Funding Empire sells majority stake to Paratus AMC

 

Funding Empire, the P2P platform for SME business finance, has sold a majority stake to Paratus AMC, the Bracknell based residential mortgage servicer and lender.

 

Funding Empire will continue to be headquartered in Cardiff and is currently Wales’ only P2P lending platform.

 

Commenting on the deal, Parag Patel MD of Funding Empire: “We are delighted to welcome Paratus AMC as a partner and majority shareholder. Their team, mature back office functions, strong balance sheet and proven ability in managing secured assets on a large scale presents us with a unique opportunity to create a market leading business in the dynamic P2P lending market. With the backing of Paratus AMC, we are now best placed to accelerate the development of Funding Empire and build on the solid foundation the team has worked relentlessly to create over the past few years. We are currently working on the launch of some new and exciting products without compromising our reputation for taking a very thorough, transparent and customer-centric approach to doing business.”

 

Hans Geberbauer, CEO at Paratus AMC, said, “We are delighted to have Parag and his team on board.  They have built an excellent platform. In the fast moving P2P lending environment, they have resisted the temptation to take short cuts and built out Funding Empire’s business with great care.”

 

Mercia makes further investment into world leader in DNA design

 

Mercia Fund Management (MFM), one of the leading technology investors in the UK, has invested a funding package of up to £500,000 into Oxford Genetics, a synthetic biology company with world-leading expertise in DNA design.

 

Mercia has worked closely with Oxford Genetics for over four years, which has already developed the world’s largest library of DNA plasmid ‘building blocks’ for simplified genetic engineering via their main technology, SnapFast, offered under an intellectual property free policy to help enable efficient research for their customers.

 

This latest investment will allow Oxford Genetics to propel the commercialisation of its ground-breaking DNA design and algorithm technologies which can enable biopharma and biotech companies to overcome poor protein yield, a key barrier in terms of high unit cost and/or failure to bring drugs to market.

 

Founded in 2011 by genetic engineer Dr Ryan Cawood and Len Seymour, Professor of gene therapies at the University of Oxford, the company’s in-depth knowledge and expertise provides a wealth of improvements and optimisations for the complex creation of recombinant proteins, which will be used to help combat many life-threatening illnesses, including Hepatitis B, HIV and Diabetes.

 

Commenting on the investment, CEO Mark Payton at Mercia said:

 

“We are pleased to further our support of Oxford Genetics as they continue to commercialise their innovative services, which have far-reaching benefits for the industry.  Oxford Genetics’ successful track record for DNA design and optimisation will soon establish it as a market leader in the improvement of protein manufacture.”

 

Ryan Cawood, CEO and Founder of Oxford Genetics, said:

 

“Mercia’s investment will allow us to accelerate our research, leverage public funding and roll out our commercial programme.  Over the last four years, Mercia has not only provided investment, it has also been a supportive presence on our Board, providing guidance to a rapidly evolving business.”

 

£1 billion raised by Oxford investors to invest in technology businesses

 

High growth companies in the ‘Oxford Tech Cluster’ set to benefit

 

Oxford’s high growth technology business could receive up to £1 billion in new funding this year, according to David Mott, Managing Partner of investment manager Oxford Capital.  The capital, raised by investment management firms will be used to back start-up businesses and high growth technology companies in the ‘Oxford Tech Cluster’.  It follows a series of recent high profile success stories which have seen Oxford-based businesses achieve valuations in excess of £1 billion following their acquisitions or listings in London and New York.

 

The investors - Oxford Capital, Oxford Sciences Innovations, IP Group, Woodford Investment Management, Parkwalk, Mercia, and OSEM - have together raised over £1.4 billion in the past 12 months. Four of these firms increased their investment funds by over £100 million each during the period. Much of this capital is either managed locally, dedicated to backing new spinouts from the research institutions or in part aimed at backing the rising stars of the Oxford Tech Cluster.

 

The Oxford Tech Cluster is the concentrated group of entrepreneurs, investors, high technology businesses and researchers based in Oxford’s science parks, research centres and universities.

 

David Mott, Managing Partner, Oxford Capital, said:

 

“The Oxford Cluster is best known for the strength of its life sciences sector, though other sectors have attracted substantial funding as well such as energy, software and advanced engineering. Increasingly, companies in the Oxford Cluster are attracting international capital from the US, Europe or Asia. Green Biologics, a specialty chemicals business is backed by the Swire Group, an Asian conglomerate, as well as venture capital investors Sofinnova Ventures and Oxford Capital.”

 

This mass of new capital is set to fund a wave of investments in new and expanding technology businesses. This follows the recent success stories such as Circassia, Oxford Immunotec, Natural Motion and Arieso, whose combine valuations exceeded £1 billion following their acquisitions or listings in London and New York.

 

David Mott, said:

 

“This wall of new investment capital great news for high tech businesses in the Oxford region who are set to benefit.  The quality of companies around Oxford emerging from the science parks, research centres and universities has been rising rapidly in recent years. A virtuous circle is developing as successful companies attract both talent and funding. As these companies grow in size and value, they foster new generations of ambitious entrepreneurs and innovators who in turn will launch the next generation of businesses. Companies such as Oxford Nanopore, Oxitec, Oxford Pharmascience and Oxford PV have already received significant funding and are emerging as leaders in their markets.”

 

Leading investors in the cluster have been brought together at Venturefest Oxford 2015, an annual networking event for high tech businesses.  Ted Mott, co-founder of Oxford Capital, will lead a debate to explore how the Oxford Tech Cluster has attracted so much capital and how it will be deployed to create the next generation of technology stars.  Venturefest Oxford 2015, is taking place on Wednesday, 8th July 2015 at the Saïd Business School, Oxford.

 

Oxford Capital works in partnership with exceptional entrepreneurs and management teams to provide the capital, expertise and support they need to turn outstanding innovation into highly-successful businesses.  It has invested in more than 40 growth companies, operating in industries ranging from digital media to sustainable agriculture and medical technology.

 

Callcredit trio launch FinTech start-up to shake up credit industry

 

Three former employees of the UK’s second largest credit reference agency Callcredit have left the firm to form FinTech company Hello Soda in a bid to revolutionise the financial services sector.

 

Hello Soda has been attracting interest from some of the world’s biggest alternative lenders following their development of a platform that helps reduce fraud and improve responsible lending and borrowing.

 

The platform named PROFILE has launched to take advantage of the fact that traditional credit rating models are based on historical financial performance, and do not take into account a person’s ‘true’ circumstance – eg if an applicant has recently taken a promotion in work.

 

Plugging a gap in the industry, the software enables lenders to take into account important unstructured data (like social media) signals when assessing the creditworthiness of loan applications by injecting an element of human behavior into a typical computer-led lending application process. Consumers also benefit by getting quicker decisions that are more accurately aligned to their life.

 

The key hires bringing the platform to market include: Co-founder of Hello Soda, James Blake, who previously headed up the global sales division at Callcredit as well as Experian and oversaw a 64% growth trend during his last five years. He takes up the role of CEO.

 

Will Ellis joins from Callcredit as commercial director bringing deep knowledge in credit risk scores and the alternative finance industry from working with some of the largest financial services companies and retailers in the world.

 

And Ben Allott has been appointed to the position of operations and client services director having previously been key account director for Callcredit in charge of clients including Santander, RBS, Tesco, Lloyds Bank and Think Finance.

 

Also taking a seat in the management team is co-founder and marketing director Paul Shepherd who founded a Top 10 UK social and mobile technology agency with clients including Nike, Google, Twitter, Lloyds Banking Group and the BBC. His extensive knowledge of the social data and tech start up space completes the key hires that are behind Hello Soda’s launch.

 

The company has also recruited leading data-scientists and engineers from the likes of Skype, General Electric and top UK universities in the field of psycholinguistics, natural language processing (NLP) and unstructured data analysis. It is also backed by European investors.

 

Commenting on the company launch, CEO Blake said: “That human element, especially in lending, disappeared before the the financial crash in 2008 when the world changed, leaving many people unable to access credit.

 

“With the exponential growth in online data, it makes sense to take a ‘snapshot’ of a person’s real life and cross reference that with traditional metrics to further verify an individual’s application in a way that benefits the customer and lending provider”.

 

This ‘snapshot’ Blake speaks of comprises thousands of pieces of online data, such as the use of only capital letters when filling out forms, or the amount of time a person spends reading terms and conditions, these are all collated to deliver a ‘Soda Score’ that forecasts trustworthiness, affordability and consumer intent. Real life benefits include borrowers not becoming overstretched, and lenders not being duped by fraudulent applications.

 

Blake added: “Hello Soda is about resetting parity through data by empowering consumers to use that data to help our clients know them better. We’re already seeing clients and consumers benefitting”.

 

NowWeComply ‘disruptive BPM innovator’ secures $1.2m funding from AngelLab and LCIF fund

                                                

NowWeComply, an innovative B2B SaaS solution provider in the intelligent Business Process Management space, has secured $1.2 of pre Series A funding from AngelLab in partnership with the London Co Investment Fund (LCIF), an initiative of the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

 

NowWeComply has developed a new generation BPM platform that has been proven in its initial launch market of Compliance, Risk and Governance to enable companies to cut costs, reduce headcount and cut risk. NowWeComply has been architected with open API’s and already features a thriving App store with 3rd party data providers and other partners which places NowWeComply at the heart of a new powerful compliance ecosystem.

 

Founder and CEO Ben Stoneham commented,

 

“It has also been exciting to see how NowWeComply has been an engine for client growth. Two of our staffing clients, including Capita PLC, have used NWC to control the offshoring of back office operations and expand their capacity to grow their business. Now the AngelLab/LCIF funding will power up our growth and enable us to build on our successful track record in the staffing and recruitment sector to serve new vertical markets.”

 

Managing Partner of AngelLab LLP Andrew Fullerton - who has joined NowWeComply’s board – said,

                                          

“We were attracted by the huge growth potential in the compliance sector and the fact that NowWeComply already has an enviable client roster, including serving Footsie 100 companies. With their fully developed tech platform in place our funding can be focussed on supporting sales growth.’’

 

Stephen Bullock, Founding Investor and NWC Chairman, added,

 

“We have a tremendous opportunity to disrupt a legacy BPM market with a truly intelligent SaaS solution. Our innovative technology platform has huge application potential across multiple vertical sectors. Whilst we have exciting near term growth opportunities, ultimately our vision is to be the mission-critical ‘If-This-Then-That’ for enterprise and the NowWeComply platform has the unique capability to deliver this.

 

Business confidence soars ahead of the ‘Bonus’ Budget

 

Business confidence rose 15 points to a record 119.4 in the second quarter of 2015 according to Smith & Williamson’s Enterprise Index. “The result of the General Election, delivering a majority government, left businesses with the stability they craved,” said Guy Rigby, head of entrepreneurial services, at Smith & Williamson, the accountancy and investment management group.

 

“More than 80% of the 200+ business leaders who took part in the established quarterly survey expect the economy to improve over the next 12 months.  70% of participants believe George Osborne’s March Budget statement was good for business, so they have reason to be hopeful that policy will stay on track in his upcoming July announcement.”

 

“80% of respondents believed that the previous coalition government was supportive of private enterprise and so were concerned about the effect an unclear election result may have had on growth.  Following the Conservative victory, 87% are optimistic about their own prospects over the coming year, with 83% planning growth or an acquisition over that time frame.”                

 

Businesses fear EU exit

“There were nonetheless some concerns expressed as the first majority Conservative government for 18 years brought with it the promise of a referendum on the UK’s membership with the EU. Over 68% of those surveyed believe that the so-called ‘Brexit’ would negatively impact British businesses.”

 

“As 66% of participants are expecting the financial health of their trading partners to improve and with the EU forming the largest destination for the export of UK goods, a potential Brexit will become an even more pressing issue as we approach the referendum.  84% of businesses believe that growing exports will be a key barometer of economic success for the new government so it will be interesting to see how policy makers handle this issue, whatever the result.”

 

“9% of businesses felt migrants were absolutely essential to their business, and 62% of participants believed they played some part, so it would be reasonable to expect SMEs to be adversely affected should the UK elect to leave the EU.”

 

International Trade

“Recent government releases* have indicated that meeting the export target of one trillion pounds by 2020 is unlikely to happen and that the UK will fall roughly £300 billion short.  This has been supported by the recent Cole report,** an independent business review on exports, which has argued that only 29% of UK SMEs export and only 20% have any expansion plans,” said Stephen Drew, head of international services at Smith & Williamson.

 

“However, with findings from our Enterprise Index indicating that 76% of businesses believe that turnover from exports will increase and 54% of respondents exporting it appears that one side or other of this equation will have to give.”