Perkbox founders to celebrate £35m windfalls from Great Hill deal

The two founders of Perkbox, a British-based employee reward platform, are to toast a combined windfall worth £70m after agreeing to sell their business to a US-based private equity firm.

Sky News has learnt that Saurav Chopra and Chieu Cao, who founded Huddlebuy in 2010, have struck a deal to sell their company to Great Hill Partners for about £130m.

Sources said on Wednesday that the deal was expected to be announced imminently.

It will rank among the biggest exits so far this year for the founders of a British start-up.

The company, which became known as Perkbox in 2015, offers smaller businesses a platform to engage with and reward their employees.

The deal will also hand a £30m bonanza to a group of UK-based angel investors, who, according to previous reports, include the Cazoo and Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman.

Molten Ventures, the London-listed venture capital investor, is also a shareholder in Perkbox.

One source said that Great Hill planned to combine Perkbox with another company it is understood to be acquiring simultaneously.

Details of the other transaction were unclear.

Perkbox and Molten Ventures were contacted for comment, while Great Hill could not be reached.