ECI-backed Ciphr has moved into the employee benefits business, with the acquisition of Avantus.
Avantus, founded in 2005, serves over 400 businesses globally through its intuitive, and fully customisable, employee benefits and rewards platform, FlexGenius, and its popular, white-labelled solution MyWorkPal.
This is the third acquisition since ECI’s investment for Ciphr, having bought Marshalls (now Ciphr eLearning) in April 2023 and Shape Payroll in June this year, and builds on Ciphr’s strategy to acquire UK businesses that complement its core HCM offering. It’s also its largest acquisition to date – significantly expanding Ciphr’s customer proposition to include employee benefits and wellbeing for the first time.
Avantus’ robust platform enables employers to deliver unlimited, personalised benefits choices to multi-generational workforces with diverse needs and differing expectations and priorities. It can help strengthen organisations’ Employee Value Proposition, support their talent retention, recruitment and recognition strategies, and streamline the admin process for HR. And it empowers employees to manage and see the value of their eligible core and voluntary benefits, such as salary sacrifice, medical and dental cover, retail discounts, pensions, and financial protection, in one central, easy-to-use, portal.
Philip Curtis, Avantus’ co-founder and CEO, and his 30-strong team will also join Ciphr Group from today.
This is an exciting acquisition for Ciphr, and we’re delighted to welcome Philip and the Avantus team to the group. Avantus has a great reputation across the benefits and rewards industry for creating functionality-rich, people-centric technology that aims to make our working lives better.
This acquisition will truly enhance Ciphr’s HCM proposition and is an important step on our growth journey to becoming one of the UK’s top technology companies – providing cutting-edge HR, payroll, learning, recruitment and benefits software and services. One that not only serves its core market – UK-based, medium-sized organisations – but also is the provider of choice for companies based overseas looking to expand into Europe and the UK. Together, Ciphr and Avantus will be able to deliver an even better experience, and even better technologies, for our customers and their people.”
We are absolutely delighted that Avantus has become part of the Ciphr Group. With 20 years of experience behind us, our priority was to partner with an organisation that believes in, and shares, our customer-first ethos, and is committed to supporting us in our mission to deliver the very best in employee benefits technology. We are really excited about the opportunities that lie ahead, and are very much looking forward to working together with the Ciphr team to continue our growth journey.”
Benefits has long been a focus for our M&A strategy, and we’re delighted to bring Avantus, a high-quality and fast-growth business, into Ciphr. Employee benefits is a rapidly growing market as employers seek to improve their value proposition and retain top talent in a competitive labour market. We’re looking forward to welcoming Philip Curtis and the rest of the Avantus team into the Ciphr group and continuing to work with Sion Lewis and the wider Ciphr team as they offer an even better service to HR teams across the UK.”
