Arcspring

From vegetable oil to one of the world's largest IT services companies. At Arcspring, we're always impressed by such incredible transformations and reinventions like the one accomplished by Wipro.

In 1945, Wipro began manufacturing and selling vegetable oil. Over the next two decades, the company diversified into soaps, detergents, talcum powder, light bulbs, and other consumer goods.

In 1966, 21-year-old Azim Premji took over the company from his father and expanded Wipro into IT - beginning a decades-long transformation.

Today, more than half of Wipro's $6.9 billion revenue comes from the U.S., where it provides outsourced research and development and IT consulting services

An Epic Digital Transformation

Nokia, the Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics company didn't start out that way. Back in the 1860s, they were building pulp mills and slowly transitioned into manufacturing rubber boots.

But by the late 1960s, the Nokia we know today was beginning to take shape as an electronics giant as Finland was dubbed the "Nordic Japan."

Our fearless leader, Duncan Angove preparing for a portfolio company workshop. Prior to making any acquisition, we get alignment with our CEOs by conducting joint workshops around people, processes, and technology.

The goal is to create a 5-year plan that applies both capital and proprietary software that will transform the balance sheet and the income statement.

We are open for business and looking to apply capital. Our sweet spot is to write $15-75M equity checks for owners/operators in business services industries.

We do NOT buy software companies. We buy companies that should be software companies via tech enablement. Arcspring

Data continues to be the lifeblood for companies attempting to pivot from analog business models to digital ones.

Thanks for providing Arcspring an audience to address our differentiation and value creation playbook to owners, entrepreneurs, and operators.

We are looking to apply both capital and proprietary software to transform our portfolio companies. It’s a growth mindset that has worked well thus far in our technology-based careers.

We are looking to build long-term relationships with owner/operators of great privately held businesses.

Bringing next to now.

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https://arkona.io/blog/2021/07/01/transforming-analogue-businesses-into-saas-companies

Value Creation and Multiple Arbitrage by Transforming Analog Businesses into Digital Companies Episode #255: Corey Tollefson   Hosted by Ryan Tansom    Software and tech companies get much higher valuati

One of Arcspring's portfolio companies, Gridiron Football, is leveraging the digital payment and interest-free option offered by Sezzle to ensure every player has the chance to play right now.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sezzle-now-available-on-gridiron-football-bringing-buy-now-pay-later-to-sports-301312799.html

Sezzle Now Available on Gridiron Football, Bringing Buy Now, Pay Later to Sports /PRNewswire/ -- Sezzle Inc. (ASX: SZL) (Sezzle or Company) // - Sezzle, a leader in the Buy Now, Pay Later industry, is pleased to announce its partnership...

We are excited to announce the launch of Gridiron Football's new acquisition-based site. Whether you want to sell your youth football league, start one, or need help running the one you've built, Gridiron has solutions for you!

Learn more here: http://sellyourleague.com

Gridiron Football - Sell Your League Want to sell your youth football league quickly and easily, or interested in having someone help run it? Gridiron wants to hear from you!

We are having a fantastic discussion in the office about people who have created technologies, inventions, and scientific discoveries that changed the arc of human progress since the dawn of time. (Such as Galileo, Da Vinci, Darwin, Turing, Jobs, Musk, etc...)

Who do you think belongs on the list?

Ex-Oracle and Infor execs aim to disrupt private equity ‘through the lens of software’ Arcspring is a new private equity firm set up by some familiar names in the enterprise software industry, aiming to use their expertise to drive ‘value creation’.

Arcspring's first investment was Gridiron Football. Today, we're proud to say that the league's registration is live! If you're interested in youth football, have a player at home, or would like to experience the future of sports, check out https://www.gridironfb.com/.

Gridiron Football The largest and best non-contact football program in the US.

At Arcspring, we see geothermal energy's potential to be one of this decade’s game-changers. It's renewable, inexhaustible, always-on, resilient, and clean. We're keeping an eye on the space, and love that big names in oil and gas fracking are leading the way.

Geothermal energy is poised for a big breakout "An engineering problem that, when solved, solves energy."

Please allow us to introduce you to Stephen Dunnigan. Stephen assists in investment analysis, transaction ex*****on, and value creation ex*****on for Arcspring.

Previously, Stephen worked at Audax Group, a Boston-based private equity firm that has raised over $26B in capital since inception. Prior to Audax, Stephen worked at Houlihan Lokey in their Healthcare M&A group. He has analyzed and closed over 20 private equity transactions in his career.

Born and raised in Austin, Stephen is a true fan of Texas Longhorn football, live music, and breakfast tacos (so the rumor goes). He’s an avid reader that has been known to get excited about sleep-inducing non-fiction books.

Stephen has a B.S. in Mechanical engineering and an M.S. in Finance from SMU.

We are thrilled that he has joined our team.

Please allow us to introduce you to Ryan Berg. As a Principal, Ryan leads the ex*****on of new investment opportunities, as well as provides strategic and operational support to Arcspring’s portfolio companies.

Prior to joining Arcspring, Ryan worked for 8 years as a Principal at New Capital Partners, a middle-market private equity firm based in Birmingham, AL. Before NCP, Ryan worked in the Strategic Planning group of First Wind, a wind energy portfolio company of Madison Dearborn and DE Shaw, where he was heavily involved in the firm’s corporate capital raising efforts and development project evaluations. Prior to First Wind, Ryan was an Analyst in the Global Industrials Group of UBS Investment Bank, executing numerous M&A transactions, as well as debt and equity financings.

Ryan earned an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and a BS in Commerce from the University of Virginia.

P.S. He was also a US Olympic Trials qualifier and All-ACC swimmer at the University of Virginia.

Proud to partner with Northstar Capital in our investment in Vectair Systems.

Northstar Capital Invests in Vectair Systems Northstar Capital (“Northstar”), a provider of junior capital for middle market private equity transactions, is pleased to announce its investment in

As a managing partner at Arcspring, Duncan established the firm after years of creating analog to digital solutions for some of the biggest names in retail and SaaS clients.

Learn more about Duncan at the link below.

http://duncanangove.net

Duncan Angove   Forward-thinking ideology that’s creating the future of private investment. The most disruptive force in business isn’t new technology — it’s the business model innovation that technology enables.  Providing transformational capital to analog businesses and pivot them to modern digital ...

Simon is a co-founder of Arcspring, Managing Partner, and has a proven track record of delivering Analog to Digital pivots through the lens of technology. He's also considered an elite runner in his limited spare time. Get to know Simon at the link below.

http://simonangove.net

Simon Angove “Angove oversaw one of the largest-ever mergers in the government technology space.”-Financial Post, March 2019 I am a chief executive and entrepreneur with a passion for starting, leading, and growing technology-oriented companies, both organically and through acquisitions. All the businesses I...

Corey Tollefson is responsible for fund management at Arcspring and was the main person driving the raising of equity for the two deals we have closed while managing LP relationships.

To learn more about Corey, click the link below.

http://coreytollefson.com

Corey Tollefson In a world of endless possibilities, the only thing finite is time. We make the most of time. We identify companies that align to our investment thesis: share our disruptive thinking and believe that reinvention through the lens of technology is the quickest path toward growth in the 20s.  I’m a ...

GameStop... it's dangerous to go alone. Take this.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/game-stops-here-adam-drake/

Buckle your seat belt, close your eyes, and grab hold of the future.

Excel at Acceleration When it comes to measurement of change, most want to gauge it as a matter of speed. How fast something is coming.

Arcspring's Adam Drake uses the logic behind building successful baseball teams to imagine a private equity fund based on the same principles.

Using the Principles of Sabermetrics in Private Equity According to the Society for American Baseball Research, “Sabermetrics is the search for objective knowledge about baseball through analysis of the statistical record.” In Moneyball, the utilization of sabermetrics to create a winning baseball team - in this case, the Oakland A's - seemed like a...

At Arcspring (http://arcspring.com) we spend a lot of time understanding emerging technology and the impact it might have, but we spend even more time asking “then what?”

By looking at second and third-order consequences, we are able to more accurately predict areas of investment while managing risk.

A simple example of the impact of second and third-order consequences is the automobile. Not even Henry Ford could have anticipated the coming consequence that the car’s ubiquity would create. The ability for man to more easily travel farther created highways that lead to suburbia, that in turn, created shopping malls.

This is how we think about the future – by focusing less on a technology’s initial impact and more on the ripples that it causes down the line and the incredible investment opportunities and risks those ripples create.

It’s at this intersection of opportunity and risk that Arcspring finds really interesting places to put our money to work.

Minority Report, Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film about using precognition to prevent future murders, was ground-breaking in many ways. But what truly stands out is how a movie centered around predicting the future actually accomplished just that.

During pre-production, Spielberg assembled a who’s who of “future reality” thought leaders including architects, authors, urbanists, computer scientists, and biomedical researchers. What they created was a vision of 2054 that dipped its toes into science fiction while grounding itself in reality.

A quick scan of the technologies in the film reveals key parts of our everyday lives in 2020 that were mere pipe dreams only two decades ago:
· Gesture-based interfaces
· Autonomous cars
· Personalized and hyper-aware advertising
· AI-controlled smart homes
· Facial recognition
· Constantly updating newspapers
· Predictive Policing

This begs the question: can we use well-researched forms of media to predict where the future is headed? Will watching Blade Runner 2049 and Westworld, or highlighting key passages from Ready Player One help us understand future tech's uses in everyday situations? And, if so, should we invest in these technologies in their infancies in order to get ahead of the puck?

Bias in hiring practices has become an extremely negative occurrence throughout society. Studies show that just about all of us, whether we believe it or not, have some sort of unconscious bias when dealing with the unknown. Each and every individual candidate has various individualistic qualities that separate them from others.

To combat this, it's not possible to simply turn to the binary solution of utilizing robots when evaluating a person on paper. With Swyg (https://swyg.com/), each individual now has the ability to shine in their own way. Using AI technology and enhanced human insight, fixing the interview process for many is now possible as candidates on this platform interview each other, rate, and create objective assessments on their peers. In short, crowd-based (and non-biased) recruitment scores.

Fair practices of any sort are of crucial importance to Arcspring (http://arcspring.com). We believe technology like Swyg can help solve the unfair hiring decisions being made on a wide-scale level. On top of this, many positive second-order consequences revolving around diversity and inclusion can be produced by these new advances, especially when it comes to a combination of AI and human-based scoring.

Just about all of us are familiar with the feeling of waiting to check out after spending tons of time shopping for groceries at our local over-sized supermarket. The process is extremely time-consuming and most of the time we only need a select few products.

Thanks to advances in technology and useful services that understand our day to day priorities, we can eliminate standing in line at the grocery store altogether. With Storelift (https://www.storelift.co/), a small tech-enabled grocery store referred to as a "boxy" solves this complex problem.

Occupying a small yet useful area of 15 square meters, this smart micro-retail store enables customers to shop for everyday items and ready to eat foods. Not only are these boxy’s open 24/7, but they are also in central locations, and require no need to checkout as payments are automated based on items you select in the store.

At Arcspring (http://arcspring.com), we love Storelift because it produces next-generation solutions for consumers while being operationally efficient. This technology accomplishes exactly what it is designed to do; it helps humans solve problems and allows us to exponentially change the way we spend our time.

Youth flag football is the fastest growing sport in the United States. With an immense caution of collision-related injuries to the head, the future of the sport of football is headed in a completely different direction. In fact, flag football used to be a sport known for lacking the football "feel" which resulted in many parents turning their kids in the direction of other sports. But times are drastically changing.

With an explosion of new developments in the flag football industry, these enable a new generation of football driven by technology, lower expenses, and a reduced need for equipment. Notably, this generation also includes women, who in 2018 made up 18% of players in flag football leagues as opposed to only 5% in tackle leagues.

With these changes, flag football is a sport transitioning into a democratized one and now needs the presence of technology to take gameplay and viewing to the next level. Arcspring (http://arcspring.com) is delivering on this in unprecedented ways. Automated rostering, improved safety measures, and real-time stats are just some of the ways we're bringing the future of football to the next generation.

Technology is headed in a direction where everything in the world as we know it is becoming smarter, cheaper, and built to scale. We now have the ability to control wanted and unwanted outcomes through various information and data. When I think about technology, I see a system that gives us more quality time on our choosing and less on mundane tasks. I see a world built and driven on ease and one that enables resources to everyone regardless of socioeconomic class.

The future is here. Emerging technological trends are more than just innovative ideas; they are objective methods to drive positive shifts in our society today and tomorrow. Technology as we know it is always changing and so are the ways we utilize that to our benefit. Due to this phenomenon, we are continually able to drive positive outcomes in our social and economic environments. In this article, I will outline seven key tech trends that are remodeling the way we get things done.

Aerial rideshare. Cities around the world are becoming more and more congested with an increased population in city centers resulting in many negative impacts regarding safety, noise, and air pollution. Now, what if we were able to catch a ride in the sky to get to work or a leisure activity? With Uber Elevate taking us to conveniently located skyports, these congested roads will become a thing of the past. This VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) technology is set to give riders the ability to enjoy an affordable shared flight by 2023 and could drastically decrease the number of parking spaces and garages in cities. Along with this, the need to be centralized in a city to accommodate work could push our population back outside of cities.
Augmented shopping. Giving customers the ability to physically engage with products virtually is a great advancement considering COVID has completely changed conventional shopping methods. This “try-before-you-buy” approach is a great way for customers to try on clothing items in a virtual fitting room from a smart device. Companies such as IKEA and Amazon are using AR technology to visualize the look of new furniture in a prospective customer's home in real-time. Adding this technology is ideal as more customers will be inclined to shop knowing the sizing and dimensions of products are precisely catered towards them. Will this cause the demise of the conventional shopping mall?

Cybersecurity insurance. Electronic hacks to a company's database can be catastrophic financially and reputationally. Some Insurance companies have started offering coverage for expenses lost by a company due to a security breach. This innovation can serve similar to any type of insurance; however, costs from reputational damage and financial losses can be aided without the complete destruction of a company. With this, companies can spend less time and effort on security and more time on new products and services.

Tree bombing drones. Deforestation is a huge problem facing our environment. A drone capable of dropping biodegradable seeds in a designated area can immensely grow trees at a high rate while extending out to hard to reach areas such as mangrove forests. The company DroneSeed is equipped with 55-pound drones that can plant up to 800 seeds in one hour. Being the first company approved by the FAA to fly heavy lift drone swarms, the company's reforestation efforts bring light to technology advancements aiding the reforestation industry. Could this create restore wildlife's habitat and also give farmers more arable land?
Underground cities. Space and resources on Earth are limited. Building elaborate multi-story underground basements will give home and business owners the ability to expand their property underground. This technology is one that is already here as many train stations and subways operate in this unique space. The ability to live underground could provide a solution to lower living costs and increased availability for our population in cities. Places like Mexico City could directly benefit from this technology as they are in giant trouble due to overpopulation. 51% of families in this city, averaging 6.5 people sleep in a shared room.

Genome editing. Imagine a world where the average lifespan of a human increase drastically. With genome editing technology, genetic material can be added, removed, or altered at specific locations of the genome. Diseases and other mutations can be avoided before birth such as cancer and mental health disease. This complex technology could provide our world with a more healthy and active society while saving us the financial burden and complicated health risks associated with previous years.
The democratization of tech. The amount of people having access to technology continues to grow at a rapid pace. Equipping a larger group of people with technology that is easy to use can only benefit them and the existing tech community. More and more people are able to start their own business. On top of this, more people have the opportunity to be profitable solely based on the internet. This can lead to smaller businesses taking the forefront of the economy and allow people who once had no say in solutions, a shared voice. What a great step in tackling wealth inequality amongst individuals in the developing world and increasing globalization.