AdvT to acquire Celaton amid robust trading

Business software and solutions specialist AdvancedAdvT announced an agreement to acquire Celaton on Tuesday, in a deal valued at £5m net of cash acquired.

The AIM-traded firm said Celaton operates an intelligent document processing platform known as ‘inSTREAM’, leveraging machine-learning artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

It said the platform offers a suite of functionalities, including automatic data recognition, classification, validation, and enrichment, along with continual process automation using machine-learning AI algorithms and analytics.

The board said the acquisition of Celaton aligned with AdvT's existing business, particularly benefiting IBSS clients involved in end-to-end business processing, accounts payables, and sales order processing automation.

Celaton's substantial investment of £2.3m in product development over the two years preceding the acquisition resulted in advanced platform AI capabilities, improved web user interface, and multi-language support, positioning the product for expansion into adjacent markets, AdvT explained.

The firm’s customers included businesses like TalkTalk, Currys and Capgemini.

In financial terms, Celaton recorded revenue of £3.3m in the 12 months ended 30 June 2023, with 80% coming from recurring subscription and transactional sources.

Celaton reported EBITDA before development costs of £1.2m in the same period, with net assets totaling £1.5m.

Completion was contingent on National Security and Investment Act approval.

“Celaton operates within a market experiencing significant rising demand for AI, automation and efficiencies,” said executive chair Vin Murria.

“It will be immediately beneficial to the wider AdvT client base, with its e-invoicing, AI, document processing IP centric product.”

Murria said it was “especially timely”, considering the recent notice that a material alternative supplier intended to withdraw from the market, creating further immediate opportunities.

“This is a highly complementary, earning enhancing addition to the group, which will benefit from being part of a larger business.”

AdvT also updated the market on its trading in the eight months ended 29 February, saying it saw robust progress across key financial metrics, driven by strong revenues and adjusted EBITDA performance, as recurring revenues continued to represent about 77% of continuing revenues.

Profit before tax was meanwhile expected to benefit from factors including the gain on the sale of Synaptic, an increase in the fair value of its investment in M&C Saatchi, and interest income.

As of the end of February, the group held net cash and investments totaling £102.9m.

At 1232 BST, shares in AdvancedAdvT were up 4.1% at 141.05p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.