{"id":2154688,"date":"2025-06-30T09:48:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T08:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/northwest\/?p=2154688"},"modified":"2025-06-30T09:48:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T08:48:01","slug":"manchester-private-equity-firm-invests-in-north-east-tech-specialist-oak-engage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/northwest\/news\/2154688-manchester-private-equity-firm-invests-in-north-east-tech-specialist-oak-engage","title":{"rendered":"Manchester private equity firm invests in North East tech specialist Oak Engage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Manchester-based regional private equity firm, NorthEdge, has invested in employee engagement software platform Oak Engage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Headquartered in Newcastle, the company provides a mobile-first employee engagement and intranet platform which supports businesses to build a strong culture, enhance productivity and boost operational efficiency.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oak Engage is trusted by major brands such as NatWest Group, ScS, Burger King UK, Five Guys, Aldi, and Halfords and has achieved strong growth with clients that are seeking to engage a disparate, frontline worker employee base.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The customisable platform acts as a central hub to reach and engage deskless workforces, giving them easy access to company news and key documents. It also uses AI to deliver personalised communications, making it as easy as possible to get the right message, to the right people, at the right time, wherever they are located.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The company\u2019s success has been driven by a senior leadership team which has extensive experience in scaling software businesses. Will Murray, CEO, has proven expertise in growing SaaS companies and has successfully led the growth at Oak Engage since 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jake Armstrong, CFO, joined the business in 2021 following an expansive career in practice and industry, including acting as a fractional CFO for a number of tech and SaaS organisations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">NorthEdge\u2019s undisclosed investment will support the business to invest in its commercial team to accelerate growth, refine and enhance its go-to-market strategy and invest in systems and processes to enable data-driven decision making, alongside continued investment into the product.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The deal was led by Jon Pickering, partner, Dan Matkin, director and Simone Masterson, investment manager.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dan Matkin, director at NorthEdge, said: \u201cThe business operates in a fast growth market that continues to evolve at pace, Oak Engage\u2019s well invested platform means they are well placed to capitalise on the increasing demand for employee engagement tools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cOver the last five years, NorthEdge has been the most active B2B software investor in the regional market. This has enabled us to establish a strong track record of supporting and scaling B2B SaaS businesses based in the UK regions and we look forward to continuing this success with Oak Engage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Will Murray, CEO of Oak Engage, said: \u201cOak Engage is an ambitious and fast growing business and this marks a significant milestone in our journey.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt\u2019s a powerful endorsement of our vision for the future and a testament to the dedication and hard work of the team. I\u2019m proud to lead the company at such a pivotal time and to have the backing of NorthEdge as we cement our position as leaders in the industry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He added: \u201cWe remain firmly committed to investing in our growth, our people, and our product to ensure we continue delivering exceptional experiences for our customers and their employees.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The deal builds on NorthEdge\u2019s strong technology track record, representing the firm\u2019s 19th technology investment and the ninth investment from NorthEdge\u2019s Fund III, following the investments into Altia, PebblePad and Latus over the past 12 months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It also represents the firm\u2019s second Human Capital Management (HCM) software investment, following its investment in Cezanne HR in 2023, which has continued to deliver strong performance since investment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">NorthEdge was advised by Cavendish (corporate finance), Addleshaw Goddard (legals), Fellwood Advisory (debt advisory), Cortus Advisory (financial and tax due diligence), Crosslake (technology due diligence) Graph (commercial diligence), Megabuyte (commercial diligence) and Claritas (tax structuring).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oak Engage was advised by ICON Corporate Finance (corporate finance) and Weightmans (legals).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Company provides a mobile-first employee engagement and intranet platform<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217725,"featured_media":2148541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127685,50204],"coauthors":[46761],"class_list":["post-2154688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financial-services","category-technology","tag-featured-story","tag-greater-manchester"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Manchester private equity firm invests in North East tech specialist Oak Engage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Company provides a mobile-first employee engagement and intranet platform\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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