Marc Murphy, founder and chief executive of financial technology company Fenergo, has been chosen as The Irish Times Business Person of the Month for April, an award run in association with Bank of Ireland.
The fast-growing fintech started the month in positive fashion by announcing 100 new jobs for Dublin in a move that takes its total headcount across the group to nearly 1,000 people. A few weeks later it was revealed Fenergo had become the State’s third “tech unicorn”, a status awarded to private companies valued at $1 billion or more.
Market valuation
The company sold a majority share of the business in a $600 million deal, with private equity firms Astorg and Bridgepoint acquiring stakes previously owned by Insight and DXC. The deal gives Fenergo, which works with many of the leading banks and insurers on areas such as regulatory compliance and data management, a market valuation of $1.165 billion (€950 million ).
As Mr Murphy said earlier this week after the acquisition was officially confirmed, there is now scope for Fenergo to become a considerably bigger business.
“We now have a platform to really scale and become a truly global enterprise business. There is going to be a large multimillion euro sum of money available for us to grow fast by aggressively acquiring businesses to complement what we do, which is something we haven’t done to date,” he said.
Mr Murphy and his backers believe Fenergo could grow to become a $5 billion business and there are few who would bet against this happening.
