Enthused for Enfuse

The second quarter of 2025 was not the easiest time to close an M&A transaction. US Liberation Day tariff announcements a few months earlier had sent stock markets tumbling (the FTSE 350 fell by more than 10% in the first week of April), and brought M&A processes to an abrupt stop. By the end of the first half of the year, UK year-on-year deal volume and value had dropped by 16% and 51% respectively, according to Experian.

The choppy macro-backdrop, however, did little to dissuade Agathos – an independent firm specialising in UK businesses valued at up to £25m – from closing an investment in specialist consultancy Enfuse Group, a certified B Corp, at the end of June.

Enfuse was founded in 2015 by two management consultants – Graeme Curwen and Harry Vazanias – colleagues at the London arm of US consultants North Highland. A chance conversation in a London bar between Curwen, a senior strategy and innovation consultant, and Vazanias, head of business technology, spawned the idea for the business, which specialises in operating model design, data, AI strategy, process excellence, and delivery and change management. The company operates across a number of sectors, including hospitality, higher education and transport.

In its first decade, Enfuse was on a strong growth trajectory. Its most recent Companies House accounts show net assets almost doubling for the year to the end of June 2024, and it was ranked 51st in the 2025 Sunday Times Hundred Fastest Growing Companies list.

Perfect fit

Before meeting the Enfuse Group management team, Agathos had been on the lookout for an investment in the consultancy space. Enfuse proved the ideal base for a buy-and-build. “We knew the sector and the type of platform we were looking for,” says Agathos partner Hugh Costello. “Enfuse lined up beautifully with that profile. It doesn’t always happen that way, but in this case, it was exactly what we’d been searching for.”

Agathos was introduced to Enfuse Group through Augusto Negrillo, partner at corporate finance boutique Vivero. “We know Vivero well,” says Costello. “Once we met the Enfuse team and saw the quality of the business, we moved quickly to secure it.”

Lushani Kodituwakku, founder and managing director of Luminii Consulting, who led commercial due diligence for Agathos, goes further, describing Enfuse as a standout business in its segment. “Enfuse was an attractive target for an investor because of an impressive blue-chip client base – unusual for a firm of its size in the market – underpinned by strong revenue growth and client retention,” she says.

Both Agathos and Enfuse were keen to establish a framework to support smooth deal execution through the transaction process. “A key priority for the management team on this deal was to negotiate a detailed heads of terms in advance,” says Rajiv Kakkad, managing associate at law firm Stephenson Harwood, which provided legal advice to Agathos on the deal. “That kept the timetable tight and efficient during the execution phase.”

Stephenson Harwood partner Malcolm MacDougall, who has a long-standing relationship with Agathos and Costello, led the firm’s legal advisory work. He points out that locking down heads of terms early has become more and more common in M&A processes across the board, as buyers and vendors move to mitigate the risk of friction points delaying or even derailing deal signing and final closing. “Gone are the days you would give someone exclusivity without knowing the terms in detail,” he says. “People want terms nailed down early to leave as little wiggle room as possible at the back end.”

Sharp focus

Other focus areas for Agathos, beyond the core financial and tax due diligence streams, included mapping out the steps the business would have to take to support its future growth operationally, and scoping out opportunities to expand into new markets.

Operational due diligence consultancy Garwood Growth were engaged by Agathos for the first time – primarily to look at the scalability of the target business. “A senior person at one of Agathos’s other investments introduced us to the team,” says Garwood Growth partner John Howard. “When we outlined what we do as operational due diligence providers, it really seemed to resonate. We’re essentially helping people answer two questions: is the business operationally sound today, and do they have the capability or plans in place to support the growth they’re trying to achieve?”

Howard says the Agathos team wanted to understand how they could best support Enfuse as it scaled and sought to enter new markets, without losing its distinctive and highly valued ethos. “Enfuse’s culture is really important, so we looked into what was required to keep the culture intact as the business scaled,” Howard says.

This work complemented a focused commercial due diligence exercise. Having accumulated deep insight into consultancy industry growth drivers and benchmarks during their search for a consultancy target, the Agathos team opted to focus the commercial due diligence scope on a select group of key tasks.

“The primary focus was to interview clients and industry observers to ascertain Enfuse’s key strengths and differentiators, and help them develop a strategy going forward as market and client demands change,” says Kodituwakku.

“Customer references were outstanding,” says Costello. “Everything we learned in diligence was echoed by clients – they loved working with Enfuse and kept returning for more.”

But high levels of customer satisfaction weren’t the only draw. “Demand remains high in the digital transformation market, particularly in some key verticals, as companies look to navigate a move from end-to-end technology solutions to a best-of-breed tech stack,” says Kodituwakku.

“Although systems integrators are active in this market, there are a lot of areas that they miss and blue-chip companies are starting to feel somewhat exploited by their pricing and size of contracts,” she adds. “Companies like Enfuse are seeing a growing opportunity to work alongside system integrators, offering clients the same quality of work, but in a much more controllable and discrete way.”

Growth plans

With the deal done, the Agathos plan “is about doubling down on what Enfuse already does exceptionally well”, says Costello: “First, we want to help deepen their capability specialisms, including data and AI. Second, we’re helping them go even deeper in their core sectors, like higher education and travel. And third, we will support their technology partnerships and expertise.”

Costello says organic growth will be the main focus but that Agathos hasn’t ruled out acquisitions “where they make sense” and has already identified several M&A opportunities.

“We’re incredibly proud to be investors in Enfuse,” he says. “The business has such a positive trajectory and there’s a glittering future ahead. It’s a very exciting journey.”