Former QUANTIQ boss starts new investment and advisory group to help 'scale up' tech firms

Woolf Partners will 'advise and invest in technology firms looking to scale up or turn around performance in order to build greater equity value'

The founder and former CEO of Microsoft Dynamics specialist QUANITIQ, which was recently acquired by US giant Avanade, has co-founded a new investment group which is looking to help scale up tech companies.

Stuart Fenton left QUANTIQ earlier this month following the acquisition and has now co-founded Woolf Partners along with Mike Lazenby, the former CEO of OBS Group.

Woolf's purpose is to "advise and invest in technology firms looking to scale up or turn around performance in order to build greater equity value".

"I'm helping out firms that have asked for help or need help, whether it's growing their organisation, making them more profitable, helping them get an exit," Fenton explained.

"And in other cases, I'm looking if there are organisations out there for sale that fit a thesis I'm working towards, and if there are I might proceed. I'm not expecting anything to happen enormously quickly on the acquisition front, but it'll be certainly one of the objectives.

"I'm really interested in looking at companies that have IP, and services companies typically in the technology space that we're in today.

"I would look at resellers, but I'm not as keen on a reseller as I think the reseller market is really well served by some great partners out there. But you never know, I'm never going to say never."

Fenton, who also previously worked as president of EMEA and APAC for Insight Enterprises, says Woolf's launch has already attracted a lot of interest from tech firms but insists he will not rush into anything.

"In some cases they just want a little bit of advice. I went on the board of a few companies after I left Insight but I'm less interested in pure governance roles and much more focused on how I can help companies achieve their goals, whatever those goals are," he added.

"Whether it is increased scale or profitability or even developing their organisation and their leadership team to act more efficiently and then, therefore, deliver better outcomes.

"Its very early days but I've had an awful lot of people contact me to understand how I might be able to help them. I'll explore some of those conversations but I'm in absolutely no rush and don't expect anything significant to happen for a few months."