Blog Post: Information Venture Partners Invests in Q4

09

Dec 2016

Once in a while, we come across very good companies that are performing well with a solid strategy but you always worry about what you will find in due diligence. As you start peeling back the layers of the due diligence onion, you often uncover surprises.  Q4 was one of those cases.  But in this case, the surprises were all positive.

Q4 CEO Darrel Heaps leads an innovative, world-class team with deep expertise in providing corporate IR websites. Over time, Q4 has delivered a host of new products including mobile solutions, webcasting and teleconferencing. Since launching in 2006, Q4 has expanded to 700 customers. This is the business that we expected.

So what were the surprises?

We also discovered that Q4 had developed the leading and most accurate stock surveillance and capital markets intelligence solution. Through the use of advanced and proprietary algorithms, Q4 is better able to explain flows and predict the price movements of the underlying stock. This intelligence provides unique insight for IR professionals.

The most recent development is the IR Desktop, a tool that combines the entire Q4 offering, including its leading market intelligence capabilities, new CRM platform, and traditional websites and webcasting services into one integrated suite. In the face of a rapidly changing investing environment resulting from the advent of high frequency trading and the rise of activists, the IR Desktop platform allows companies to receive real time insights on institutional trading, market sentiment, volatility and investor activism throughout the trading day.

IR Desktop is a strong testament to the innovative approach Q4 employs in delivering new products to meet the dynamic needs of their customers.

Considering all the success we uncovered, Information Venture Partners is extremely pleased to announce our Series B investment in Q4. The $22 million financing will be used to further expand the engineering, sales and marketing teams of the company, as well as pursue strategic acquisitions. This includes the recent acquisition of Euro Investor IR Solutions from Euroinvestor.com to accelerate Q4’s expansion into Europe.

Q4 represents our third investment from IVP Fund II and is closely aligned to our core investment thesis of B2B FinTech and Enterprise SaaS companies bringing needed technological innovation to the financial services space. Q4 is a perfect example of a FinTech SaaS firm disrupting an area of financial services, in this case IR. Further, as a Toronto based firm, Q4 highlights the growing Fintech ecosystem developing in Toronto, North America’s second largest financial services centre.

Q4 has achieved tremendous results in building world-class products, leading to exceptional growth since launching. We are incredibly excited to partner with Q4 in their vision to continue to reinvent the IR marketplace and expand into new verticals with an even broader product offering.

 

Rob