Case Study: Intelligence Fusion

Entrepreneur Michael McCabe had ambitions to develop bespoke threat intelligence data and software solutions for global security teams. However, in order to build out the platform, the business required external investment.

In this video, Michael, CEO at Intelligence Fusion and Michael Dickens, Investment Manager at Maven, discuss how funding through the Finance Durham Fund enabled the business to scale its minimum viable product to a fully-fledged enterprise product that fused together innovative technology, military intelligence principles, and client-led design to provide a unique and tailored approach to intelligence collection for organisations across every sector. Intelligence Fusion is now an established name in the security sector and the Finance Durham Fund recently completed a profitable exit from the business through a sale to global risk services specialist, Sigma7.

Michael McCabe: My business is Intelligence Fusion, and we are a threat intelligence data provider and software development company based in Durham city. We provide threat intelligence data that people can access and we also sell the data via our API to other security intelligence companies. So, the reason why we first looked for external investment was to really build the platform that I wanted to build. So, I had the idea for intelligence fusion when I was working in the private security sector in Iraq. I came back and I needed the capital to actually build the technology just to prove that this MVP that we've built there actually has a market for what we were trying to provide.

Michael Dickens: We were attracted to Intelligence Fusion as an investment opportunity because the team, technology and the market provided investment cash into the business to help them achieve what they wanted to achieve but also we have effectively instilled corporate responsibility. We're here to positively challenge management to set a strategy not just for working in the trenches but to get a helicopter view. The company has gone from a minimal viable product to a fully developed product and they've grown their team from a handful of people to a team of over 20.

Michael McCabe: Finance Durham and Maven are helping us to achieve our objectives through providing us with access to capital whether that's through equity investment or convertible loans. That capital is then used to increase our various teams, such as; technology, sales, marketing,  and our operations, as well as to provide us with guidance and advice in relation to potential new funding opportunities as we go forward to really grow the business towards an exit.

One of the reasons why I chose Finance Durham was because they were a local investment arm. They had offices here and I could actually go meet the investment managers and pitch to them. In part why we want to work with Maven was because they had deeper pockets for future races so we grew the business and got bigger we saw them as being a long-term partner who could write larger checks as we grew as a business so the key objectives for us at the moment is heading through to break even and into profitability as a business which is a key milestone for any business to have to achieve. As well as nice milestone for us to hit will be one million pound in annual recurring revenue which as a SAS business is really core to what we're trying to achieve. Personally, I never switched off to Intelligence Fusion, I haven't switched off in the last seven years but it's one of the best things I've ever done because it's allowed me to sort of realise a dream that I wanted to do. I think the key thing is that without Finance Durham I wouldn't be saying it now where I'm the chief executive of my own company.