BigHand Acquired by Bridgepoint Development Capital

The United Kingdom–based BigHand has been acquired by Bridgepoint Development Capital for $77.5 million.

Founded in 1996, BigHand is the largest provider of voice productivity software to the legal, healthcare, and professional services markets in the United Kingdom. It currently supports over 150,000 professionals globally across 1,450 organizations and has offices in London, Chicago, Sydney, and Toronto. The company predominantly sells its software on an initial license basis, followed by an annual maintenance contract, and also has a growing software as a service offering for smaller customers.

Alan Payne, partner at Bridgepoint Development Capital, said in a statement that he believes the penetration of voice productivity solutions, although strong in some markets, still has further to go in other markets, and will expand particularly in mobile devices and recent advances in voice-to-text conversion technology.

"Voice productivity software can yield very significant efficiency gains and cost savings to its users," he said. "BigHand is highly rated for its product capability and quality of service and is now recognized as a market leader, especially by the legal community."

BigHand CEO Jon Ardron added: "We consider Bridgepoint's support to be very good news for our clients and our staff as we invest for the future. We have exciting plans for new products and services, and there are a range of untapped growth opportunities for our business in both existing and newer markets. With the support of our new shareholder, we expect to grow our market share [and] build our customer base in target markets, as well as extend our capabilities through targeted acquisitions."

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