Arquebus Solutions

I'm Greg Easter. I'm a partner at Heligan Group. Within our investments division, I am the investment director on Arquebus Solutions. I work with the management team and the board there to support the business in their growth journey on a day-to-day basis.

So Arquebus is a specialist consultancy and software provider. They work with governments globally to help them solve gun crime. So Arquebus's consultancy is all around gaining control over firearms through registration and licensing. Arquebus is completely unique. There's no business globally with the unique range of skills and products. The business has redeveloped its software over the last couple of years, adding new features. There is lots of interest globally, and we're supporting them in unlocking doors where our network can help to do that, but also challenging the management team and working with them to develop their commercial strategy.

The key opportunity for Arquebus is delivering on the growth potential within its software. Governments globally haven't invested in the type of software that Arquebus provide. They all register and license firearms, often using spreadsheets or paper-based systems. Arquebus's solution brings a completely different level of control and insight to nation-states and law enforcement professionals. So the challenge for Arquebus is to get their software out there and help nation-states to fight gun crime.

The key challenge for Arquebus, given the nature of its customer base, is its sales cycle. Typically, its products are sold through government procurement processes to people that don't understand the product and are focused on cost rather than outcomes, which means it takes a long time to grow the pipeline and ultimately deliver.

So Heligan's on-sector model really helps with our investment in Arquebus versus a more generalist offering. There's two key ways in which our on-sector offering has helped. Firstly, in making the original investment, we were able to bring individuals from a law enforcement background that deeply understand what the users of Arquebus's software and solutions would be looking for in order to assess whether or not it would be a good investment. Secondly, the networks and relationships that our law enforcement-focused individuals have has enabled us to really help Arquebus to build a broad pipeline of opportunities across the globe and make people better aware of what they have to offer. A generalist investment house wouldn't be able to make the same level of assessment of Arquebus's products and solutions and wouldn't have the network to help them to get to market in a way that we have been able to. With Arquebus, Heligan's network has really made the difference in opening up doors in areas that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to get into. We have a senior team of ex-law enforcement professionals who've got great networks globally, which enables us to make introductions to the business to demonstrate their software and offering that wouldn't be available to other investors.