Vin Murria Queen of Tech30 Jul 2018 00:27
Built to last
Murria has completed over 40 acquisitions since her days at Kewill. She knows how to attack a niche market and squeeze it for sales by accumulating underexploited, complementary businesses. It’s a formula for success that she’s repeating at Advanced Computer Software, where in two years she has overseen five acquisitions, including COA Solutions for £100 million from Alchemy Partners, and opened offices in Asia and North America. In between all of this, she managed to negotiate a new £55 million financing facility with two banks.
The AIM-listed company, which provides software and IT services to public, private and third sector organisations, has gone from zero to close to £100 million in the space of two years. ‘I’m good at taking something that has sales of £2.5 million and making it a £500 million business,’ she comments. ‘I’m not good at going from a start-up to a few million pounds; that’s not me, but I do have a huge amount of respect for those who can do the start-up phase.’