Exit Right 2023: Should we sell, or should we grow?

Exit Right 2023 is a free expert-led, must-attend event series for any entrepreneur looking to drive their business from start-up to exit.

Following on from the successful 2022 Exit Right events, this year’s talks are from founders and directors who have successfully exited their businesses as well as M&A experts.

Founders will tell you first hand about their exit journey – what went well and what didn’t go quite so well. You will find out the best strategies to employ and what it takes to be one of the successful 10% of businesses that exit – whether it’s through an acquisition or IPO.

There are lots of factors to consider when deciding whether to grow or sell your business. Gary Smith and Matt Brown will share their experiences of successful growth strategies and tips for acquisitions and business exit.

Speaking at the event:

Gary Smith, CEO of NetStore PLC

Specialist in early-stage Venture Funding and Scale-up – Successfully raised over £50 million in venture capital (IPO, VC, Angel, Crowd).

Gary has a proven track-record building high-growth software businesses from start-up through scale-up to IPO and £30 million in revenue. As a board level business leader and advisor, he is able to accelerate the fortunes of a business, drive sales and substantially improve shareholder value.

As CEO of NetStore PLC, Gary pioneered the ‘Software as a Service’ industry and launched Europe’s first Cloud Computing service provider. Within three years Gary’s strategic marketing ability and high-level negotiation skills took the business from start-up to become the leading SaaS business in Europe taking NetStore through a number of venture funding rounds and a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange.

Matt Brown, Co-Founder, Quorbit, an enterprise Workforce Planning software solution, will talk about the acquisition of his company by US tech company UKG and his dilemma about whether to sell or grow.

With over 20 years’ experience in assisting businesses justify, design, implement and realise benefits from enterprise technology solutions, Matt co-founded Quorbit in late 2016. A niche software solution, Quorbit makes workload budgeting & capacity planning for large-scale businesses simple. Through 2020 & 2022 the company secured three large enterprise contracts with multi-year supply agreements in the retail and hospitality sectors and in November 2022 the company was acquired by UKG having spent 2022 considering both Exit and VC investment routes.

The series is sponsored by Marks & Clerk and organised in partnership with The Oxford Trust, Oxford Innovation Space and Barclays Eagle Labs, Oxford.