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Barclays extends high growth tech fund for UK scale-ups to £200m

By David Yates on November 17, 2016 / Blog Post, business, EIS, Investment, Loan / Leave a comment

A year since the launch of its first venture debt fund for UK technology firms, Barclays has announced it is extending the fund to £200 million. Barclays has seen huge take up from businesses and since launching in May last year has provided £100million in earlier stage financing support to nearly 40 companies. It is the first of the big four banks to offer high growth businesses and their founders debt funding solutions at this early stage. The fund is designed to provide access to debt finance; commonly available in

UK tech investment tops £130m in October

By David Yates on November 17, 2016 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

October saw 25 UK tech companies announce new funding rounds, totaling $161.2m (£130.2m), according to the Tech City News UK Investment Tracker. This is significantly higher than the amount announced in September – $70.91m (£53.8m) – representing a 142% increase. The October total was skewed somewhat by the $30m raise by Bristol-based computer chip startup Graphcore. Some nine of the rounds raised in October were Seed, while four were Venture funding, nine were Series A, one was Series B, one was Series C and a further one was Series D.

Crazy startup ideas that actually worked out

By David Yates on September 15, 2016 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

As an investor and advisor I get hundreds of startup ideas pass through my inbox every month, ranging from the genius and groundbreaking to the untenable and the downright crazy. Sometimes they can be both crazy and genius, with some really whacky ideas actually working out, raising a serious amount of money and gaining impressive support. It’s quite difficult to put together a list of such companies, though, because in many cases what must have seemed like a completely crazy product upon launch has become a norm and something hoards of

Speed is Key To Startup Success, but how?

By David Yates on September 14, 2016 / Blog Post, business, Investment, PE/VC, SEIS / Leave a comment

As an advisor to young and growing companies, there’s one major mistake I see inexperienced entrepreneurs make time and time again – moving too slowly. But the need for speed in launching a startup has little to do with being the first to market, and everything to do with having the necessary resources to actually GET your product to market. Often new entrepreneurs spend so much time trying to get everything perfect that they run out of money. To launch a startup, you need to be agile and you need to be

VC investment in German FinTech ‘outpaced UK by 80%’ in Q2 2016

By David Yates on September 13, 2016 / Blog Post, business, fintech, Investment, PE/VC / Leave a comment

UK-based FinTech firms received 80% less VC funding than their German counterparts throughout Q2 2016. According to CB Insights and KMPG’s “The Pulse of FinTech” Q2 2016 report, venture capital-backed FinTech firms in Germany saw more than an 80% increase in funding than those in the UK – with notable deals going to startups including N26 and Finanzcheck. Given global market uncertainties associated with political events such as the UK’s Brexit vote and the upcoming US presidential election, the report notes that it was not surprising that venture capital investors

Octopus Investments launches fintech accelerator for ‘product-ready’ start-ups

By David Yates on September 13, 2016 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

Octopus Investments has launched a new fintech business, Octopus Labs, to fix what it considers is ‘the broken financial services sector’, with technology built in-house as well as sourced from later-stage fintech start-ups across the UK. According to the new business, while the past few years have witnessed a fintech revolution in the UK, most of the innovations that have sprung up remain unfamiliar and unpalatable to both financial advisers and retail investors. Octopus Labs is breaking into a category it calls ‘advisertech’ by ‘self-building’ some solutions and supporting others through a fintech

Arrow Business Communications secures GCP investment

By David Yates on August 31, 2016 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

Arrow Business Communications has geared up for a period of fast growth and M&A activity following a strategic investment by Growth Capital Partners (GCP) that sees both parties hold a 50% shareholding in the business. Arrow has completed seven acquisitions in the last six years and almost trebled in size, moving from its mobile roots to a broader based business communications supplier. The company is now on the hunt for larger acquisition opportunities to bolster its hosted, data and IT services portfolio. Arrow CEO Chris Russell commented: “This deal is

Do You Have the Mind of an Entrepreneur?

By David Yates on August 11, 2016 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

Do You Have the Mind of an Entrepreneur? I found this video on Inc.com which gives you 4 ways you might find out. Whilst I find it obvious that the studies show that entrepreneurs are more optimistic than others I thought it was quite interesting that they tend to get stressed easily. What do you think?Read more →

BREXIT, we’re out, so are high-growth businesses at risk?

By David Yates on July 19, 2016 / Blog Post, business, Investment / Leave a comment

How will Brexit impact startups and scaleups? Almost 75% of high-growth businesses in the UK were hoping for a remain vote with tech startups overwhelmingly opposed to Brexit – but the vote didn’t quite turn out the way many expected it to, especially the politicians! As we go through this period of uncertainty the real impact of Brexit on SME and Growth businesses is guesswork at this point. Here at 4 Oceans the real question we are asking is about startups and scaleups and whether they may lose access to finance and

Maven leads MBO of Indigo Telecom

By David Yates on July 14, 2016 / Blog Post, business, Investment, M&A, PE/VC, telecom / Leave a comment

Maven has completed the MBO of Indigo Telecom Group, investing alongside fellow private equity manager YFM Equity Partners, to acquire the business from parent TTG-Global Limited. The business will benefit from a £12m funding package to accelerate growth, including additional funds to support a buy and build strategy. This transaction continues a strong period of recent investment for Maven, having already completed private equity investments in 2016 across the technology, support services, healthcare and specialist manufacturing sectors for client funds. Recent investments include: backing the MBI of document management specialist Prime Document; supporting new