Dufrain CEO Joseph George on the firm's growth and ambitions
Yesterday, Dufrain announced that it has secured an investment from Phoenix Equity Partners to fuel the next stage of its growth. We sat down with CEO Joseph George to find out more about the company and the ambitions.
Tell us a bit more about Dufrain and what your vision is for the company.
Dufrain is a data consultancy that helps companies across the globe with data management, engineering and analytics. Our experts and range of tools that we’ve designed for various different purposes, such as data consolidation and compliance, help clients derive as much value as possible from their data to better inform their business decisions.
The vision for the company is to continue with our expansion and diversify the range of sectors that we currently work in, particularly within the banking and financial services sector which could benefit so much from more effective data related investment.
Dufrain is headquartered in Edinburgh. What took the firm there, and do you envision it remaining the central hub for Dufrain?
The company was founded in Scotland a decade ago, so we have no plans to up sticks and move our headquarters anywhere else and there is no need to either. With digital technology being one of Scotland’s fastest growing sectors (analysis from the UK's Digital Economy Council found that Glasgow and Edinburgh were both in the top 5 UK cities for tech investment in 2022), it offers us exciting business opportunities for growth.
We’re hoping to double our staff numbers across all our regions, thanks in part to our new investment, so the plan certainly is to remain there and play a part in thriving Scottish enterprise. We’ve just become part of the Scottish Financial Enterprise to that end too, so it’s all steam ahead.
Congratulations on the announcement of Dufrain’s investment from Phoenix Equity Partners. Tell us a bit more about how it all came about.
Thank you, it’s a really exciting time for Dufrain!
Phoenix Equity Partners had been following Dufrain for a while and had been impressed by the strength of our client relationships and the quality of the work we do. We have been lucky enough to have a lot of interest from investment firms and other partnerships opportunities from all kinds of companies but Phoenix sounded like the right one for us.
It was a thorough process but we are thrilled the news is out there and we can look forward to planning the practicalities of how Phoenix is going to help us with our growth plans over the coming years. This will include new geographies and help with sector expansion – more on that to come in due course!
Dufrain has been on an impressive trajectory for the last few years. What’s next in terms of growth?
The plan is to explore a few different options and avenues. We’re going to continue targeting the banking and insurance sectors, as well as expanding into other sectors. Alongside our focus on Scottish business, we’ll continue to target businesses in all of our existing geographies as well as develop into new ones.
We’re very much committed to helping all our clients and have a true national reach with hubs in Manchester, Leeds and London meaning we often get face to face time with our clients too. With each area comes various different targets given the different sectors based in each city. We love the variety this brings, and international expansion is also on the cards.
Our aim is to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace and to achieve this we have a stream of accelerators to deploy and bring to market which we believe will bring innovation.
What part do you think your company culture plays in its success?
Without sounding too cliché, the people really are at the heart of our culture and I wholeheartedly think this is what drives our success. The team of ‘Dufrainians’ are all highly-skilled and creative people who genuinely want to make a positive difference for our clients and this shared set of values allows us to do what we do.
If they weren’t driven on a daily basis to do the best possible work for our clients, we wouldn’t be where we are, and it played a massive part in the investment decision from Phoenix too. I also think a lot of our success comes from a drive to contribute to the communities in which we are based and this is something we’re incredibly proud of and will always continue to strive for.
