SPT Labtech provides a suite of automated instruments and other cutting-edge products to help scientists and life-science researchers transform how they work and make a difference in human health.
Background:
Battery’s first step in creating SPT Labtech occurred in 2015, when the team met the managing director of a company called TTP Labtech, then a subsidiary of diversified, U.K. technology company TTP Group. Battery kept in touch with the executive, David Newble, for several years about the possibility of spinning out TTP Labtech—which focused primarily on sample- management and sample-preparation technology for laboratories–and building a larger business around it.
In 2018, Battery announced the spinout of TTP Labtech and brought in executive Patrick Bennett to work with Newble to help build the company. The newly branded SPT, based in the Melbourn Science Park near Cambridge, grew into a much larger firm offering a portfolio of automation, instrumentation and consumables products for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic-research markets. Some of the company’s products were even used to help sequence the genome of the Covid-19 virus.
Battery’s Impact:
Battery helped the company grow and scale in several ways, helping it create new, profitable workflows in drug discovery, structural biology, sample management, biobanking and genomics. Specific areas of assistance include:
- Recruited a number of C-level executives for the team, including Patrick Bennett, who served initially as CEO and then chairman; David Newble then became CEO and retained that role.
- Helped the company accelerate revenue growth organically and through acquisitions; provided strategic counsel and tactical assistance to help executives flesh out the commercial, and not just the research-and-development, aspect of the business.
- Created a more-efficient capital structure and increased operating leverage in the business.
- Executed an M&A program that resulted in SPT acquiring four companies: Apricot Designs, BioMicroLab, LBD Life Sciences, and Quantifoil.
Outcome:
SPT Labtech was acquired by EQT Private Equity in 2022.
The presented case study investment was made in particular economic and market conditions. There can be no assurance that Battery Venture would elect, or be able, to exploit similar opportunities in a similar manner under similar or different economic and market conditions. More generally, there can be no assurances that the Battery vehicles will have comparable investment opportunities in the future. No assumptions should be made that any investments identified above were profitable. It should not be assumed that recommendations made in the future will be profitable or comparable to the portfolio company described in this case study. For a full list of all Battery Ventures investments, please click here.
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