Grant Thornton invests in high growth start-up Geniac
Grant Thornton UK has agreed an investment commitment with Geniac, a UK start-up set up to ‘give companies their time back’ to focus on growth. The firm alleviates the administrative burden by offering business services that cover everything an entrepreneur needs to run and scale their business.
Geniac is a London-based start-up, founded in 2014 by ex-Accenture consultants, Michael Galvin and Eduardo Martinez, with the aim to “take the headache out of fast growth for SMEs.” The firm does this by fully managing these companies’ business support functions through an ‘office as a service’ platform, allowing entrepreneurs and innovators their time back to focus on growth. The service combines accounting, tax, legal, HR and corporate administration solutions into one smart service.
Grant Thornton recently announced that it will invest up to £22 million in Geniac, allowing the start-up company to rapidly build scale in the UK as the firm aims to create up to 400 new jobs throughout the UK in 2015/16. In addition, the founders of Geniac will receive mentoring as well as other resources from Grant Thornton. Grant Thornton UK partners Mark Cardiff and Karl Eddy will work closely with the firm.
“Any large business can trace its roots back to a start-up somewhere in history, where its founders likely struggled with the administrative burdens that come with growing a company. By eliminating some of these barriers and freeing-up valuable time to focus on growth, Geniac's proposition to fast growing small businesses is truly exciting,” explains Cardiff. “Mike and Eduardo have ambitious intentions to level the playing field between large and small businesses, in terms of the quality of support and tools available to small businesses. This will go a long way in accelerating the growth of Britain's next generation of businesses and help develop a more vibrant economy.”
Martinez adds: “We created Geniac to integrate all the specialists and tools a growing business needs, giving business owners complete visibility, peace of mind and the time to get back to doing what they love. Since launching our service in beta mode, we’ve had brilliant feedback from our customers and are excited to officially go live today. The investment from Grant Thornton will allow us to grow rapidly over the next 12 months, enabling us to support even more small businesses in fast growth, across the UK and beyond.”