How Dubai-based BXB is connecting great business minds to great investments

“Whilst the number of new businesses continues to increase year on year in the UAE, buying an existing business actually presents a far higher probability of success as the purchaser is buying both a proven concept and a track record in revenue,” founder Tutu Saul said.“Enter BXB. We are here to connect great business minds to great investments and services.”

In an exclusive interview with Arabian Business, Saul reveals where she spotted a gap in the market for BXB, and she takes us on the company’s funding journey and outlines where she would like to see the company in the next five years.

Where did you see the gap in the market? 

My family and I moved to Dubai in December 2014. At that time I had left my corporate career in financial services, and once in Dubai I was keen to explore investment and business acquisition opportunities.

I soon realised that there was no easy way to look for opportunities and very little data to assist in investment decisions. Considering the high proportion of expats in the UAE, it was clear there was a big gap in the market to assist investors and companies looking to enter the UAE for new opportunities and match them with those looking to exit their businesses and go back to their home countries or exit for other reasons.

This made a solid case to build a discovery and matching platform, which would subsequently support SME growth and assist business exit through an affordable M&A solution. The UAE was the perfect place for this with its strategic location and time zone – I knew there would be no shortage of potential users for the platform.

The BXB platform allows people to buy or invest into existing businesses with the advantage of buying proven business concepts with existing revenue streams. It eliminates the very costly time to market when starting something new and the probability of success in buying an existing business is infinitely higher compared to starting a new business from scratch.

Tutu Saul, founder of BXB

What is your business plan?

BXB is a Fintech-based SME ecosystem that revolutionises the way business is done in the SME sector. We are focused on building sophisticated matching technology and building valuable data sets that will help support SME owners and investors with their investment decisions.

How does the business help the SME community? 

Despite many economies being dependent on the SME sector, the SME sector is frequently under served, fragmented and lacks transparency. The opaque nature of the SME sector makes it difficult to draw in local or foreign investment leaving SMEs vulnerable to default and liquidation.

The BXB platform provides transparency and standardization, which provides a level of comfort for investors and this is what creates the critical liquidity needed for this sector to thrive.

BXB provides accessible and affordable M&A solutions for both buyers and sellers, which allows for a more structured and safe transaction and the platform gives businesses the opportunity to grow via investment when bank loans are not an option. All of this without the business giving away its identity publicly or showing its plans to large groups of people.

Access to potential buyers and investors also helps to reduce the social and economic problems of company closures, defaults and unemployment. The BXB platform has that critical digital reach to entrepreneurs, business owners and investors.

Above all, we are proud to serve the SME sector – these business owners make a huge contribution to business, innovation and GDP in this country. They are always humble, have the best work ethic and the courage to take risks every day. This inspires us in turn to keep innovating and supporting their efforts.

Is the company bootstrapped or have you raised capital from investors? Can you take us through your funding journey?

The company has mainly been bootstrapped to date but we are starting an investment round so we can accelerate our growth.

You’re now five years old, where would you like to see the company in the next five years?

BXB will start to expand internationally and will be focused on further digitalising the M&A process. We are also excited to start providing valuable SME data that will help both business owners and investors better analyse the landscape and act upon good data and benchmarks.

How has the business been impacted by Covid-19?

We were fortunate enough to see more investment activity during the Covid-19 period particularly from foreign investment. The UAE’s handling of Covid-19 has attracted many more foreign investors along with all the new legislation that has been rolled out that encourages foreign ownership.

Covid-19 has made investors focus on very specific industries and company profiles. Deal structures tend to be longer and account for the new level of risk seen in the business landscape. We saw more deals close during Covid-19 but at smaller ticket sizes.

BXB provides accessible and affordable M&A solutions for both buyers and sellers

What lessons have you learned from the last 12 months?

Economic cycles present new opportunities no matter how depressed the markets may be. The key thing is to understand your customer base and work out where those opportunities may lie.

Being passive is the most certain way to kill your business, at these times you need to analyse, evolve and be consistently agile. I’ve been really impressed at how resourceful our business owners have been in generating new revenue streams when their traditional revenue streams came to a temporary standstill.

I always felt that entrepreneurs were by far the best people to have around in times of crisis as they are wired to see solutions where others see problems and Covid-19 has made this even more apparent.

For many businesses you can only look at Q1 and Q4 of 2020 to understand performance. Hot sectors in the last 12 months have been food manufacturing and trading, agriculture, healthcare and tech.

What is your vision for the company?

To create the best FinTech SME ecosystem globally that serves the needs of business owners and investors in their respective communities. To leverage technology to provide affordable and accessible solutions for all business owners to thrive. We want to create endless opportunities for businesses to transact at any time and any place.