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Accenture has agreed to buy artificial intelligence company Faculty in a deal valuing the UK start-up at more than $1bn, as the consulting group attempts to adapt to disruption from AI. <\/p>\n
The New York-listed consultancy said on Tuesday it had agreed to buy London-based Faculty, whose chief executive has worked closely with the UK government and will become Accenture\u2019s chief technology officer. <\/p>\n
Accenture said acquiring Faculty, which has more than 400 staff, would improve its ability to help clients \u201creinvent core and critical business processes\u201d by adopting AI<\/a>. <\/p>\n The companies did not disclose the terms of the transaction, but two of Faculty\u2019s investors, Apax Digital and Mercuri, said the deal granted the company \u201cunicorn\u201d status, shorthand for private tech companies valued at more than $1bn (\u00a3740mn). <\/p>\n \u201cQuadrupling revenues in four years, launching a successful AI software offering and becoming a unicorn \u2014 this is a great outcome for Faculty and showcases the strength of the UK\u2019s AI ecosystem,\u201d said Mark Beith, partner at Apax Digital. <\/p>\n Alan Hudson, partner at Mercuri, hailed Faculty as \u201cthe first UK tech unicorn of 2026\u201d in a LinkedIn post. <\/p>\n Three people with knowledge of the deal said it attached a \u00a3600mn valuation to the stakes held by Faculty\u2019s venture backers, multiple times the company\u2019s enterprise value when it last raised capital in 2021. That figure excluded the value of shares held by Faculty\u2019s staff and other payments to the start-up\u2019s employees, said people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n The takeover is the largest-ever acquisition of a privately held UK AI start-up, according to Dealroom, which tracks such deals.<\/p>\n Faculty, which employs people with science PhDs, data scientists and AI engineers, is the latest in a series of British start-ups<\/a> to be bought by a US group as the UK battles to provide a vibrant capital market to help promising companies to grow. <\/p>\n The deal comes as consultancies overhaul their business models, with AI forcing them to shift away from their traditional pyramid set-up in which a relatively small number of senior consultants oversee armies of junior analysts. <\/p>\n Consultancies are also being forced to buy or build AI expertise as they spend less time on traditional strategy advice and more on helping companies adopt the technology. <\/p>\n Accenture has struggled to adapt to a sector-wide slowdown for consultants. Its market capitalisation has slid to about $160bn after peaking at more than $260bn during a boom in demand following the Covid-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n The firm cut its global workforce by more than 11,000<\/a> in the three months to the end of August, while chief executive Julie Sweet warned that more staff could leave if they did not retrain for AI amid an $865mn restructuring.<\/p>\n