The company
VIPA Digital is a specialist Data Centre Management consultancy helping investors, operators, and end users with technical, market, and commercial due diligence. They also manage the design and construction of data centre facilities, such as the power systems, cooling infrastructure, and critical facilities that keep the digital world running.
Founded by Paul Cranfield and Vijay Mistry, who both come from long careers in banking and infrastructure, the business was deliberately built as their final and most ambitious chapter. With the AI boom driving unprecedented global demand for data centre capacity, VIPA sits at the centre of one of the hottest infrastructure sectors in the world, and commands a valuation to match.
The challange
Paul and Vijay knew exactly what a well-run exit looked like. After all, advising investors and operators through complex data centre transactions was their day job. What they hadn't done was apply any of that knowledge to their own business.
Despite being profitable, growing, and operating in one of the hottest infrastructure sectors in the world, they had no exit plan, data room, CIM, or structured thinking around when they were going to sell the company. The business was successful but completely unprepared for the thing both founders knew was coming.
But the deeper challenge was motivation. Without external pressure or a crisis to respond to, for the longest time, exit planning wasn’t a priority for the two founders.
Engagement with The Grafter
Paul and Vijay came to The Grafter as a profitable and growing business with no exit plan in place. The engagement in 2025 ran from an initial Business Diagnostic through the full Grow Raise Exit programme. The work covered:
- Full Business Diagnostic
- Valuation modelling that revealed a 10–14x multiple, higher than either founder had anticipated
- Exploration of exit structures: trade sale, Employee Ownership Trust, management buyout
- Full data room built and organised
- Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) drafted
- Pitch deck developed and refined for their specific industry audience
- Financial models built to support the exit process
- Appointment of a niche M&A broker to run the live exit process
Exit outcome
VIPA Digital is now in an active, brokered exit process with a niche M&A firm appointed to manage it, with an estimated exit multiple of 10–14x. 18 months ahead of the co-founders’ initial exit timeline, the business is likely to sell in late 2026/2027.
VIPA Digital came to The Grafter with all the expertise in the world and no exit plan. Within months, they had a valuation, a full data room, a CIM, and an M&A broker running a live process. If you're building toward an exit and haven't started preparing, it's worth a conversation.
If it wasn't for The Grafter, we would have done nothing about it. We would have carried on running the business, and it would have been successful, but we would have done zero preparation for what we knew we had to do.
