solutions designed to manage and administer clients’ money with speed, efficiency, and at a low cost..

The Challenge

Hugo Thorman, Executive Chairman of Seccl, and Prydis founder, James Priday, previously worked together, but their relationship was reignited when the two met to discuss Hugo’s most recent business venture. A partnership came about once they discovered that Prydis could help with various business and financial elements in order to support Seccl’s business growth. “James was keen to help with Seccl and offered a service which was exactly what we were looking for,” says Hugo.

Before the help of Prydis, Seccl was encountering many start-up challenges, including implementing accounting systems and raising funding. Seccl didn’t have the infrastructure or capabilities to perform these additional tasks in-house and wanted to outsource for funding and infrastructure support and advice.

The combined services Prydis offers – financial, legal, accounting and wealth management – were a good fit to enable Seccl to set up financially and obtain business critical permissions from the industry regulator.

The Solution

Prydis stepped in to incorporate the business and provide an infrastructure that would support Seccl’s continued growth using many aspects of their combined services. “Prydis legal and accounting provided basic accounting support and helped us to understand everything to do with funding,” Hugo said, “This included advice on where we could go for funding, talking to us about the different rounds and giving us feedback about the likely share price that was appropriate to reflect the development of the business. We also had access to the Prydis Precedence Club, which helped to provide some crucial funding.”

The unique relationship Prydis built with Seccl has been a key factor in the partnership’s success. Seccl outsourced the entire process of raising money to Prydis and in turn, a subsidiary of Prydis, P1 Investment Management, needed a new platform that Seccl could provide. “While Prydis supported us throughout the start-up journey and to the point of sale to Octopus, P1 had a need for the services of Seccl,” says Hugo. “So not only were Prydis providing a background and infrastructure support, but they were also providing invaluable support by being our first client and helping us refine the proposition with feedback from both P1 and Prydis Wealth.”

Alongside the unique relationship between Prydis and Seccl, Hugo states that working with the experienced and ambitious team at Prydis was an essential element of this success. “The work is unique because of the services Prydis itself provides and the rare scale at which they perform end-to-end support. They were with us every step of the way, and the ease of dealing with their team made the difficult process of selling much smoother. Also, the expertise in the team is really deep and that is so helpful – they were able to perform all the legal services required by the vendor.”

The comprehensive work Prydis undertook with Seccl – managing the early stage fund raises, the legal documentation, obtaining regulatory permissions, personalised support from the team, and providing general consultancy throughout the growing process –  resulted in the completion of a £10 million sales deal to Octopus only three years after the company was founded.

The Future

Now that Seccl has been successfully sold to Octopus, they are focusing more on their business relationship with P1 Investment Management. “Our relationship has been really holistic, convenient, and happy in that it is so broad,” Hugo adds. “Seccl will have more of a partnership with P1 from now on which we are excited about. We will benefit from having a client like P1 who are so flexible, and entrepreneurial, and have ambition which is a great way to be.

“As a FinTech start-up Prydis was very valuable for growing our business and they would be valuable to any UK start-ups in any sector who need access to funding and some business support, either financial or accounting.”

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