Fabacus raises £4.5m; Jonathan Baker now Chief Commercial Officer
Fabacus has successfully raised £4.5 million, led by Wealth Club, and announces the appointment of licensing industry executive veteran, Jonathan Baker, to Chief Commercial Officer. This marks an exciting phase for the business as it prepares for anticipated growth.
Fabacus is a data management and bureau service for the licensing industry and developer of proprietary data management software platform, Xelacore.
Operational processes within licensing remain largely siloed with disjointed data transfer across multiple stakeholders, inhibiting product identification and tracking. This leads to royalty reconciliation challenges, royalty discrepancies and hindered brand protection efforts, as counterfeiters can go undetected. To address this, and several other industry challenges, Fabacus set out to harvest and cleanse the data collected from all the stakeholders, creating centralized, enriched and robust product registers. This unlocks new capabilities assisting with consumer engagement initiatives, as well as provides robust data capture and structuring to meet increasingly stringent ESG reporting requirements.
Its blue-chip clients include Epic Games, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Skydance Animation, Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard. Fabacus also has strategic partnerships with IMG Licensing, the world’s largest licensing agency, which manages the likes of Fiat Chrysler, Pepsi, Haribo, Volkswagen and Budweiser, Fanatics, who are leading the sports sector with clients including NBA, NFL and UEFA, and Wildbrain CPLG.
Jonathan Baker, Chief Commercial Officer at Fabacus, and formerly head of NBC Universal EMEA, DreamWorks Animation International Licensing and licensing roles in Disney Consumer Products, comments: “The licensing industry has a vast array of opportunities in the way that data is operationalized and used to streamline processes and drive revenue. The team at Fabacus have built a silo breaking, multi-faceted solution that’s relevant to the entire industry and I’m delighted to play a part in the next phase of Fabacus’ exciting evolution.
“Jonathan is a proven professional having operated in both licensing and vertical operations of global magnitude”, Andrew Xeni, CEO and Founder of Fabacus added. “Jonathan’s initial appointment was a period for him to truly understand the Fabacus proposition. Since then, he has demonstrated value to the team and his experience and energy make him an ideal fit with Fabacus as we embark on our growth journey. His commitment further validates our value proposition to the industry. In addition to personnel changes, we have bolstered our balance sheet in readiness to scale. Thank you to the amazing team at Wealth Club, my existing investors, and all the new investors who participated, we are now set and secure for this exciting next phase.”
Fabacus was founded by successful serial entrepreneur, Andrew Xeni, who has a significant background in retail, including deep supply chain experience. The company is backed by other high-profile investors, including Tom Singh OBE (founder of 440-store chain New Look), Seneca Partners, Inovia (led by Patrick Pichette, former CFO of Google) and Mitch Foreman (former CFO of Disney EMEA Consumer Products), as well as Wealth Club. Andrew Xeni is also the founder of award-winning eco-conscious fashion brand, Nobody’s Child, of which Marks and Spencer is a strategic minority investor and shareholder, as well as founder of tech business, Soreto, servicing global clients such as H&M brands, Nike, Under Armour, Samsung, Puma and many others.
