BGF invests $18.9m to drive Sulmara's global growth ambitions

Kevin McBarron, Founder and CEO of Sulmara

Scottish offshore services specialist eyes significant renewables opportunity.

BGF, one of the largest and most experienced growth capital investors in the UK and Ireland, announces an $18.9m (£15m) investment in Sulmara, an independent provider of innovative survey and inspection services to the offshore wind and energy markets.

The Glasgow-headquartered business was founded in 2019 and has grown rapidly to more than $70m (£55.8m) annual revenue, delivering a compound annual growth rate of 61% over the last 4 years, and building a global footprint with offices in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Norwich, Houston, Singapore and Taipei.

Sulmara's rapid growth and success to date has come from using expertise and technology to provide more efficient survey services with a lower carbon footprint to a wide range of global clients. The business was the first services company in the offshore wind sector to be a signatory to the Climate Pledge, and has recently achieved independently verified Carbon Neutrality status against the BSI PAS 2060:2014 standard.

BGF's investment will support Sulmara's continued growth trajectory, including further investment in new technologies such as uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), next generation geophysical sensors and advanced data products. The ability to use these advanced systems both alongside and with traditional survey vessels supports improved high-quality data turnaround time while significantly reducing the environmental impact of offshore projects. Sulmara are already delivering benefits for major customers around the world including Orsted, Chevron and Seaway7 using remote & innovative systems, and BGF's investment will enable further complex and low carbon data collection in environments that pose a huge challenge to conventional methodologies.

As part of BGF's investment, Richard Pugh and Davis Larssen will join the board as Non-Executive Directors. Both Pugh and Larssen bring many years' experience leading and investing in energy services and technology businesses.

Kevin McBarron, Founder and CEO of Sulmara, said: “BGF’s investment comes at an important moment for the company as we look to build on the success of our technology and innovation efforts to date and to accelerate their introduction to our service offerings. This significant investment of growth capital is a vote of confidence in our strategy from an established investment partner in BGF. The international growth and breadth of services now delivered demonstrates that our approach is also resonating with our clients and supports their need to reduce Scope 3 emissions as the path to NetZero matures.

We now look forward to investing further in the technology that will allow us to deliver world-class services to support the entire offshore energy sector at a lower carbon cost."

Richard Pugh, Investor at BGF, said: "Offshore renewables and their adjacent technologies have an increasingly important role in decarbonising our energy, and an area Scotland has world leading expertise. Sulmara's growth in the last 3-4 years is evidence of both the quality of their operations as well as the ability of Kevin and his team to deliver for clients while also building a truly global business. Working closely with Kevin, Mike, Davis and the rest of the management team, we look forward to supporting the next stage in Sulmara's exciting.

【About BGF】
BGF was set up in 2011 and has invested £3.9bn in over 550 companies, making it the most active investor in the UK and Ireland. BGF is a minority, non-controlling equity partner with a patient outlook on investments, based on shared long-term goals with the management teams it backs. BGF invests in growing businesses in the UK and Ireland through its network of 15 offices. Reflecting its long-standing commitment to supporting good growth in entrepreneurial businesses, BGF was recently recognised as a certified UK B Corp.

【About Sulmara】
Sulmara is an international services provider specialising in site investigation, construction support, subsea survey and inspection across the offshore energy and utilities sectors. We drive the decarbonisation of offshore services through the development and use of innovative technologies and methodologies.