London-based Artesian Solutions announced strong growth and EBITDA profitability in its 2020 – 2021 fiscal year (31 March FYE). The company outpaced its revenue goal by 135% and posted a net retention rate of 110%. Turnover grew 15% last year.
The firm has long been profitable, with a 9X LTV/CAC ratio (Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost). Furthermore, customers have been integrating the Artesian platform into their workflows, with 65% of new business coming from platform-leveraged transactions.
While Artesian continues to offer sales intelligence tools, its recent focus has been on serving the financial services space. In January 2021, it launched Artesian Connect, “a new platform that combines the latest advances in data-science with the world’s best business information to solve complex, high-value frontline execution challenges such as client pre-screening for risks and opportunities, triage and credit scoring, underwriting risks, accelerated client onboarding, screening and remediation of back-book, monitoring for early warning indicators / enhanced lead indicators.”
Artesian Connect includes a bespoke rules-processing engine that captures client know-how, including business rules, sales preferences, prospecting criteria, and onboarding checks. Connect supports both Artesian’s Premium Data feeds and customer-licensed third-party data integrations.
By combining first and third-party datasets with business rules and existing policies in Connect, the customer engagement process can be streamlined and standardized across large teams. Some of Artesian’s customers have thousands of users, so improving efficiency without impacting the customer experience is critical to successful implementations.
As rules and policies have been codified, employees do not need to review as much company intelligence. Instead, decision-making is reduced to the core information. Supported processes include sales engagement, onboarding, KYC/AML, insurance policy underwriting, and business-specific steps and requirements.
“It’s been a pivotal and transformational year for Artesian. We’ve set new benchmarks in terms of growth and profitability by addressing head-on the disruption caused by COVID-19, being in a strong position to help our customers help theirs, and by harnessing the world’s largest source of intelligence in combination with the latest advances in data science to help our customers solve their most complex challenges and realise their highest-value opportunities. As we move through 2021 and beyond, we will continue to help our customers create more time to spend with their clients by better anticipating needs and navigating the road ahead.”
Artesian CEO Andrew Yates
91% of new revenue came from Financial Services as the company added seventy new clients and expanded the size and duration of contracts during last year’s renewals.
Connect Platform deals were signed with Lombard, QBE Insurance, Triodos Bank, Premium Credit, and Metro Bank, helping drive 22% growth in new business deals.
The firm also expanded the scope of its data licensing partnerships, inking deals with Experian, D&B, Refinitiv, LexisNexis, Graydons, and other business and credit vendors. These partnerships allow customers to process preferred vendor data through the Connect platform. Like many of its peers, Artesian Solutions has thrived during the pandemic. Their mobile push notifications have had high usage during WFH, and financial services firms have increased platform utilization due to economic dislocation and CBILS checks. According to Yates, renewals remain strong, with gross retention in the 90s.