Daniel Halliday – Director at Foresight Group in Edinburgh

Substantive, with offices in London and Edinburgh, is a FinTech providing in-depth product and pricing comparison for investment research spend, market data and investment research content.

It provides research and market data benchmarking to over 100 global clients, across Europe and North America, including asset managers, hedge funds, wealth managers, sell-side institutions and private markets.

Foresight has achieved a 2.4x return on its original investment and marks the first exit from the Foresight Scottish Growth Fund, which is backed by the Scottish Government.

Substantive was founded in 2015 by chief executive Mike Carrodus who partnered with Foresight in 2020, a move which enabled significant growth, including the launch of a technology hub in Edinburgh alongside significant investment in new products including market data and ESG research benchmarking products.

Foresight also introduced Graham Paterson, an experienced private equity and FinTech founder, as chair, to support Mr Carrodus as the company scaled at pace. A new chief technology officer was appointed to oversee the launch of a Technology Hub in Edinburgh, with the tech team driving the automation of Substantive products which facilitated its rapid growth.

Mike Carrodus – CEO of Substantive Research

Mike Carrodus, CEO of Substantive Research, said: “Foresight have been an excellent partner for us as we have grown rapidly, bringing a flexible approach, great industry knowledge and connections as well as funding.

“Euronext’s acquisition of Substantive Research underlines our team’s hard work in creating a unique price benchmarking database in investment research and market data.

“With the research market poised for yet more regulatory-driven changes, plus market data consumers grappling with increasing costs and pricing opacity, we are excited to be able to accelerate our coverage and data depth. We can accelerate development into areas where we know our clients need greater market transparency.”

Daniel Halliday, director at Foresight Group in Edinburgh, said: “We are delighted to have made our first exit from the Foresight Scottish Growth Fund – Substantive Research is a strong entrepreneurial success story and it’s been a pleasure working with Mike and the team to build a tech-enhanced business to benchmark price and supply in the investment research and data markets.

“It’s been a pleasure working with the team to establish its technology hub in Edinburgh, bringing investment and highly skilled jobs to the Scottish economy.

“With a flexible approach and significant funding available to invest in growing businesses across Scotland our team here is keen to meet entrepreneurs, management teams and their advisers to discuss how we can support their growth strategies and realise their ambitions.”