2017 - 4 Oceans Capital Ltd

UK tech investment trends of Q1 2017

By David Yates on May 12, 2017 / Blog Post, Investment, PE/VC / Leave a comment

Investment Growth in Q1 The first quarter of 2017 was strong in terms of investment rounds announced by UK tech companies. A total of £576.85m ($719.27m) in funding was recorded on the Tech City News Investment Tracker in the first three months of the year. This represents a 142.8% increase on the £237.56m announced in Q4 2016 and an 80.2% increase on the £320.14m raised in Q1 2016. March was the month that saw the most investment activity, with £239.82m recorded across 30 rounds. The largest round recorded in this

Yieldify Raises $6M in Funding

By David Yates on May 5, 2017 / Blog Post, EIS, fintech, Investment, SEIS / Leave a comment

Yieldify, a London, UK-based marketing experience company, raised $6m in its second funding round. The round was led by Binomial Ventures with participation from John Giuliani, CEO of digital marketing leader Conversant, who has also joined the Yieldify board as Chairman, Tom Singh, founder of fashion chain New Look, and existing investors GV (formerly Google Ventures), SoftBank Capital, Hoxton Ventures and Data Point Capital. The company intends to use the funds to continue to scale in the e-commerce market. Launched in 2013 and led by Jay Radia, Chief Executive Officer,

Former tech unicorn Ve Interactive bought for just £2m

By David Yates on May 5, 2017 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

Struggling technology firm Ve Interactive, once thought to be worth at least £1bn, was bought by its new management team for just £2m, in what is thought to be a pre-packed administration. The AdTech firm also made headlines last month after it surfaced that its former CEO and founder David Brown had stepped down and had been replaced by Morten Tonnesen. It’s believed Brown continues to act as an adviser. The management buyout was reportedly backed by a consortium of existing significant shareholders and creditors who provided the funds to

Barclays Opens FinTech Site in Tech City London

By David Yates on April 26, 2017 / Blog Post, business, fintech, Investment / Leave a comment

Barclays has opened its flagship FinTech open innovation site, Rise London, in Shoreditch. Rise is Barclays’ programme which aims to combine a curated community of FinTech startups , corporate clients and other experts from across the world, to work on Barclays’ customer and business opportunities and to shape innovative financial services. At Rise, Barclays co-creates new products, services and platforms along with startups and corporates, investors and industry experts across seven sites internationally in New York, Manchester, Mumbai, Cape Town, Vilnius, London and Tel Aviv. In each location, the banking

Mettrr Technologies secondary share sale on Crowdcube

By David Yates on April 20, 2017 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

Congratulations to Sebastian Lewis and the team at Mettrr Technologies which has become the first company to provide financial returns for its crowd investors through a secondary share sale on Crowdcube. Investors, who backed the tech startup in 2012, received a 9x return on their original investment after angel investors acquired a stake in the company. Following the transaction, 10 investors collectively realised £50,000 in Mettrr Technologies, previously soletrader.com. Two further investors realised £250,000 in an off platform transaction. Since raising £100,000 on Crowdcube in March 2012 from 25 crowd investors, the company has

The Angel CoFund is now 5 years old, how has it performed?

By David Yates on April 4, 2017 / Blog Post, EIS, Investment, PE/VC / Leave a comment

The Angel CoFund, a London, UK-based venture capital fund launched with an initial Government-backed funding of £50m has announced its main results culminating with the celebration of its fifth birthday. With its mandate remaining to back the best UK-based high potential and high growth early stage companies and to partner with business angels via co-investment, the fund has hit several milestones, including: more than £33m invested which leveraged £175m of co-investments from angels and angel networks 71 companies funded Four successful exits Three IPOs And an ROI of 3x on average

Stormburst Studios Raises £150k in Seed Funding

By David Yates on March 5, 2017 / Blog Post, Investment, PE/VC, SEIS / Leave a comment

Stormburst Studios, a Birmingham, UK-based startup which develops game-inspired software for business use, raised £150k in seed funding from Mercia Fund Management. Co-founded by Derry Holt and James Heath, Stormburst Studios provides OneUp, which allows sales teams to pit themselves against each other in a fantasy sports competition. By using gaming concepts such as leaderboards and dashboards to replace spreadsheets, OneUp offers a new approach to sales management, helping to motivate and engage employees while allowing managers to gain detailed performance insights. The company will use the funds to further develop

Beechbrook Capital Closes £150m UK SME Credit Fund

By David Yates on March 4, 2017 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

Specialist direct lender Beechbrook Capital has held a final close of its UK SME Credit fund with commitments in excess of £150m and has completed two new investments. Led by Jon Herbert, Beechbrook managing director, Beechbrook Capital UK SME Credit I backs small and medium-sized businesses in the UK with a turnover of between £10m and £100m and EBITDA of more than £1m. It attracted investors from across the UK, Continental Europe and North America. The fund is already more than 30 per cent committed.

Raising capital from angel investors isn’t as easy as you think

By David Yates on March 1, 2017 / Blog Post, EIS, Investment, SEIS / Leave a comment

Raising capital from business angels and private investors isn’t as easy as some people think There’s no question about it: Raising funding for a start-up from angel investors or venture capitalists is hard. Some entrepreneurs seem to think that investors should be falling over each other to fund their project, but the unfortunate truth is that only a small percentage of entrepreneurs are successful in raising capital for their start-up. Unlike venture capitalists who invest other people’s money, angels invest their OWN money. It’s important to put yourself in the

UK tech industry could see investment from Asia double due to Brexit and Donald Trump

By David Yates on March 1, 2017 / Blog Post / Leave a comment

Asian investors could turn their back on America and channel billions of pounds worth of investment into Britain’s tech sector following the election of US President Donald Trump, according to a leading advisory firm. Europe’s tech sector could see investment from Asia, and in particular China, double to a record £93bn this year, with the UK taking a significant slice of the capital. Trump’s threat of punitive trade tariffs against China, coupled with cheaper UK deals driven by the Brexit-hit pound will drive the trend, analysts say. Much of the sentiment and

Yearly archive for 2017