Neighbourly completes £1 million angel fund raising to accelerate growth plans
 

·         David Eldridge appointed non-executive director

Bristol, 22 July 2015: Neighbourly.com – the internet platform that connects local community projects with companies which want to make a difference –today announced it has completed its third round of fund raising of in excess of £1 million from angel investors.

These funds will be applied to strengthen the Neighbourly senior leadership team, with the new appointments of Annette Mercer as Head of Operations and Lloyd Buxton, Head of Client Engagement, having been already announced.

Additionally, Neighbourly will now grow its engineering team to accelerate the Neighbourly product roadmap, including adding new capabilities to support internationalisation, food re-distribution and a fully responsive front-end design to optimise the platform for mobile devices.

Experienced technology entrepreneur David Eldridge also joins the board of Neighbourly as a non-executive director. Eldridge previously founded technology business, Alterian Technology taking it through the IPO process, to a fully listed UK business. Eldridge joins Founder Nick Davies, Executive Chairman Luke McKeever, and Investor Director Chris Kelly, on the board of Neighbourly.

Luke McKeever, Executive Chairman, Neighbourly said: “The latest funding round has allowed us to add talented professionals to the leadership team, and speed up our development and international launch. In parallel we have assembled a top class board to guide the business as it grows. Awareness among both causes and businesses is gaining momentum. This new investment enables us to increase rapidly the number of causes and businesses benefiting from our platform.”

Nick Davies, Founder, Neighbourly said: “Our new investors are all seasoned business people who recognise the strength of the Neighbourly proposition. Our purpose is to help social causes by allowing businesses to collaborate, both with local communities and with each other, while also being able to better measure the impact of their giving programmes. If we can make it easy to contribute, and better prove the value of giving, businesses will be motivated to help more.”

About Neighbourly 
Neighbourly.com is the internet platform that unites local community causes, projects and charities with businesses which can help by contributing time, resources or funding. Neighbourly allows causes of all types and sizes to publicise and gain community support for their purpose and needs, while businesses can easily find issues that matter to them, manage their contributions, generate and receive authentic content and measure the value of their participation, at both a local and a national level. By providing evidence that engaging in local activity is good for business, Neighbourly will increase corporate investment into communities.

Organisations using Neighbourly include corporates such as Marks & Spencer and Starbucks, as well as many small and medium-sized businesses active in their local communities. Since launch in July 2014, Neighbourly clients have pledged some £1,915,452 and 6,657 volunteer days and have already backed 221 causes. Visit www.neighbourly.com or follow @nbrlyuk.

Endeavour Partnership completes landmark Fintech work

Business law firm Endeavour Partnership has completed a landmark project which could revolutionise the way entrepreneurs and investors take advantage of alternative finance markets.

The company has created a new legal framework for financial technology firm Growth Capital Ventures to give investors of all sizes uniform rights and protection, while also making it easier for entrepreneurs to tap into the opportunities of alternative finance.

Growth Capital Ventures operates online peer-to-peer and equity crowdfunding platforms that link entrepreneurs and high growth businesses with a range of investor types including venture capitalists, experienced angel investors and smaller investors via its crowdfunding arm GrowthFunders.

With such a diverse mix of investors, driven in part by the rapid emergence of equity crowdfunding, the firm recognised the need to create a level playing field for investors of all size.

It enlisted Teesside-based Endeavour Partnership to develop a suite of standardised legal documents to facilitate co-investment and syndication between the various different types of investor using its platforms. While striking a balance between investor and entrepreneur needs, the documents also had to adhere to guidelines set out by the Financial Conduct Authority, which directly authorises Growth Capital Ventures.

The documents are designed to give smaller investors the same grade protections as their larger, more experienced counterparts. As well as enabling smaller investors to contribute follow-on investment to growing businesses.

The documents also give smaller investors the right to be involved in shareholder votes, giving them a voice without holding the business back, should they not wish to be actively involved.

They are also aimed at striking a fair balance between entrepreneurs and investors and ensuring that business leaders can operate without the hindrance of over-interference from investors.

Craig Peterson, director of London and County Durham-based Growth Capital Ventures, said: “Having previously only worked with big city law firms, it’s fantastic to have found a legal partner on our doorstep with the capacity and expertise to handle such a complex assignment. The firm’s commitment to developing relationships and its realistic cost structure are what really set it apart from the competition. Endeavour are a valued strategic partner and will provide legal support on all equity investments made through our GrowthFunders platform.”

Fellow director Norman Peterson added: “This was a complex piece of work which Endeavour has simplified and delivered extremely well. It’s important that we have a legal structure that makes it easy for the businesses raising capital to minimise legal costs and manage a large shareholder base of smaller investors effectively.  The corporate and commercial team at Endeavour have excellent knowledge of the Venture Capital and rapidly growing Alternative Finance Sector.  We look forward to the firm supporting us in a proactive manner as the market we’re in continues to mature.”

Nik Tunley, partner at Endeavour, said: “This was an interesting piece of work for Endeavour.  We have an experienced corporate and commercial team and it’s good to support an innovative ‘Fintech’ business like Growth Capital Ventures.  We are looking forward to working together on some exciting deals as over the next few years”. 

As well as its strong corporate and commercial sector, Endeavour Partnership also advises regional, national and global businesses on a range of legal matters including, company litigation, commercial property, employment and corporate recovery and insolvency.

Other services, which span corporate and commercial law and cover both the private and public sectors, include company formation, banking and finance, company secretarial, mergers and acquisitions and employment issues.

For more information visit www.endeavourpartnership.co

Synectics and Vemotion deliver perfect Synergy

Wireless transmission technology specialist Vemotion has announced a key strategic alliance with a major global security brand. The Thirsk-based security group is working with Synectics to integrate its video and streaming solutions with the Synergy command and control platform. Synectics and Vemotion first came together on a project for Wakefield Council and it became clear to both parties that it would make a lot of sense to integrate their products to the mutual advantage of both.
 
“We are proud to be working in partnership with a globally recognised brand like Synectics,” said Stewart McCone, CEO of Vemotion. “Integration with Synergy allowed Wakefield Council to benefit from the best of both worlds in terms of our wireless know-how and Synectics best in class platform. Such partnerships are very much the future of CCTV and we are looking forward to working with Synectics on several new projects.”
 
Wakefield council is one of the first to benefit from the Vemotion Synergy collaboration, which provided them with great flexibility. It identified hot spot areas not covered by the existing fibre network and used Vemotion to facilitate wireless rapid deployment in these target locations, with transmissions feeding directly into the Synergy platform.
 
“We know how important flexibility and interoperability are to our customers and are pleased to add integration with Vemotion’s advanced cellular technology to our portfolio,” said David Aindow, Product and Technology Director at Synectics. “Re-deployable cameras that can be moved to address ‘hot spot’ problem areas are increasingly viable solutions, as is the ability to view footage from remote locations and mobile deployments and working together, Vemotion and Synetics can offer a compelling solution.”
 
In Wakefield, the council faced increasing antisocial behaviour incidents in outlying, smaller, town centres not covered by existing CCTV fibre networks; they turned to Vemotion to provide a rapid deployment solution and Synectics for platform. “Wakefield is faced with the classic modern day safety and security challenges of a large, metropolitan area,” added Stewart. “With increasing scrutiny on resource allocation, managers need quick technology fixes that don’t mean major additional capex spend. The beauty of Vemotion and Synectics is flexibility: we solve and react to day to day operational problems, as well as offering a strategic CCTV deployment plan.”

In one specific anti-social behaviour hotspot, it was proving impossible to control or respond to all the complaints and incidents, yet within three months of deployment on-site, incidents had been totally eradicated. Wakefield is also looking to install the technology for traffic management purposes, enabling traffic data to be sent and thereby assist motorists with real time instant traffic news that will help them navigate more quickly and easily. In this way, Synergy and Vemotion are offering additional benefits not originally envisaged - all important considerations for those with tight budgets to take into account.
“Against a backdrop of budget cuts, achieving objectives where the right infrastructure is not already in place is tough,” added David. “Vemotion solutions provide an ideal and cost effective answer to this issue and through integration with Synergy, operators can capitalise on this while still being able to monitor and control all data within a single environment.”

Synectics has extensive experience in developing and delivering surveillance solutions for public space applications. Its systems, many of which incorporate Synectics’ proven command and control platform Synergy, are already deployed in two-thirds of the UK’s cities and half of London’s boroughs. Moving forward, Synergy and Vemotion will be working with other councils and public space bodies looking to benefit from wireless and deployable surveillance systems.
 
Vemotion’s encoding and streaming products enable video data to be transmitted wirelessly from surveillance cameras over any network and allows footage to be streamed from any device - ideal for councils in need of temporary or re-deployable solutions to extend and enhance their public space surveillance network.