Raleigh’s Black-led startup Global Data Consortium is sold, reportedly for hundreds of millions

RALEIGH — After years of bootstrapping followed by a late-stage capital raise, one of the Triangle’s most promising, Black-led data startups has scored an exit deal estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.

Global Data Consortium (GDC), the global identification verification platform led by Bill Spruill and Charles Gaddy, confirmed on Tuesday that it has been acquired by the UK-based London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). The group, which owns the London Stock Exchange on which it is listed and other big-name data providers like Refinitiv and LSEG Technology, said GDC is poised to become the “platform of choice” to manage financial crime-related risks.

The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Spruill told WRAL TechWire that the transaction is “one of the largest” deals to come out of the Triangle in recent years – on par with exits of fellow homegrown North Carolina startups Bronto and PrecisionLender. (Bronto sold to NetSuite for $200 million in 2015; PrecisionLender got acquired by Q2 Holdings for $510 million in 2019.)

As part of the deal, he added, 25 “current and past employees” are now newly minted millionaires.

“Personally, I’m really proud to show that a founder is a founder, regardless of race, age, sexual orientation or economic upbringing,” said Spruill, who in recent years has become one of the region’s most outspoken leaders on issues relating to diversity and inclusion, and the disproportionate challenges Black entrepreneurs often face when raising capital.

“Hopefully others in the community will break out of their biases and recognize that people of color, older founders and others that don’t fit their normal biases can achieve great outcomes and deserve funding, support and engagement. “

GDC’s founders Bill Spruill and Charles Gaddy

Founded in 2012, GDC’s platform allows businesses to access “high-quality, local data” mined from over 300-plus sources and data partners, enabling businesses to determine a customer’s true identity — “in real time, just about anywhere in the world” — so transactions can occur, it says.

Since 2016, it’s been growing at “around 120 percent” year. It currently covers 70 countries, and is growing across multiple verticals, including fintech, gaming and regtech. Revenue ballooned from just over $1 million to more than $20 million in 2021. (It was recently profiled as part of TechWire’s “Tomorrow’s Unicorns” series as one of the region’s homegrown startups on track to become a $1-billion enterprise.)

Up until 2020, Spruill and Gaddy had bootstrapped the company. At which point, it closed on $3.5 million in capital led by data provider Refinitiv, a subsidiary of LSEG. It also relocated into bigger headquarters within the historic Pilot Mill complex in downtown Raleigh.

Under the latest deal, GDC will now be part of LSEG’s data and analytics division. Spruill said he will step down as CEO but will remain as a senior advisor. The transaction is expected to close “in the next few months.”

“Through our new parent we will increase our headcount and use their backing to add more countries, increase our depth of coverage and innovate new products for our clients and partners,” Spruill said.

Spruill and Gaddy are both native North Carolinians. Spruill is from Goldsboro; Gaddy is from Wilmington.

They met back in the early aughts when Gaddy, an NC State grad, and Spruill, were freelancing as independent contractors in the data space around town.

Before the days when co-working spaces like Raleigh Founded and WeWork dotted the landscape, they crossed paths working remotely from their laptops out of the popular Café Helios. Eventually they found themselves at the same software firm AddressDoctor – Spruill as chief operating officer and Gaddy as head of American partnerships. Once that company got acquired, the pair ventured out on their own.

But success didn’t happen overnight. They went through several iterations before finally landing in the current space of digital identity and compliance.

The identity verification (IDV) market is expected to grow to be worth $21.9 billion by 2026.

“I’m hoping that what we’ve achieved through bootstrapping and following ‘old school’ business practices will give some founder the view that there are other pathways to take versus over indexing towards venture funding as a default to achieve high growth outcomes,” Spruill said.

“[It] doesn’t mean either path is right or wrong; it just means there are options.”