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Workhorse Capital Invests in Datavail

DatavailWorkhorse Capital is pleased to announce the completion of its first investment; a $7.2 million investment in Datavail Corporation. Datavail is the largest independent provider of remote database administration managed services in North America. Workhorse’s investment in Datavail is part of a $47.0 million growth recapitalization led by new investor, Catalyst Investors. New investor, Lumerity Capital and existing investors, Meritage Funds and Boulder Ventures also participated in the financing.

My relationship with Datavail started through my work at Meritage Funds. Meritage led Datavail’s Series C financing in 2011. I became more deeply involved with the company in 2013 upon my return to Meritage after having run a portfolio company for 16 months. At the time, Datavail had executed several acquisitions of smaller database managed services providers. The working thesis at the time had been to scale the business primarily through acquisition based growth. The acquisitions that the company made were certainly worthwhile, particularly in helping the business to achieve minimum efficient scale. However, it was clear that acquisition based growth strategy would ultimately become limiting and expensive and that the company would have to execute on other growth vectors if it was to achieve its highest potential.

Early in my involvement, it became apparent that Datavail had developed an under-appreciated core competency, the ability to predictably and profitably acquire enterprise class database administration customers at low cost. Datavail has always excelled in customer satisfaction and delivery. Adding a repeatable and scaleable organic customer acquisition capability to the core operating and delivery platform had the potential to create significant value. Through Mark Perlsetein (CEO) and the team’s superb execution, the Company proved its organic growth capabilities, and was able to garner additional internal financing to invest more aggressively in organic growth initiatives. The results is that the company has grown meaningfully over the past two years and with an attractive LTV/CAC ratio.

My relationship with Mark Perlstein, Datavail’s very capable Chief Executive Officer was cemented during our work on the organic growth strategy. We worked together to put the metrics, measurements and decision-tools in place to support the company’s organic growth aspirations. Getting the building blocks right on the front end has helped the business to direct its organic growth investments toward the most productive channels. It is great to see that work proving its worth.

As exited as I am about Datavail’s recent performance, I’m even more excited about the company’s prospect going forward. There are a number of reasons to be optimistic.

  • World-class Team: Mark Perlstein (CEO), Datavail’s CEO has put together an A-quality team across the board. Mark, Keenan Phelan (COO), and Andrew Evans (CEO) do a fantastic job making the business strategically relevant while also making sure the trains run on time. Robin Caputo (CMO) and David Boyle (SVP Sales) constantly improve the customer acquisition process and drive the revenue generation machine with a high degree of precision.
  • High Quality Scaleable Service Delivery Platform: Datavail has built a world-class service delivery operation and infrastructure. With 24×7, global delivery, the Company can meet its customers needs in any location and in any time zone. The company has really differentiated itself in the marketplace in its ability to serve a broad array of needs of mid-market and large enterprise customers.
  • Repeatable and Scaleable Organic Customer Acquisition: Datavail has not only built a world class service delivery platform but also a machine-like customer acquisition engine. With an LTV to CAC in excess of 5.0x, Datavail is poised to continue to grow as it enhances its investments in organic growth.
  • Great Partners: I’ve known the team at Catalyst Investors for many years. Tyler Newton, who led the financing on behalf of Catalyst is a capable and thoughtful investor. Matt Kim of Lumerity is also a long-time friend and colleague in the business. I’m pleased to have Tyler, the entire Catalyst team and Matt as a partners in this investment. I’m also looking forward to continuing to work with Jack Tankersley of Meritage Funds and Peter Roshko of Boulder Ventures. The investor group shares a common purpose to support this management team in taking Datavail to the next level.

I’m really pleased that Datavail is the first investment for Workhorse Capital. I’d go so far as to say I’m proud of it. The investment nicely fits Workhorse’s core focus of investing in growth-stage technology-enabled services businesses. Less than six months after Workhorse Capital’s launch, I’m grateful for the opportunity to be an investor in such a high-caliber company and with the quality management and investment partners around the table.

Congratulations to the entire Datavail team!