UK construction tech firm gets funding for global expansion

British construction tech firm Datascope Systems has secured investment from equity investor BGF to accelerate its growth strategy in the UK and abroad, as digital innovation continues to reshape how infrastructure is built.

Datascope plans to expand across infrastructure, residential and commercial markets. Based in northwest England’s Cheshire, Datascope provides access management solutions and integrated systems, primarily for the construction sector, across the UK and Europe. The family business, founded by Adrian Butt, has also branched outside of construction in recent years to serve the third-party logistics sector.

DataWall is DataScope’s large-scale live project data visualization product (Image source)

The exact amount of the investment was undisclosed, but BGF funding rounds typically range from around £2 million to £15 million, according to a report by UKTN. BGF, which calls itself the most active equity investor in the UK and Ireland, has deployed over £4 billion of investments and backed more than 600 businesses.

As part of the investment in Datascope, serial tech company leader Geoffrey Finlay will join the board as non-executive chair.

“In the last 20 years, we have grown from a construction site hardware business, to a fast-growth SaaS company with four core product areas that have been specifically designed to help drive efficiencies across global, multi-billion-pound organisations,” said Butt in a statement.

“Our aim is to quickly expand our international footprint in territories such as the US, the Middle East, mainland Europe and the Far East, while at the same time continuing to invest heavily in new product development and increasing our sales capabilities.”

Datascope’s website indicates that the company has expanded across Europe rapidly in recent years, with operations at 70 live projects in 19 countries outside of the UK. The company has also made its first inroads into the Americas and Asia Pacific recently.

The company’s Time & Attendance and Delivery Management systems are used in more than 850 live projects. Datascope also offers fully integrated digital RAMS (Risk Assessment and Method Statement), Permits to Work, Asset Management, Plant Inspection, and QHSE (Quality, Health, Safety and Environment) systems, which it says feed into a central big data platform that enables unsurpassed reporting, dashboards and analytics.

Datascope says its revenues have grown by an average of 20% annually in recent years. The global construction technology market is estimated to be worth $24 billion by 2033, growing from $5 billion in 2023, according to a report last year by Future Market Insights.