Axiom GRC launches with £500 million private equity backing

After a period of acquisitions and integrations, Axiom GRC has formally launched as a combined entity. The professional services firm already caters to 40,000 global clients.

With origins stretching right back to 1957, Axiom GRC was founded in its modern form in 2019. Its initial merger brought together governance, risk, and compliance software and service capabilities, as clients sought to adapt to an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.

The foundations of the company were based on the purchases of eight firms: HR firm WorkNest; health and safety advisory Vantify; eLearning platform VinciWorks; risk and compliance platform Corestream GRC; ISO certification vendor IMSM; cybersecurity firms Bulletproof and Pentest People; and regulatory intelligence company Barbour EHS. These companies brought more than 1,200 highly qualified professionals to the new entity.

Fuelled by fresh investment from European private equity firm Inflexion, 2024 also saw the £430 million acquisition of Marlowe’s risk software and services division. The move brought the number of compliance products under the Axiom GRC name to more than 50, while it counted 40,000 clients and 2 million users.

Now, with its integration complete, Axiom GRC has formally launched in the UK. Led by Alex Dacre, founder of Marlowe, and orchestrator of its Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) division, the London-headquartered firm has deployed £500 million in private equity investment to build what it says is “the most comprehensive GRC solution on the market.”

“The burden of responsibility on businesses is greater now than it has ever been,” said Dacre. “We recognised the clear opportunity for a market-leading, full-service GRC platform and this attracted strong private equity backing. There is growing demand for GRC support as businesses navigate increasingly complex and regulated environments worldwide.”

Clients include large businesses like Bentley, Shell Energy, and Tesco, public sector bodies including NHS England, and thousands of SMEs across all sectors. Axiom GRC offers these firms a holistic service through its list of nine companies, with a combination of proprietary software and human expertise helping to navigate what Axiom GRC describes as “riskflation” – or the expanding risk landscape facing organisations.

Dacre concluded, “Our platform has a proposition for every GRC need that a company of any size within any sector could have. Through one gateway, Axiom GRC addresses all the modern challenges faced by businesses, empowering them to focus on what matters most while we manage the risk and compliance burden,” said Dacre.