About us
Led by Robin Smith, an operator with 20+ years' experience running and scaling technology businesses from £1M to £200M+, we offer owners a trusted home for the firm they have built. Many good businesses have no obvious successor. We provide a fair, flexible exit, and we hold for the long term.
What we buy
Established businesses with long standing clients and recurring income. Professional services, asset and facilities management, compliance services, software. The sector matters less than the shape: the work is essential, the clients stay for years, and the question of what comes next is still open.
What we bring
Hands on operating leadership and investment in technology. Much of the work in these firms is still manual: reporting, compliance, reconciliations, chasing. We look to automate the routine so your people spend their time on clients.
How long we hold
We are not a fund with a five year clock. We buy to keep, and we build groups of similar firms that are stronger together.
Where we tend to be useful
Succession
You are ready to hand it on and there is nobody inside the business ready to take over.
Read moreAlternative to private equity
You have a private equity offer, or expect one, and you are not sure it is the right home.
Read moreEOT and MBO alternative
You are looking at an employee ownership trust or a management buyout and want to know what else is on the table.
Read moreAsset and facilities management
You run a contract based business looking after infrastructure, plant, equipment or facilities for other people.
Read moreTechnology and your team
You have heard that a buyer will modernise the business, and you want to know what that means for your people.
Read moreSoftware businesses
You have built software that customers depend on, and you are working out what happens to it next.
Read moreVenture backed software
You raised venture money, built a real business, and it is not going to be the outcome the cap table was built for.
Read moreInvestment criteria
We look for profitable, stable businesses with loyal clients and a good team.
- Characteristics
- Recurring or repeat income, long client relationships, low client turnover, and an owner planning to retire or step back in the next few years.
- Size
- Profitable and stable, with enough scale to support a management team rather than depending on the owner for every decision. Smaller firms are considered as additions to an existing group.
- Sectors
- We are sector flexible. We like essential, often regulated B2B services where the work is process heavy and clients rarely switch. Examples include professional services, property and asset management, compliance services and vertical software.
- Location
- United Kingdom.
What happens after completion
We are hands on from completion, working with the team until the business is running well under new ownership. Robin stays on to run it after that. We do not hand a business to a deal team and move on. Some founders want a clean handover, others want to stay and build with us. Both work.
We are the buyer, not a process
One decision maker and no investment committee. You are talking to the person who decides, from the first conversation to completion and afterwards.
The team keeps building
The business keeps trading. Where changes are needed they get made by someone who has met the people they affect, and who has to live with them.
Your call on staying
A clean handover, or a longer involvement on terms that suit you. We tailor it either way and we will not pretend otherwise later.
How an acquisition is funded
This is the part most buyers leave until late in a process. We would rather you knew now.
We raise funds for each acquisition individually, rather than investing from a committed fund. Each deal is matched to investors suited to that business and to the ownership plan for it, rather than squeezed into a mandate agreed years earlier. There is no pressure to deploy capital by a deadline, and no clock obliging us to sell by one.
For a potential transaction we would go to our own network of investors and lenders for the partners best suited to that business and to the proposed ownership plan, and any offer would state its financing conditions clearly.
Before asking you for exclusivity we would explain which funding discussions remain preliminary, what evidence of investor support exists, and what approvals and diligence are still required. Completion depends on securing the necessary funding.
The process
An initial conversation to understand the business, what you want from a sale, and whether we are the right buyer for it.
Information sharing under NDA, so we can form a real view quickly.
An indicative offer setting out valuation, structure, timeline, and the financing conditions attached to it.
Focused diligence, run to a plan agreed up front.
Completion, and the handover you chose.
Robin Smith
Robin has bought, integrated and run technology businesses under institutional ownership. He now brings that operating experience to established UK service and software firms, as principal.
Robin Smith, Founder
Corinium Capital
Robin has spent over twenty years running and scaling B2B software and technology enabled businesses across the UK, EMEA and the Americas, in C level and senior leadership roles with full profit and loss responsibility, from early stage companies through to businesses above £200M in revenue.
Most recently he was COO of a private equity backed software group, where he led diligence and integration on four acquisitions. He has been the first European hire at a cloud data company, and worked through being acquired by one of the world's largest technology companies, seeing both sides of the acquisition negotiating table. He has designed, built and led teams in the UK, Europe and North America.
What Robin brings is having done the work from the inside, buying businesses, integrating them, and then being the person accountable for running them afterwards.
Advisory board
We work with an advisory board of industry veterans, entrepreneurs, legal and financial experts, and experienced investors. Their input supports diligence, deal structuring and the decisions that come after completion. We are also happy to introduce sellers to independent advisers from our network, to support their own diligence.
Frequently asked questions
Questions founders ask
Straight answers on fit, funding, and what happens after completion.
What types of businesses do you acquire?
- Established UK service and software businesses with loyal clients and recurring income. We care more about the shape of the business than the sector: essential work, clients who stay for years, a good team, and room to modernise how the work gets done.
I run a regulated firm. Does that work?
- Yes. Many of the firms we like are overseen by a professional body or regulator. We structure ownership and leadership to meet the rules, and qualified professionals stay in charge of professional work.
What happens to my team?
- The business keeps trading and the team keeps building. Robin is in the business from completion, so where changes are needed they get made by someone who has met the people they affect and who has to work alongside them afterwards. We will not promise you that nothing changes, because no honest buyer can.
Do I have to stay?
- No. Some founders want a clean handover and some want to stay and keep building. Both work, and agreeing a transition on your terms matters to us as much as price, if not more. We are flexible and accommodating in most situations.
How fast can you move?
- Information is the gate. Where the records are in order and questions come back quickly, a process can move quickly. Where they are not, no buyer can move fast, and anyone promising you a timetable before they have seen the data has not looked properly. What we can say is that there is no investment committee adding weeks at our end, and no deal team waiting on a slot.
Do you use debt?
- Conservatively, and where it is appropriate. Structures are designed so the business can invest and operate, not just service borrowing.
What if the funding does not come together?
- Then we tell you early and you are free to talk to anyone. We will not ask you for exclusivity before we can show you where the funding stands, and we will not let a process run on while we work out whether we can complete. If it is not going to happen, you will hear it from us first.
Why you and not a private equity buyer?
- A private equity buyer is buying an asset for a fund. We are buying a business to run. Their deal team moves on after completion. Robin stays on to run the business. That is the difference, and it is the one that still matters in three years.
Get in touch
Whether you are a founder thinking about a sale, an adviser with a client who might fit, or an investor who backs acquisitions one at a time, we would like to hear from you.
Contact details
Important notice
Important Notice: The information on this website is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to the public or a solicitation to invest. Any investment opportunity related to Corinium Capital will be discussed privately and only with eligible investors (such as self-certified sophisticated investors or high net worth individuals) in compliance with UK financial regulations. Past performance (if referenced) is not indicative of future results, and all investments carry risk. Prospective investors should consider their own investment objectives and seek advice from an authorised financial advisor if in doubt.
Corinium Advisory
Who is Corinium Advisory
Corinium Advisory is the advisory arm of Corinium Capital. Through it we work with investors, boards, founders and CEOs of software businesses on diligence, value creation and leadership transition. If we are talking about a sale, we are the buyer, not your adviser, and we will say so plainly.