Private equity firm Inflexion, which has a base in Manchester, has agreed to sell Reward Gateway to Great Hill Partners in a £140m deal, generating a 7.7x return on its original investment.
The employee engagement technology specialist originally secured investment from Inflexion in December 2010.
Founded by Glenn Elliott in 2006, London-based Reward Gateway provides mobile-optimised software-as-a-service employee engagement platforms used by corporate HR departments to attract, engage and retain staff. The company's services power employee benefits, recognition and communications on behalf of more than 1,100 companies including American Express, Discovery, AOL and IBM.
During Inflexion's four-year tenure, the company enhanced its product suite and expanded its international footprint recording a fourfold increase in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, while employee numbers rose from 64 to 275.
Reward Gateway also acquired two businesses, one of which doubled the size of the company in Australia. Further international expansion saw the company open a US office in 2014 while continuing to grow market share in the UK through client retention and new client wins.
Simon Turner, managing partner at Inflexion, said: "Reward Gateway is a classic Inflexion investment. We partnered with a top-class management team to help accelerate growth in a terrific business both internationally and through acquisition.
"We have enjoyed a very successful relationship with Glenn and the team, supporting the company's US launch and two acquisitions, whilst growing profits and employee numbers. The US market offers the company another exciting growth opportunity and we wish the team every success in the next stage of their development."
Glenn Elliott, founder and chief executive of Reward Gateway, said: "We've had an amazing four years with Inflexion and we are a stronger and more successful company thanks to their support.
"Their backing has enabled us to invest heavily in expanding the services we provide to HR and scale the business internationally. We are really excited about continuing in this form with the support of Great Hill."
The sale process was led for Inflexion by Christian Hamilton. Inflexion was advised by Robert W Baird.