Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active SME finance providers, has invested £8.5 million in nine dynamic growth businesses across the North East in 2019, driving economic prosperity, and creating over 80 jobs. Since opening offices in Newcastle and Durham in 2017, Maven has invested over £17 million in businesses across the region, providing funding packages tailored to the growth needs of local companies.  Maven has participated in investments ranging from £150,000 to £7 million in local businesses across the North East and has also successfully leveraged an additional £7 million in private sector finance last year.

In its 20th year, MMC appoints two new partners alongside another four promotions within the team.

Philanthropic food and drink start-up accelerator, The Seed Fund will open for entry on Saturday 1 February, with 12 spots up for grabs on its game changing summer Academy. For the first time ever, marks will be set aside for socially responsible initiatives during the initial application stage and judging process, so the project’s organisers are particularly keen to hear from value-driven businesses across the UK.

NatWest has launched a new partnership with Soldo, a pre-paid company card provider for small businesses, which will allow two of the bank’s ventures, Esme Loans and Rapid Cash, to be offered directly to Soldo’s customers, as the bank aims to increase lending to UK SMEs throughout 2020.

The membership of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) has elected Gay Collins and Francesca Ecsery to the board of the AIC.

Leading Global Tech Executive Duncan Tait FRSA is adding his remarkable global experience and connections to ScaleUp Group* the unique team of successful technology entrepreneurs (over £4Bn in exits) formed to #GrowGlobalChampions from the UK tech sector.

Bowmark Capital, the mid-market private equity firm, has appointed Roy Mani as a partner.  Roy has over 20 years’ experience as a private equity investor, 

YFM Equity Partners has appointed Aaron Lowery as Investment Manager. Based in the Leeds office, Aaron will focus on supporting YFM’s new investment activity, working with the existing team to deploy funds into growing businesses at points of transformational change.

Great Point Media, the London-based media and investment group, has appointed Jamie Lowe as Head of Institutional Distribution. Lowe will oversee the structuring and launch of Great Point’s global institutional project finance fund which will look to invest in large-scale media projects and finance film and television programming globally. Lowe joined Great Point from The Ingenious Group where he was a board director and Head of Institutional distribution.

Abris Capital Partners, the leading private equity investor in Central and Eastern Europe, has announced the promotion of Paulina Pietkiewicz, Edgar Kolesnik and Adrian Stanculescu to Partners. 

London Business School (LBS) and QVentures, a leading private network for sophisticated investors, have launched an exclusive professional development programme aimed at Venture Capital professionals, Family Offices and sophisticated investors.

Independent Growth Finance (IGF), a leading independent commercial finance provider, appoints Matt Shepherd as Commercial Director. Matt comes to IGF with nearly 20 years experience in finance, with a focus on business development and asset based lending.