Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Bolton, Love Energy specialises in the comparison of business energy prices. It connects small and medium-sized businesses with the UK energy supplier that offers the most appropriate gas and electricity tariff, before helping its customers to switch provider.
The business supports more than 500,000 customers nationwide. It has also been independently recognised as the most trusted business-energy price comparison specialist in the UK by TrustPilot and as the second-highest-rated company for work-life balance in the UK by Glassdoor.
Backing investment
In September 2018, we invested more than £25m in Love Energy to further accelerate organic growth. At the time, the business was already enjoying success, having grown its revenues from £13.2m to £17.4m in just the 12 months to December 2017, under the leadership of CEO and Co-Founder Phil Foster.
Our partnership is now underpinning the management team’s plans to expand Love Energy and its corporate services division, which supports major energy users across the industrial and commercial sector. It is also enabling the team to further invest in its proprietary technology platforms and support continued diversification into the water, telecoms and insurance markets.
As soon as we started our partnership with LDC, the Value Creation Partners worked quickly to help us grow our customer base though the LDC portfolio. We are also benefiting from services provided by other portfolio businesses.”
Leveraging LDC’s network
As well as financial support, we have made strategic introductions for the company to several of our 90-strong portfolio, identifying and capitalising on the many opportunities for SMEs to make energy savings at the same time as growing Love Energy’s customer base.
Additional expertise
Also as part of the deal, Steve Weller joined the board as Non-Executive Chairman in 2018.
Weller has more than 10 years’ experience driving growth at technology-led businesses and was CEO of the energy switching service uSwitch until 2018, where he worked closely with LDC during its support of the business.
Our partnership with Love Energy won Deal of the Year (£10m – £50m) at the 2019 North West Dealmaker Awards.
Following the business’ introduction of a flexible working policy in 2021, the business announced it had seen a 156% in the number of female starters over the following 12 months.
Expansion of brand offering
Love have also expanded their offering with additional brands to make business utilities as simple as possible for UK businesses with three of the key ones being Business Electricity Prices, Business Energy and British Business Energy.
In LDC we have a partner that not only provides the financial backing we need to turbocharge growth, but one with a strong track record of driving growth at technology-led businesses in the energy sector.”
Awards
Team of the Year
Finance Awards North West 2023
Business Masters Awards Fast Growth
2019
The Sunday Times Tech Track 100
2018
TECLA Awesome Place to Work
2018
Deal of the Year (£10m – £50m)
Love Energy – Insider North West Dealmakers