Passenger sells to Masabi

After more than twelve years, working with the brilliant Tom Quay, my Passenger (Base) chapter has reached a wonderful conclusion; the business has been acquired by Masabi, a company we've known and traded alongside for many years.

My involvement started back in September 2013, when through 3D FD I was contracted to work as a part-time FD at Base. At the time, Base was a digital agency building bespoke solutions across a wide range of clients and industries. However, together with Tom and our Non-Executive Director, Chris Thurling, we made the decision to pivot, and focus on product - using the knowledge and expertise our team had accrued to build quality solutions.

That pivot took us from a generalist digital agency (Base) to Passenger: a SaaS transport tech company building world class apps and websites for bus operators, transforming the customer experience for millions of passengers across the UK and beyond. It was a bold move and we were essentially transitioning from a services business into a product business, with all the risk and reinvention that entails.

But in time, it worked. Our apps became the best in the market, with average app store ratings above 4.5 stars. Over 60 transport operators trusted us to serve their customers. The business grew every year, delivering impressive compound annual growth, annually recurring contracted revenues, and critically we built something that had real, lasting value.

Masabi was the perfect acquirer for us; they're a reputable, fast-growing business in the transport technology space, and a company we've known well for years. When (working with a brilliant team from BDO) we took Passenger to the market for sale, and we met with Masabi, it was evident there could be wide ranging benefits from partnering with Masabi, including for our respective customers, and the Passenger team.

I'm incredibly proud of what Tom, the team and I built at Passenger, and I'm proud of the role I played in helping shape its journey from digital agency to one of the UK's most respected transport tech companies.