Inflexion Point

When an entrepreneur sells their business, the next question is what to do with the proceeds. Marktlink Capital was built to answer it. Founded in 2020, it has raised over €3bn in committed capital, almost entirely from Dutch entrepreneurs and families, and Inflexion has made a minority investment to back its ambition to become Europe’s leading private markets platform. 🤝 In this episode, Marktlink Group managing partners Tim van der Meer and Tom Beltman join Inflexion’s Sander Ruijter and host Tim Smallbone to share why they chose a minority partner when they had no wish to sell, how a commercial culture built in M&A advice became an edge in private markets, and why asset managers need to be hunters as well as farmers.

Most pharma businesses are built on new drugs. CNX Therapeutics was built on the ones big pharma had overlooked. Carved out of US group Sunovion in 2021 with a single product, it now spans more than 60 countries, has grown to 25 products, and become the first UK pharmaceutical company to earn B Corp status. 💊 In this episode, CNX CEO Guy Clark joins host Tim Smallbone and Inflexion's Christian Fellowes to explore how a thesis first sketched on a napkin became a pan European platform, why so many effective medicines never reach the patients who need them, and how you scale from 17 people to nearly 70 without losing your culture.

Artificial intelligence will decide which businesses thrive over the next decade and which get left behind. But the biggest barrier is not the technology. It is people, culture, and leaders who have not yet seen what it can really do. 🤖 In this episode, Greg Nieuwenhuys, chair of Inflexion portfolio company Nodor and senior partner at AI advisory firm WAIMAKERS, joins Inflexion's Alex Mathers and host Tim Smallbone to explore what it takes to make AI stick in a business: why adoption has to be owned by the CEO, why the prize is reimagining your value proposition rather than cutting costs, and why human skills matter more than ever. 🧠

In 1999, three students at the University of Karlsruhe built a free stock market platform because they couldn't afford the data they needed to invest. Twenty-five years later, Finanzen.net is Germany's number one financial media and investing platform, with 6 million monthly users, a free neobroker, and an ambitious vision to become the leading investment and savings platform across the DACH region. 📈 In this episode, co-founder Jens Ohr joins Inflexion Partner and Head of Financial Services Andrea Bertolini and host Tim Smallbone to tell that story, including the 2025 carve-out from Axel Springer that gave the business its independence. They explore why only one in five Germans invests in the stock market and how that is changing fast, what made Finanzen.net stand out to Inflexion, and how you find the right partner for a business you've spent 25 years building. Jens and Andrea also share why the ambition from here is to become the home for every investor across the DACH region.

✅🔍📋 Having led three testing, inspection and certification businesses and watched an enormous, fragmented market grow around him, Simon Parrington saw an opportunity: not to buy an existing platform, but to build the ideal long-term home for founder-led businesses from scratch. In this episode, Simon joins Inflexion Investment Director Dominic Clark and host Tim Smallbone to tell the story of Celnor - the buy and build platform created with Inflexion in 2023 that has completed 42 acquisitions in just over two years. They explore why the compliance market remains so fragmented, how Celnor wins over 70% of its deals off-market, and how the group is providing a more holistic set of services for customers . Simon also shares how Celnor delivered its original five-year plan in under three years - and why the goal from here is over £1 billion in revenues by 2031. 🏗️  

When Vince Bluck's father spotted a gap in the darts market in the mid-1970s, he built a tungsten furnace in his Swansea garage and figured out how to manufacture darts at a cost that made the sport accessible to the working class players who loved it. That entrepreneurial instinct laid the foundation for Red Dragon, one of the two iconic brands that would eventually come together to form Nodor Group - today also home to Winmau, and the official equipment supplier of the Professional Darts Corporation. 🎯 In this episode, Vince joins Inflexion Partner Tom Pemberton and host Tim Smallbone to tell the full story - from family business to PE-backed global brand. They explore how the Professional Darts Corporation and Barry Hearn transformed darts from a pub pastime into a primetime phenomenon, how Nodor ended up sponsoring and supplying the world's best players including Michael van Gerwen and Luke Humphries, and why bringing in Inflexion was less about the money and more about building the structure to match the opportunity. Vince also reflects on what it takes to steward a family legacy through its next chapter - one powered by auto-scoring technology, digital community and the ambition to one day fill all 18,000 seats at Madison Square Garden. 🎯  

From quadrupling sales in under five years to building a leadership team where women set the pace, Medik8’s story is about much more than high growth. Backed by Inflexion and now majority owned by L’Oréal, Medik8 is a live case study in what happens when ambition, culture and opportunity align. In this special International Women’s Day episode, Inflexion Managing Director Freddy West speaks with Medik8 Chief Financial Officer Lilia Santos and Chief People Officer Aimee Campbell about what it really takes to scale a PE backed business at speed while creating an environment where talented women thrive. They explore how Medik8 tripled headcount, maintained its culture through rapid international expansion, and fostered a leadership culture that enables women to thrive, rooted in values, flexibility and trust. Lilia and Aimee also reflect on navigating private equity as female leaders, managing energy rather than time, and using their positions to open doors for the next generation.⭐

From designing the foundations of the world’s largest offshore wind farms to achieving B-Corp certification, Co-Founders Alastair Muir Wood and Christian LeBlanc Thilsted have built Wood Thilsted into a true example of purpose-driven growth. In this episode, CEO Alastair shares how Wood Thilsted transformed from a bold idea between friends in 2015 into a global leader in offshore wind engineering, supporting projects across multiple continents. He explores the pivotal moments that shaped the company’s journey, from international expansion and rapid organic growth to professionalising operations and partnering with Inflexion to scale. Alastair also delves into the realities of expanding in a challenging market and what it truly means to do “business for good” in the renewable energy sector. He shares how Wood Thilsted navigates shifting governmental and political landscapes and how the business continues to adapt and thrive amid change.

While still at university, Eric Everard was already juggling three businesses, studying hard, and even learning Mandarin — a true display of entrepreneurial drive. Shortly after graduating, he launched yet another venture: the beginnings of what would become Easyfairs. Fast forward two decades, and Easyfairs has evolved into a global events powerhouse. In this episode, Eric shares the Easyfairs journey, including how he sold the business and bought it back for €1, and how his early commitment to technology has positioned Easyfairs as one of the world’s leading tech-driven event companies today, built on a scalable and purpose-built platform that continues to evolve. He also dives into the role of geo-cloning in their expansion, the growth of Comicon across Europe, the strategic M&A engine behind their success, and why, in his view, people don’t leave companies — they leave bad bosses.

From full-page newspaper ads in the 1980s to today’s cutting-edge, data-driven talent platform, YER has transformed into a leading European specialist recruitment agency. Over the decades, the company has navigated major industry shifts, weathered the financial crisis, adopted a secondment model, and expanded across Europe through strategic acquisitions, all while maintaining a strong focus on vision, leadership and adaptability. In our latest podcast episode, YER CEO Johan Overgaauw and Inflexion’s Sander Ruijter join Tim Smallbone in Amsterdam to unpack the key milestones behind YER’s growth, from Inflexion’s minority investment to international expansion and M&A, and explore how the company continues to thrive as a people-first business in a fast-changing market.