BGF invests £6m growth capital in Prodrive Composites

 

Prodrive Composites is poised to move further into the fast lane after securing a £6m growth capital investment from BGF (Business Growth Fund). The business, which is based in Milton-Keynes, works within the automotive, aerospace and marine sectors producing lightweight, high performance composite components and structures, such as interior trims and bodywork.

 

Prodrive Composites was created in the early 2000s by Prodrive to support its motorsport activities. The company is one of the world’s most successful motorsport businesses with six World Rally titles, four British Touring Car titles and four Le Mans titles. Prodrive Composites has since expanded its customer base to include a growing number of premium and sports car manufacturers and aerospace customers. 

 

Prodrive Composites managing director, Dominic Cartwright, joined the business in September 2013 from CTG Ltd, a company owned by United Technologies Corporation. Under his leadership, Prodrive Composites’ sales hit £13m last year and are on course to grow to more than £15m at the end of this financial year.

 

The business employs nearly 200 people at its manufacturing plant in Milton Keynes. The production process is carried out in-house, from receipt of raw material to production of the finished high-performance components and structures. In the past 18 months the business has achieved significant capacity improvements, reducing the cycle time from raw material to finished parts from an average of six to eight weeks down to two weeks.

 

Carbon fibre composites offer a lightweight solution for premium car manufacturers looking to reduce vehicle fuel consumption, emissions and improve handling and aesthetics. In 2014, global automotive composites market was valued at US$3bn and is expected to increase to US$7bn by 2022.

 

While Prodrive Composites’ customer base is mostly automotive, it also carries out work in the aerospace industry and is manufacturing the main vehicle chassis for the European Space Agency’s ExoMars programme.

 

As part of the deal, John Weston joins the company as non-executive chairman after being introduced to the business by BGF. John spent 32 years in the aerospace and defence industry, concluding as CEO of BAE Systems with sales of £12.5bn and 120,000 employees. He now works to support a number of small companies in the high technology and manufacturing fields including as Chairman of MB Aerospace, Accesso, Windar Photonics and Fibercore. He is also a non-executive director at Torotrak. BGF’s Ian Downing joins the board as non-executive director and James Syrotiuk as board observer.

 

Dominic Cartwright said: “This is an exciting time in the composites industry and for Prodrive Composites. Demand is growing and we are well placed to service this. As a partner in the business, BGF brings both investment and an external perspective and we are very much looking forward to being able to call on their support as we continue to grow.

 

“We are also delighted to welcome John Weston to our board. John’s knowledge, contacts and experience will prove invaluable as we look to move the business into its next stage of growth.”

 

Ian Downing, investor, BGF said: “The demand for carbon fibre composites is on a clear upwards trajectory and Prodrive Composites has the legacy, ambition and customer base to really capitalise on that. We are looking forward to becoming a stakeholder in the company and working alongside Prodrive to help deliver this.”

 

The investment was led for BGF by Ian Downing and James Syrotiuk.

 

Prodrive Composites is banked by Barclays Bank Plc.

 

The advisers to the transaction were:

 

For Prodrive

Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co

PwC

 

For BGF

Baker Tilly – Financial Due Diligence

Gateley PLC – Legal due diligence and advice

Claritas – Tax structuring advice

 

 

Online lender Spotcap joins Deutsche Börse’s programme for European growth funding
 

Rocket Internet’s newest fintech company selected for Deutsche Börse Venture Network

 

Online lending platform Spotcap announced today that it has been selected to join the “Deutsche Börse Venture Network” (DBVN). The programme is designed to bring together new high-growth companies and investors to bridge funding gaps.

The network provides its members with a non-public online platform to initiate funding rounds, along with training and networking events. To become a member of the DBVN companies must fit certain application criteria such as running in a high growth stage.

 

“We are delighted to have been selected to join the Deutsche Börse Venture Network. This endorsement reflects Spotcap’s rapid growth and affirms our business success in the first year of activity”, said Spotcap co-founder and CEO Toby Triebel.

 

Over the past 12 months Spotcap raised 18 million euros in equity and debt funding from a group of investors including Rocket Internet, Access Industries, Holtzbrinck Ventures, and Kreos Capital. Spotcap is headquartered in Berlin, with local offices in Madrid, Amsterdam, and Sydney.

 

 

Spotcap leverages cutting-edge technology to meet the needs of small businesses more efficiently than traditional lenders. The company uses an innovative credit scoring technology that directly evaluates real-life business data to provide fast and flexible financing.

 

 

Vemotion CCTV solution is just capital for West London boroughs

 Can ‘world first’ deployable units be made to work in practice? You bet!

 

When wireless transmission specialist Vemotion said it would be able to supply four custom designed rapidly deployable CCTV solutions for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham that actually worked, the CCTV Manager was sceptical to say the least. But such has been the success of the trial project, that an additional six cameras have already been deployed, with plans to order a further 20 more – for starters.

CCTV Development Manager Andrew Stocker had seen plenty of the so called ‘latest technology that was going to change our lives’, but tasked with delivering the council manifesto of increasing deployable CCTV within the borough - only to then have the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea added to his remit - presented a very real dilemma. With the memory of expensive failures across the country fresh in his mind, Andrew was introduced to Vemotion’s Stewart McCone and decided to give the technology a chance.

 

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a deployable CCTV system actually working in all scenarios, first time every time,” said Andrew Stocker, CCTV Development Manager, Environment, Leisure and Residents Services Department. “It’s what everyone has sold in the past as a concept, but nobody has delivered. Now we have the real deal and it works everywhere.”

Andrew had seen quotes of £40,000 for three ‘deployables’ in the past - that wouldn’t integrate into the council’s platform and didn’t work 30% of the time. By contrast, Vemotion developed four prototypes for the Chelsea Premier League Champions’ parade on 25 May and despite being the first of their kind in the world, they worked first time. Andrew was on annual leave but did not miss a thing. He logged into Vemotion’s secure portal from his tablet and watched the live stream – all from a Florida beach!
 
“Andy and his team at Hammersmith and Fulham have proved what can be achieved by taking a dynamic and positive approach to CCTV management,” said Stewart McCone, CEO of Vemotion. “We realise that balancing all the conflicting priorities a CCTV Manager is faced with is not easy. Too often the CCTV debate has been driven purely by cost, when the best solution will always save money in the long term or in the case of Vemotion it will save money in the short term as well.”

 

Councils across the country are considering turning off CCTV due to ongoing budget constraints, but Stewart believes the experience of Hammersmith shows that bucking the trend and placing CCTV as a priority by using it in imaginative new ways can pay big dividends in a host of real life applications.
 
“We used Vemotion at Polo in the Park at Fulham’s Hurlingham Park too,” added Andrew. “In half an hour, we had it deployed. People were so impressed, the organisers want to use it at all their future national events.”
 
The pole cam developed for Hammersmith offers no loss of connection and can operate over low bandwidth using GPRS as well as 3G. Vemotion offers cheap data communications and no lock in to any provider, so it is just SIM- and go. As Andrew discovered, seamless connection can be made to control rooms and handheld devices such as laptops and phones. The bespoke kit can be carried in a case and while it requires a two man team to use, Vemotion is re-designing to allow one-person deployment.

 

“Vemotion listened, thought carefully and then developed the product we wanted,” added Stocker. “The first generation prototype was head and shoulders above anything we had seen before. If I needed deployable again, Vemotion is the only viable solution. It has worked faultlessly, continually for over a month and I am confident it will work for us again and do just the same for others too.”
 
“Our vision is one of multi-agency collaboration and with Vemotion, that’s what people can now enjoy,” added Stewart. “In essence, we are talking about secure, reliable, authorised cross-agency CCTV collaboration, the like of which has never been seen anywhere in the world before. It is nice to be a part of this next generation technology and breaking this exciting new ground right here in the UK.”
 
Further information on Vemotion can be found on the website at http://www.vemotion.com/ or call 08444 906 906, or email [email protected]

 

 

Leicester spin-out MIP Diagnostics appoints CEO

 

MIP Diagnostics, a University of Leicester spinout that develops molecularly imprinted polymers for research purposes, diagnostics and drug discovery, has begun the initial expansion of its business operations with the appointment of Adrian Kinkaid as CEO.  This follows a recent investment of £182,000 made by Mercia Fund Management.

 

Adrian will begin driving the technology into commercialisation, aiming to expand its uses into several exciting and disruptive research areas, including law enforcement, national security and food safety.  He will also work towards building a successful global marketing strategy with the development of a new website, including the creation of a portfolio of successful products.

 

Adrian has extensive experience in the life sciences sector, with particular expertise in affinity reagents, including antibodies, affirmers and aptamers.  He therefore has an in-depth understanding of the market and its competition, which will enable him to effectively market MIPS as a cost effective and high quality alternative to existing agents because of their robustness and speed of development.

 

Prior to joining MIP Diagnostics, Adrian worked as Chief Commercial Officer for Promexus, a protein biotherapeutics company based on affirmer technology exclusively licensed from Avacta Life Sciences.  Before that he was Strategic Market Development Leader for Abcam, the leading provider of research antibodies.

 

Adrian is also a Founding Member of ELRIG (European Laboratory Research and Innovation Group), a not-for-profit organisation that holds conferences and events for thought leadership in the life science and drug discovery communities.  Adrian served two terms as Chairman, during which time he established the flagship Drug Discovery event, which is now the leading conference of its kind in Europe.

 

Adrian Kinkaid said:

 

“As the new CEO of MIP Diagnostics, I have the opportunity to bring an exciting cutting edge technology into the market.  Furthermore, this technology has the potential to expand into different sectors, from monitoring food for contaminants, to protecting the population from the growing dangers of ‘legal highs’.  The technology has a number of advantages, not least of which are robustness, speed of development and the lack of ‘cold chain’ storage requirements.

 

It is a privilege to begin working with MIP Diagnostics, and I look forward to building a successful, dedicated team as we start expanding our impressive portfolio of products and services.”

 

Nicola Broughton, Investment Director of Technology Transfer, said:

 

 

“Adrian’s breadth of experience and exposure to different affinity reagents makes him more than capable of not only fully commercialising this disruptive technology, but also of moving it into exciting new sectors that cannot be explored by other agents on the market due to their complexity, slower speed of development and storage requirements.”

 

 

Investors stay cautious as government sells £2.1bn RBS shares

 

• George Osborne has announced the first sale of government shares in RBS
• Share price difference represents approx. £1.07bn loss on shares sold

 

As the government starts to sell its large stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, Graham Spooner, investment research analyst at The Share Centre, explains what this may mean for investors.

 

“After mounting speculation about the government’s first sale of RBS shares, this week, £2.1bn worth have been sold at a discount of 2.25% to Monday’s closing share price. The government has agreed not to sell any more shares for 90 days.

Those supportive of the sale may see this move as symbolic of the country moving on and away from the past financial crisis and signs of the bank restructuring will ultimately leave a business that is worth investing in.

 

“This sale will reduce the government’s holding on the bank from 78.3% to 72.9%. It is important for investors to note that Chancellor George Osbourne has argued the initial bailout was never out with the idea to make a profit. This is as a reaction to arguments that the government should have waited for the shares to recover closer to what taxpayers originally paid for them.

 

 

“We remain cautious on RBS and believe there are better opportunities for followers of the banking sector, such as HSBC which we currently recommend as a ‘buy’ for low to medium risk investors geared for income.”