University of Edinburgh invests a further 6m in its own start-ups and spin-outs

The University of Edinburgh has approved a £6m recapitalisation of its in house venture capital fund Old College Capital (OCC), which provides growth and development finance into companies associated with the University.

The Fund was established in 2011 with support from the University and its Endowment and works in partnership with investors who are interested in high growth potential businesses. Currently the fund invests an average of £250,000 in each company, and adopts a ‘co-investment model’, working alongside venture capitalists, angel groups and corporate investors. OCC has an independent investment committee and operates on a fully commercial basis.

Hamish Mair, Chair of OCC’s investment committee says “External investors have welcomed the fund and take confidence that the University is backing its own companies and sharing the risk. OCC’s investment partners can work with a trusted partner with the ability to follow-on its investments and benefit from the University’s in-depth knowledge of our investee businesses.”

Since 2011 Old College capital has invested £2m into ten student start-ups and academic spin-outs across a broad range of sectors. This investment leveraged a further £18m from private sector commercial co-investors. This recapitalisation takes the total fund to £8m.

The University’s Director of Corporate Services, Hugh Edmiston, says “The reinvestment demonstrates a continued commitment by the University and its Endowment to back growth businesses from the University’s ecosystem by providing essential capital at an exciting and critical point in their development.”

Mercia Fund Management makes EIS investments into two disruptive UK technology companies 

MFM has built a diverse portfolio across its four key sectors: Life Sciences, Digital, Advanced Materials & Specialised Manufacturing and Software, Electronics & Hardware, and the addition of an established, profitable business in Intelligent Positioning provides our investors with enhanced portfolio breadth alongside maturity through IP's stellar customer base within a burgeoning market.

The Intelligent Positioning offering empowers brands, corporations and marketers, from SMEs to multi-national businesses, to control and improve their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and online strategy including social media profile.

Their SEO and business intelligence platform, Pi Datametrics, uses a complex data process to track the top 100 URL results across different search-engines, allowing clients to monitor their ranking on a daily basis.

85% of IP's customers have seen a 40%+ increase in traffic in their first year of working with their system. IP has already secured contracts with global brands, including BskyB, Harrods, Virgin Active and the RSPCA.

Daniel Titterton, Co-Founder and CEO of IP, said:

"Pi Datametrics has made vast progress over the last 12 months.  In a very competitive space we have gone through the hard yards of proving Pi Datametrics' worth with some of the world's biggest and most demanding digital brands.  With Mercia on board we now have the right partner to accelerate the business in value and capability, both now and in the future."

Rob Johnson, Investment Director and Head of Software, Electronics & Hardware at MFM said:

"We are excited by the proposition created by IP and their ability to develop successful relationships with well-known brands who achieve fast, direct results from IP's proposition.

"IP is particularly useful for multinational companies that have a large number of products and consequently have a large number of search terms ranking on Google.  Without IP it is a tedious, time consuming task to monitor the relevant key search terms against their product set.  Using IP makes the process simple and should deliver competitive advantage against their competitors."

MFM has also made an EIS investment into CYP Design Ltd (CDL), following an SEIS investment in October 2013. CDL is a spin-out from De Montfort University, Leicester, which is currently developing technology to make pre-clinical drug safety tests cheaper, more efficient, and more convenient.

CDL has successfully designed a generic expression system capable of producing highly recombinant Human CYPs in baker's yeast, resulting in a product called SacchrosomeTM, a unique membrane system that brings together all the components necessary for CYP activity in a convenient and highly reproducible way.  CYPs are found in the human liver and play a vital role in testing the efficacy and toxicity of drugs.

Pre-clinical trials can cost up to £100m and the pharmaceutical industry is under increasing pressure to improve the efficiency of drug discovery.  An improvement of just 10% in predicting failures could save the industry around £64m in development costs per approved drug.

David Gask Executive Chairman of CDL, said:

"The funding from MFM forms part of a further £275,000 contributed by other EIS investors, allowing CDL to take the technology forward into the next growth stage.

"We are grateful to MFM for their continued support, and we look forward especially to working with Dr. Nicola Broughton, who has extensive knowledge and expertise within the Life Sciences sector."

Dr. Nicola Broughton, Investment Director and Head of Technology Transfer at MFM, said:

"We are delighted to provide further investment to CDL.  Their work looks set to revolutionise the drug testing industry by making it quicker, more effective and more convenient, and it has already received attention from potential customers within the industry."

Alphabet Babies receives six figure investment to launch new literacy programme for early years learning

The original product, which has already been successfully taken to market, provides nurseries with learning programmes for 0-2 and 3-5 year olds. Using the investment of £104,000, Alphabet Babies will complete and launch a product for parents of young children wishing to experience fun learning times with their child at home.

Alphabet Babies was established in 2011 and launched its current product to the nursery market in September 2014. Its online offering provides nursery staff with learning materials to engage children in literacy in a fun way, through songs, drama, puppets and other interactive formats, as well as an interactive portal for children to practise what they have learned.

The product differs from other early years language and literacy programmes because it is much more than just a phonics programme. It encompasses the four essential areas children need to be successful readers in the future: alphabetic awareness, print awareness, oral language, and phonological awareness. The big selling point is that it is written specifically for the early years with age-appropriate activities, unlike other programmes that have been adapted from the primary school curriculum.

The business was co-founded by a teacher of English who also gained valuable experience as a Literacy Development Officer with Education Scotland, and a former head teacher of a primary school and nursery, who later became Head of Early Years Education and Childcare at East Dunbartonshire Council.

Alexis Viswanathan, co-founder of Alphabet Babies, said: "Our online product aimed at nurseries is linked to Curriculum for Excellence for Scotland and the Early Years Foundation Stage for England. With many children around the world following the English curriculum, this gives the product global reach."

"We are very excited at the prospect of launching our materials aimed at parents later this year. The funding we have received from Equity Gap and the Scottish Investment Bank makes this launch possible and we are pleased to have demonstrated the potential and wide appeal that our products have."

The idea behind the literacy and communication programmes came about when Alexis had twin boys and invited other new mums to her home to engage their little ones in literacy through multi-sensory activities. Through discussions with parent friends, and a desire to bridge the gap between learning at home and learning that takes place in nurseries, she joined forces with her business partner, Anne Smith, to write learning materials, and over two years developed and refined this based on feedback from both parents and nurseries.

Fraser Lusty of Equity Gap said: "We have been impressed by the co-founders of Alphabet Babies, their experience and drive. The originality of the product they have developed is key to growing their customer base and moving the business forward, and we hope that by bringing funding and a commercial perspective to the business we can assist the team in taking the business to the next level."

Equity Gap is a business angel syndicate actively investing and co-investing in early stage Scottish based companies.

Alphabet Babies has a strong business pipeline already in place and will use the funding to continue to drive more sales, alongside the launch of the new product later this year.

The company acknowledges the large amount of support it has received since it began from Business Gateway, Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Edge Fund and the E-Spark accelerator programme.

Leading UK online minicab price-comparison network signs contract with Heathrow

Latest in a series of partnerships with UK blue-chip brands reinforcing minicabit's expansion in the fast growth £1 billion pre-booked 'out of town' trips mini-cab market minicabit, the UK's leading online mini-cab price comparison and booking service, announces its contract with Heathrow, one of the world's busiest airports, following a successful trial period. The agreement, which enables travellers to instantly compare and book fixed minicab quotes across a nationwide network of licensed Private Hire Operators, is the latest in a series of partnerships with a range of UK blue-chip brands. The initial trial between Heathrow and minicabit saw strong demand from travellers booking mini-cabs to and from Heathrow across the UK, with over 85% of journeys outside a 15 mile radius. Welcoming over 73 million domestic and overseas passengers every year, Heathrow is the UK's largest airport and demand for minicab services from both individual and business customers travelling into Greater London and more widely across the UK is expected to continue to grow.

minicabit's comparison and booking service will be integrated into Heathrow's mobile app to further enhance usability for customers when booking minicab services. Customers will be able to compare quotes from minicabit's UK-wide network of over 650 operators and benefit from a significant range of operators based both in the Heathrow area and widely across the UK. minicabit is focusing on building partnerships across the airport sector and has already secured an agreement with London City Airport, the Capital's most central airport renowned for business travellers. The company has also established a number of revenue enhancing partnerships with a range of UK blue-chip brands including the highly-regarded O2 Academy, which provides its customers with exclusive offers to use minicabit for both local and long distance trips from its 11 venues across the UK. Further partnerships also include the O2 Arena, one of the world's most iconic entertainment venues, and Blenheim Palace, the renowned country house and birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. In recent years, minicabit has enjoyed strong growth and success with revenues increasing eightfold year on year, bookings up by 150% in the past six months and the company is aiming to expand its network to 1,000 cab firms over the next two years. As well as growth in the Capital, minicabit is also targeting the regional markets and is currently generating almost 50% of its bookings outside the M25. minicabit's innovative technology is widely recognised and in its first year of operations the company's app was consistently promoted by Apple in their App Store. minicabit's app has also recently been shortlisted by leading marketing publication The Drum for its highly sought after User Experience/ Usability award.

minicabit was founded by Amer Hasan, ex-Global Head of Apps and Internet Partnerships at Vodafone. The company's board benefits from Steven Norris, Former UK Transport Minister, as a Board Adviser and Paul Lawton, O2 UK General Manager of Small and Medium Businesses, as a Non-Executive Director. Over the last five years, the company has attracted backing from global telecommunications company Telefonica O2's Wayra Fund, leading crowdfunding platform Seedrs and high-net-worth investor syndicate Angels4Angels. Amer also recently appeared on successful BBC TV show 'Dragons' Den' and received offers from three of the Dragons, the first app to win offers on the show. minicabit has set itself apart from the ultra-competitive 'on-demand' app sector that's largely focused on short distances in the biggest cities. Instead, minicabit is leading the pre-booked cab sector and is capitalising on the 30 million 'out of town' trips taken annually by cab in the UK, which account for a combined value of £1 billion. The online taxi market offers tremendous growth potential and in the UK it has grown over the past five years to an estimated £9bn in 2015.

Amer Hasan, CEO and founder of minicabit, commented:

"We are delighted to be extending our successful trial with Heathrow into a partnership. The demand we have already received highlights the need for minicab services both to and from Heathrow and we have witnessed a great response from travellers across the UK, from locations as far as Newcastle, Plymouth and Lancaster. It is great to see companies like Heathrow embrace new digital services and collaborate with fast growth businesses like minicabit and for the several hundred mini-cab firms in our UK-wide network there are strong opportunities to benefit from the partnership and enhance revenues."

Leading British entrepreneur asks everyday investors to join him in world-first crowd investment fund

Aiming to raise £500K or more from investments of as little as £100, Fuel.Ventures will open up traditionally exclusive technology venture capital investment opportunities to everyday investors. 

Mark Pearson becomes the first successfully exited entrepreneur and angel investor to set up an investment fund and open it up to the crowds. 

The Fuel.Ventures team has a proven record of finding, vetting and nurturing high growth very early stage e-commerce business that possess the ability to scale quickly; opportunities that will now be available to the crowd. 

As such, by partnering with Seedrs, Fuel.Ventures plans to give members of the public the chance to benefit from e-commerce venture capital investment opportunities for the first time*.

A video highlighting the opportunity can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/user8225857/review/128022297/881aceebff

Fuel.Ventures invests in a vetted and diversified portfolio of EIS/SEIS eligible European e-commerce companies. The fund will focus on high-growth technology-based transactional businesses from incubation and inception (super-early seed), to seed and post launch (late seed), as well as series A businesses showing exceptional signs of growth. 

The fund will be led by Mark Pearson, a serial e-commerce entrepreneur who started Markco Media, the parent company of discount website MyVoucherCodes.co.uk for just £300 from his bedroom. It grew to be a multi-national company which sold in 2014 in a deal worth up to £55m. Mark's 10 personal investments (including as an early investor in Ve interactive, an e-commerce SAAS provider now valued at £1.25bn) have significantly outperformed European Venture Capital, which has delivered returns of just 2.1% a year since 1990, according to Thompson Reuters**. 

From today investors can access the Fuel.Ventures e-commerce investment pipeline, available on the Seedrs platform here: https://www.seedrs.com/startups/fuel-ventures

Mark Pearson, Co-Founder of Fuel.Ventures commented, 

"Seedrs mentioned that they'd had other funds raised by accelerator programmes, but this is the first time that someone with my entrepreneurial and investment background has opened up access to a highly curated, exclusive network of deal flow for the crowds to have access to.                                                                                                                                            

"The e-commerce sector is thriving and Fuel.Ventures will be investing in the most ambitious and scalable opportunities. Our mission is to create, invest and grow companies. We will build products people want and need and we will invest in some of Europe's most exciting early stage companies. Ultimately, we will help grow and build companies with great potential and take them to the next level." 

Jeff Lynn, CEO of Seedrs commented,

"The Fuel.Ventures equity crowdfunding campaign marks a unique milestone in the evolution of venture capital. For a highly successful entrepreneur and angel investor to build a highly curated fund with crowd participation is an interesting opportunity for investors large and small."

"By making it possible for people to invest directly into a fund carefully curated and managed by such an experienced team, Seedrs and Fuel.Ventures are stepping one step closer to truly democratising finance and breaking down the barriers between crowd investors and traditional City gatekeepers."