In addition to helping owners successfully sell their businesses, CFSG also works with owners to accelerate their growth. This is typically a longer-term strategy intended to increase a business’ value over, say, a three-to-five-year period. For a detailed overview of CFSG’s growth advisory practice, including a snapshot of some of our recent direct investments, please click here.

In 2024, CFSG was introduced to Clinical Imaging (CI). CI provides a standardised, on-site photographic solution that enables plastic surgeons, dermatologists, aesthetic nurses and other healthcare professionals to efficiently create and store consistent, high quality patient images that comply with increasingly stringent regulations. The business was founded by Woodrow Wilson, a global pioneer in the sector.

Why Clinical Imaging Was Attractive

There were a number of key factors that made CI an attractive company to work with. First, the business appeared to be leveraging a key social trend: the growing acceptance of cosmetic procedures like Botox and fillers and the associated explosion in social media-driven ‘selfie’ / influencer culture. At the same time, while the industry has been growing strongly, regulators have been increasingly focused on imposing tighter standards on the use of clinical photography in clinical consults and marketing materials.

This played directly to CI’s strengths – a focus on high quality images that were also compliant with regulatory standards.

In addition, CI was not a start-up company in so far as it had a robust, well-developed technology offering and already had a large number of paying clients on subscription contracts. There was clear evidence of product-market fit with paying customers across Australia and internationally as well as a large data bank of glowing testimonials endorsing both the product and the business’ customer experience.

Entering A Partnership

When CFSG’s growth practice decides to collaborate with a new business, the firm likes to have a deeper relationship than just a fee-for-service model. CFSG will often invest a modest amount in a business to become an active shareholder. This indicates to a client that CFSG is sufficiently committed to the opportunity to put some skin in the game. Moreover, when we identify a compelling opportunity, our goal is to also share in the upside when a client company is eventually sold.

For another case study of CFSG’s growth practice achieving a $100m exit, please click here.

Following a basic round of due diligence, CFSG agreed to make an initial investment into CI and to begin working with the company as a growth consultant. The first step was to undertake a ‘needs analysis’ to work out what areas the business needed to focus on to effectively accelerate the company’s growth. While the specifics of this work remain confidential, CFSG identified a number of areas that required attention:

• Short & longer-term goal setting across a range of key metrics;
• Detailed review of accounting data & reporting;
• Dashboarding to monitor key performance indicators;
• Strategic analysis to fine tune the customer value proposition;
• Marketing review to identify key communication channels;

Next, CFSG and CI mapped out their schedule for ongoing communication and collaboration. This included weekly telephone catchups, monthly virtual meeting and bi-annual full-day planning days. Each session has clear goals, a detailed agenda and action items.

Watch This Space

CFSG continues to work closely with CI with the view to growing the company’s value and to position the business for both future investment rounds and an eventual and significant exit. Following the first year of CFSG’s involvement with CI, the business has reported record revenues with a clear path for continued rapid growth.

If you would like to discuss how CFSG might be able to help you accelerate the growth of your business and help you achieve an eventual exit, please don’t hesitate to contact us.