Harbottle & Lewis has advised on the sale of Futrli, the UK’s premier cash flow forecasting software solution for small and medium-sized businesses and accountants, to Sage, the leader in accounting, financial, HR, and payroll technology. The move deepens Sage’s commitment to supporting accountants with complete end-to-end proposal-to-advisory services as the industry prepares for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment.
Futrli provides a critical tool for SMBs to maintain healthier cash flows to grow their business and reach their potential. Futrli’s solution is focused on helping growing businesses understand current and future cash flow, providing SMBs and accountants with data-driven three-way forecast financials (profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow) using propriety prediction algorithms. These are based upon data-analysed historical trends, blending direct and indirect forecasting methods, using invoices, bills, journals, cash, and payment data – enabling customers to visualise the past, present, and future of their business.
In line with Sage’s focus on supporting accountants with services that span from proposal to advisory ‘Futrli by Sage’ will be integrated with Sage for Accountants, helping accountants to combine workflows across their practice in one place, with a simple per-client pricing model. In addition, ‘Futrli by Sage’ is and will remain a market solution and will continue to be available to SMBs as a standalone product post-acquisition.
Tony Littner, head of Venture Capital and Corporate Partner said: “Having advised Futrli for several years ever since it was a start-up, it was incredibly satisfying to have been able to support Hannah and the management team on their exit to Sage. This deal is another great example of what we are passionate about doing – supporting talented tech entrepreneurs on their lifecycle journeys with their businesses from start-up to exit and, hopefully, beyond.”
On working with Harbottle & Lewis, Futrli founder and CEO, Hannah Dawson commented: “Tony Littner and Tom Macleod have been exemplary legal partners for us through some of the biggest moments in our business lives, from VC fundraising to our exit to a FTSE 100 company. They understand the journey founders are on and are experts in helping them through it. The pragmatism, detailed knowledge and humour displayed by the entire Harbottle team is the firm’s secret special sauce.”
Tony Littner alongside Tom Macleod, Senior Associate in the Corporate and Venture Capital group, led the H&L deal team that advised on the transaction with support from Tax Partner, David Scott, and Corporate Associates, Alex Gays and Jake Jacobson, and trainee Chloe Ryan.
