ETG Buys Lightning Reach and a Path Into Councils

European Technology Group bought Lightning Reach in July 2026, its third public-sector software deal and a shift from council back offices into benefits access. The UK platform has helped more than 300,000 people secure over £25 million since December 2021, and it wants to reach 1 million people by 2028.

Founder Ren Yi Hooi has moved to the board. Rhiannon Sheridan, who joined as an early hire and was chief operating officer, is now chief executive. The companies did not disclose a price.

The Buyer Already Sells Into UK Councils

ETG is a 2025-vintage group that buys niche software firms serving governments and other regulated industries, then leaves their brands and local bosses in place. Co-founder and chief executive Lars Becker previously worked on software deals at Blackstone, including the purchase of Civica, the large UK govtech platform. ETG presents itself as a permanent home for public-sector software rather than a fund with a resale clock.

On its group site ETG says it already has more than 400 public sector customers serving more than 14 million citizens across six countries, with more than 90 staff. Lightning Reach is the first of those holdings that faces people in hardship as well as the officials who run schemes for them.

That is the commercial logic sitting under the mission language. Lightning Reach already works with more than 100 organisations, the same class of buyer PSS, ETG’s UK asset-management firm, already knows. Shared credibility in public procurement is one of the things ETG says it sells to founders.

ORGANISATIONS ALREADY ON THE PLATFORM

• Utility firms: Energy suppliers use the portal to route hardship grants, bill help and warm-home kit through one journey.
• Local authorities: Councils put discretionary funds and local schemes on the same rails as national benefits.
• Housing associations: Landlords use it to get tenants to support before arrears harden.
• Charities: Grant-makers reduce repeat forms and manual triage.
• Banks: Lenders sit in the same partner mix as a way to point customers at help they already qualify for.

The sale drew almost no public argument, which fits a product sold to those desks rather than to a consumer crowd. Hooi and Sheridan talked about impact outlasting a founder. Becker talked about growing reach across the UK and beyond.

Parks Software, Swiss ERP, Then a Benefits Portal

ETG’s first two buys, both in 2025, were classic back-office govtech. Lightning Reach is not. It matches people to grants, benefits and bill support, then lets partner organisations process and, in some cases, pay out through the same system.

ETG’S ANNOUNCED SOFTWARE GROUP

Hürlimann, founded in 1997 and based in Obfelden, will keep running under chief executive Roland Michel, who also became a shareholder. PSS, founded in 1989 in Leamington Spa, sells PSSLive+ for playgrounds, parks, trees and cemeteries, plus PSSUltimate for team tasking, and counts clients in the UK and the USA. Managing director Sarah Bull said ETG is putting money into product and internal-system modernisation.

Lightning Reach does not inspect climbing frames. It sits in the same procurement world. A council that already pays PSS to log park checks is a warmer door for a hardship portal than a cold bid into a new authority. ETG’s own pitch to founders lists sales, market access and the trust that comes with group scale as the reason to join.

OVO Put 34,000 Customers Through the Portal

The product is easiest to see in a live partner, not in a deal press note. In October 2025, energy supplier OVO and Lightning Reach opened a single support hub for OVO customers. By early January 2026 the companies said 34,000 OVO customers referred in three months had gone through that hub, with £2 million of OVO support delivered as grants, goods and other help.

One in four of those users also opened a “tell it once” profile to see other UK and local schemes. That is the wedge: a utility referral becomes a scan of thousands of funds the person did not know to ask for. Lightning Reach later added Partner Hub and Lightning Deliver, so organisations can collaborate on cases and send vouchers without hopping between systems.

The company’s site lists more than 400,000 people registered, a wider count than the 300,000 who had already secured support when the sale was announced. It also says it quadrupled its annual recurring revenue over the year before the deal and stayed cash positive. It did not publish the pound figure behind that rise.

People use the portal without paying. The revenue sits with the organisations that need the admin off their desks: fewer repeat forms, faster awards, cleaner reporting when budgets are tight and demand is not.

The Founder Hands the CEO Job to Sheridan

Hooi founded Lightning Reach during the Covid-19 pandemic and launched the portal in December 2021. Sheridan joined in that early period and ran operations until the sale. ETG’s playbook on hiring and succession is explicit: it offers operators and a path for founders who want the company to outlast their own job title.

I’ve always wanted to make sure our impact as a company can outlast my role as the founder, and it’s clear we’ve reached this point. Rhiannon has been an exceptional leader since she joined our early team nearly five years ago and is the ideal person to lead our next phase, with ETG providing the dream long-term home that will allow us to stay laser-focused on our mission.

Ren Yi Hooi, founder of Lightning Reach, on the sale

Sheridan said ETG’s backing, sector knowledge and alignment with the firm’s purpose give it a partner that can scale without a forced exit. Becker called the product and the impact proof “genuinely special” and said ETG sees room to grow in the UK and beyond. Lightning Reach was named Fintech for Good of the Year at the Fintech Awards London, and it had been backed by nearly 30 investors, among them the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Big Issue Invest and Techstars.

The companies said Lightning Reach will keep operating with its existing team, with no change to the platform or services expected for partners or clients. The firm’s public team list now includes Becker and co-founder Sjoerd Smaal alongside Sheridan and Hooi, which is what “independent” looks like when the buyer also sits on the page.

Britain Left £24.1 Billion of Support Unclaimed

The market Lightning Reach sells into is a pile of money that never moves. Policy in Practice’s Missing Out 2025 report estimates £24.1 billion in unclaimed support for 2025/26 across Great Britain, covering income-related benefits and social tariffs. Over 7 million households miss some of that help.

UNCLAIMED SUPPORT IN GREAT BRITAIN, 2025/26

On a like-for-like set of benefits, Policy in Practice found unclaimed support rose £2.7 billion, or 15.6 per cent. Missed Universal Credit claims were up 16.4 per cent, and the estimated value of those missed claims rose by £2.1 billion. Deven Ghelani, the firm’s director and founder, said the gap is a failure of a system that is too complex, too fragmented and too passive, not a failure of the public.

That fragmentation is the job Lightning Reach priced. Support is split across central government, councils, utilities and charities, applications are still often manual, and a lot of people never hear that a scheme exists. For ETG, a portal that already has 100 organisations attached is a way into that mess without building a benefits engine from scratch.

ETG’s Site Already Lists Two More Buys

Lightning Reach is not the end of the shopping list. ETG’s site already shows a further UK company marked confidential for announcement in the third quarter of 2026, and a Dutch one for the fourth quarter. The group says it looks for product-centric software firms in Europe, in public-sector and regulated niches, with proven demand, more than 70 per cent of revenue recurring, and revenue between €1 million and €10 million.

ETG AT A GLANCE

• Citizens served: More than 14 million across the current group.
• Public-sector customers: More than 400, in six countries.
• People: More than 90 staff, and 70 years of combined experience as ETG counts it.
• Holdings named so far: Hürlimann, Public Sector Software, Lightning Reach.

Becker and Smaal describe ETG as a platform for founders who need networks, expertise and scale that one company cannot build alone, while keeping the local spirit that made the product work. For Lightning Reach that means help with market access, public-sector buying processes and product spend, pointed at the 2028 target of one million people helped.

Lightning Reach’s own target remains one million people helped by 2028. ETG has two unnamed logos still to add before that year is out.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Does Lightning Reach Do?

It is a free portal for individuals in the UK that matches a person’s circumstances to grants, benefits, bill help, food vouchers and local schemes, then lets many of those applications run without repeating the same facts. Organisations use Partner Hub, Budget Checker, Crisis and Resilience Fund tools and support-worker accounts to run their own funds on the same rails, and the company lists more than 2,500 verified schemes.

Who Bought Lightning Reach?

European Technology Group, a public-sector software group founded by Lars Becker and Sjoerd Smaal, announced the purchase on 22 July 2026 as its third investment. Terms were not disclosed, and Lightning Reach continues as an operating subsidiary with its own brand.

Who Became CEO of Lightning Reach After the ETG Sale?

Rhiannon Sheridan, the former chief operating officer, became chief executive as the deal closed, after nearly five years at the company. James Smith is listed as chief operating officer on the firm’s team page, and Hooi remains a director, with Gareth Oakley named as chair.

When Was Lightning Reach Founded?

The company was founded in 2020 during the pandemic, and the public portal went live in December 2021. In 2023 it said it raised £1 million in investor funding, and by 2024 it had passed £10 million in support delivered through the platform.

How Much Unclaimed Financial Support Is There in Britain?

Policy in Practice’s 2025/26 estimate is £24.1 billion across income-related benefits and social tariffs, with an average of £3,203 a year for households missing out. Universal Credit is the largest single gap at £11,148 million, and the report names low awareness, complex forms and stigma as the main reasons people never claim.