ICON Corporate Finance advises on sale of data quality experts 360Science to US-based Syniti

Tech-focused investment bank ICON Corporate Finance has advised on another cross-border deal with the sale of market-leading data quality experts 360Science to US-based Syniti. 

Syniti, the US-based global leader in enterprise data management, acquired 360Science, a UK-based data quality leader specialising in matching, deduping, unifying, linking and verifying contact and business data, to strengthen Syniti’s expertise in helping customers tackle complex issues surrounding data. Syniti, previously known as BackOffice Associates, is owned by US private equity firm Bridge Growth Partners.

The strategic rationale for the deal is strong, combining the benefits of 360Science’s world-class AI-driven matching technology with the Syniti Knowledge Platform. As a result, organisations will now be able to tackle errors, inconsistencies, and challenges commonly found in business data throughout enterprises, using modern data science and artificial intelligence. Having quality and reliable data is increasingly seen as providing a key competitive differentiator for businesses.  

360Science has offices in Leatherhead, Surrey and Austin, Texas. The company has  developed software that produces automated matching results at scale, at blindingly fast speeds, and importantly without the need for pre-processing. Among its clients are global companies which include 3M, AXA, Nestle and Comcast.

Kevin Campbell, CEO of Syniti said: “360Science solves one of the biggest challenges in enterprise data management by fusing the best of semantics, linguistics and artificial intelligence to deliver accurate data to the enterprise.” 

Brian Parker (Head of M&A at ICON) who led the transaction commented: “We are really pleased to have advised shareholders on the sale of 360Science. It is an exciting company with world class technology – its AI driven, data matching engine mirrors human perception automatically, at scale and without pre-processing. It’s a great time to be an owner of a UK technology company as we continue to see strong buyer interest from the USA. In fact, following Fathom, Quantex and JoinedUp, four  of our last five  deals have now been cross-border transactions to US acquirers.”