Maven Capital Partners has led a £7 million investment in Northumberland based AVID Technology Group (“AVID”), a leader in the manufacture and design of components for electric and hybrid vehicles for an impressive blue-chip customer base.

The deal is led by Maven’s VCTs together with the North East Development Capital Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Maven, and from AVID’s existing shareholders NVM Private Equity and Downing Ventures. The funding will enable AVID to increase production volumes of its current component product range and enable the firm to invest in further development of class leading electric motors, power electronics and battery systems. 

Since opening offices in Newcastle and Durham in May 2017, Maven Capital Partners has invested a total of £10 million in dynamic, high growth businesses in the North East region, driving economic prosperity and safeguarding over 400 jobs.

This significant level of investment has mainly been achieved through Maven’s management of regional funds in the North East, the £20m Finance Durham Fund established by Durham County Council and the £27 million North East Development Capital Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund. To date, Maven has identified and completed investments to support the growth strategies of 14 dynamic local businesses, including the largest independent engineering business in County Durham, Dyer Engineering, shipping container operator and leading self-storage provider, Parsons Containers and reverse-auction marketplace for insurance products, honcho.

British technology company Rotolight, which specialises in creating advanced LED lighting for the photography and filmmaking industries, has secured substantial equity investment from the Development Capital team at Octopus Investments to support its ambitious business growth plans. The £5 million ($6.5M) growth capital funding will strengthen the company’s future, as it invests heavily in research and development to deliver 15 cutting-edge products in the next five years, as well as marketing and international expansion, which will lead to the creation of a number of new jobs at its headquarters at Pinewood Studios UK. 

AlbionVC, the technology investment arm of Albion Capital, has hired Jay Wilson to the role of investment manager.

Jay’s appointment further strengthens the firm’s specialist tech investment team as it seeks to capitalise on the opportunities provided by the UK’s leading early stage digital businesses. His newly created role is part of an ongoing expansion of AlbionVC’s technology expertise and follows the appointment of Cat McDonald, Nadine Torbey and Tanel Ozdemir to the team last year. 

Mobeus has announced that Matt Mead has joined the team in the newly created role of Venture Partner working across its VCT investments.

Octopus Investments “Octopus”, part of Octopus Group and the largest provider of venture capital trusts (‘VCTs’) in the UK¹ has today announced it has passed the £1 billion milestone in VCT assets under management.

Octopus is the first and only investment manager to reach this milestone, which comes after recent fundraising. The assets are spread across Octopus’ four VCTs, which are currently supporting more than 200 portfolio companies.

Maven Capital Partners and NVM Private Equity have completed a £3.25 million equity investment in UK fintech start-up Mojo Mortgage, which aims to create a better mortgage experience by providing a full market comparison of mortgage providers and managing the process via a sophisticated technology platform from mortgage application to completion.

The investment, which has been equally funded by Maven and NVM, is part of a wider £7 million funding round, will support Mojo’s ambitious growth plans and help the Company further evolve its unique and intuitive platform to enable a more empowering experience for consumers looking for a new mortgage or associated insurance products such as income protection.

NVM Private Equity has invested £2.25 million of growth capital into Edinburgh-based software business Administrate as part of a £3.78 million investment round alongside existing investors Archangels and the Scottish Investment Bank. Administrate is a Software-as-a-Service Training and Learning Management Platform, designed to help manage and automate the entire process of delivering education. The investment will be used to accelerate the business globally and continue the development of its platform.

Administrate delivers its solutions to a fast growing global client base from Scotland, supported by offices in the United States and Lebanon. Clients use Administrate to solve the challenges of defining, delivering, tracking, analysing, and scaling learning within an organisation.  After implementing Administrate, customers realise huge time savings, and can drive strategic initiatives and successfully scale their offerings. In the past year, North American expansion has been a key driver for the company which now employs more than 80 people across its three offices.

Foresight has made a £5 million growth capital investment into Spektrix Limited, the UK’s leading provider of cloud-based ticketing, marketing and fundraising software for the arts.

The investment on behalf of Foresight VCT plc and Foresight 4 VCT plc will be used to accelerate product development and support Spektrix’s international expansion, particularly in North America where it is already working with nearly 100 arts organisations. As part of the investment, Foresight has taken a minority equity position in the company.

Foresight Group has made a £2.15 million growth capital investment into Sportlabs Technology Limited, trading as ClubSpark, the awarding-winning specialist software company serving participants, sports providers, National Governing Bodies and International Federations.

Founded in 2012 by CEO Dave Ward and CTO Nathan Flood, ClubSpark provides a comprehensive software platform which provides easy access to sports and events for participants, simple to use tools for sports providers, whilst giving National Governing Bodies and International Federations insight into participation and activity levels.

NVM Private Equity has committed £2.2 million of growth capital into London-based recognition, employee reward, and ideas platform business, Mo. Formerly known as Thanksbox, Mo provides proprietary technology to help organisations achieve success by strengthening relationships, sharing ideas and building stronger cultures and giving employees greater meaning at work. NVM’s investment will be used to accelerate scale up of the business, expand the team and to deliver further technical progression in the platform.

Uncertainty around Brexit has hit UK markets and raised questions about the UK’s economic prospects, but what effect is it having on the UK’s smaller unquoted companies? Despite a tough year, the average VCT returned 2.7% in 2018 and is up 42% and 163% over five and ten years. Where are VCT managers finding opportunities today and what are their views ahead of Brexit?

At a media roundtable held today by the Association of Investment Companies (AIC), John Glencross, CEO of Calculus Capital which manages the Calculus VCT, Ian McLennan, manager of the Triple Point VCTs, and Rodney Appiah, director of Foresight which manages the Foresight VCTs, discussed their recent investment activity, the potential effect of Brexit on smaller companies and their overall outlook for the sector.