The Manchester innovator entrusted with the US Library of Congress’s digital footprint

Every day, companies and organisations produce copious amounts of digital content, increasingly subject to regulatory or other scrutiny – these include emails, text messaging, social media, website pages and so on.

The larger the enterprise, the more onerous the need can be for digital oversight. So how do multinationals, institutions and government departments keep on top of monitoring, archiving and retrieving their content for regulatory compliance?

Typically, an organisation might employ a number of people to do the Sisyphean task of continually monitoring, screenshotting and filing digital content records. This is labour-intensive and prone to human error.

This is where digital archiving specialist MirrorWeb – a Maven VCTs portfolio company – can provide a technologically superior yet far less costly and resource hungry alternative. 

The cloud-based SaaS platform automates capturing all of an enterprise’s digital communications – creating timestamped, authenticated records that can meet compliance obligations and be retrieved easily. MirrorWeb’s solution is now used by an illustrious list of customers in the UK and US – including Aegon, HSBC, Standard Life, AXA, Baillie Gifford, HM Treasury, Tesco Bank and The National Archives.

Find out more about the company’s trajectory, why Maven has invested in total £4.5 million to date – and how you can invest in the company and similar ones through the Maven VCTs.

Maven’s journey with MirrorWeb so far

MirrorWeb was founded in 2012 by a small team above a pub in Manchester. The RegTech company now has a global staffing presence.

Maven clients first backed the business in 2018 to help develop its innovative range of products. A strong period of growth followed, and the Maven VCTs subsequently made their first investment in the business in 2020 to support its expansion into new markets.

Since then, MirrorWeb has significantly increased its annual recurring revenues (ARR) and entered the North American market. There, it has won key customer contracts, including the US Library of Congress (the Library is the largest in the world, the main research arm of the US Congress and the home of the US Copyright Office). 

During Maven's investment, MirrorWeb has achieved a 350% increase in ARR. With growth largely driven by demand from financial services businesses in the US – where, increasingly, regulation requires the capture and archiving of communications – MirrorWeb’s international growth strategy is focused on further expansion into that market.

In mid-2022, Maven invested another £1 million into the company to support its growth in North America with the opening of a new office in Austin, Texas.

Why did Maven Capital Partners invest? 

Maven Capital Partners is a highly regarded fund manager with a focus on regional unquoted businesses across the UK regions, ranging from Northern and Central Scotland to Bristol, Reading and London. Besides its four long-established VCTs, Maven also manages a regional buyout fund as well as regional funds for the British Business Bank and the Scottish Government.

The Maven VCTs have invested in MirrorWeb for three main reasons:

1. The management team’s quality, performance and ambition.
2. The progress MirrorWeb has made in increasing revenues and accelerating growth in the UK and international markets.
3. Its novel technology, offering the capability to rapidly build market traction.