Feature
Rising
stars
Steve Monnington of Mayfield
Merger Strategies continues
this series showcasing young
talent and fast growth with
a look at investment event
organiser 121 Group
Revenue per annum
2016 2017
2018 2019
3 Events
$1.2m
8 Events
$4.6m
18 — June
6 Events
$2.5m
13 Events
$9.8m
M
ost entrepreneurs find themselves
in events by chance and Toby
Duckworth, one of the four founders of
121 Group, is no exception. Duckworth
started working in events straight from
school, selling ladders at consumer
exhibitions. Stints with Simon Burton at
the Exhibiting Show and with Incisive
Media were followed by the failed launch
of his own music industry event.
Aged 22, and needing work quickly,
Duckworth went to the office next door
and landed a job with Aspermont Media,
working on Mines and Money – a mining
investment event where he met Pablo
Martin, Aspermont’s sales director.
While at Aspermont, Duckworth also
worked closely with content director Leo
Stemp and marketing director Charlie
Hastings, who worked for Hong Kong-
based Beacon Events on the launch of
the Mongolia Investment Summit, a JV
event between Aspermont and Beacon. A
move to Hong Kong followed three years
later after the two companies formally
merged and the four people who would
become 121 Group started working
together.
They debated whether to set up on
their own and the deciding factor was
that they didn’t believe in the exhibition
model for their sector.
“The mining companies that exhibited
only wanted to meet investors and
they were being diluted by service
providers. We saw the exhibitors leaving
the exhibition floor to go to meetings
at the offices of the investors rather
than trying to find them within the
exhibition,” Duckworth recalls. “We saw
a massive opportunity in being different
by offering one-to-one meetings rather
than having an exhibition.”
121 Group was born in March 2014.
The premise of the business was to
create one-to-one meetings events
where investors meet investment.
“We looked for sectors that typically
starve themselves of capital – mining,
technology, oil and gas and property
– where companies need continual
funding to exist, guaranteeing repeat
business,” Duckworth explains. Hastings
had worked at IIR and Stemp at EMAP,
so they had multi-sector experience, but
they started with mining because they
saw the immediate opportunity.
The two-page business plan they
produced was based on the launch of
three mining events in the first year
– London, Hong Kong and Cape Town –
followed by an Oil and Gas event. “We
were surprised by the success of the
mining events so the other sectors went
on the back burner” recalls Duckworth.
Within six months of setting up, the
team received an acquisition approach
from a major organiser but they felt that
it was more of a recruitment exercise
than a belief in their vision of the future
of the business.
“We felt that it was far too early
and the three-year plan that we had to
produce as part of the valuation process
reinforced our faith in what we were
planning, so in a way it helped us make
the decision to remain independent and
not to sell for a fraction of the value that
we see four years on.”
The importance of the team
At 25, Duckworth was around 10
years younger than the other three,
but it was clear that the four of them