Member Article

North West’s Enterprise Ventures completes £30 million of deals

Enterprise Ventures, which provides finance for SMEs, enjoyed another record year in 2014, completing 220 deals with a combined value of £30 million.

It brings the total invested by the company in the past four years to over £100 million.

During that time it completed around 780 transactions, equivalent to four deals every working week.

The figures highlight Enterprise Ventures’ role in supporting small firms in the North at a time when bank lending has continued to fall and many have witnessed unprecedented difficulties in accessing finance for growth.

Enterprise Ventures, which has offices in Liverpool, Manchester and Preston manages 18 specially-targeted SME funds raised from the public and private sectors providing venture capital, growth capital and loans.

They include The North West Fund for Venture Capital, The North West Fund for Mezzanine, Lancashire’s Rosebud Finance and the Coalfields Funds.

According to an independent report compiled during the year, the majority of Enterprise Ventures’ loans and investments have gone into the most deprived regions in the UK.

The report by Big Issue Invest, the social investment arm of The Big Issue, shows that Enterprise Ventures is helping to create a more balanced economy by investing in the regions, concentrating on deprived areas and focusing on priority sectors, such as manufacturing and export.

Key deals during 2014 included a £2.5 million investment in Winning Pitch, the coaching and business support specialist; a £750k investment in DataCentred, which is led by Telecity founder Dr Mike Kelly and is launching a series of datacentres in the North; and a significant investment in agrochemical business Redag Crop Protection, to allow its demerger from its parent company Redx Pharma.

Enterprise Ventures also saw the flotation of three of its portfolio companies – the Barnsley-based cleaning technology company Xeros Technology Group, Manchester-based Premaitha Health, and York-based Optibiotix Health.

Jonathan Diggines, Chief Executive of Enterprise Ventures, said: “The landscape for small business finance has changed for good.

“Although the economy is recovering, there is no sign of the banks returning to the market. “Enterprise Ventures has been playing a key role in supporting small business growth and generating jobs and prosperity in deprived areas.

“The recent Big Issue Invest report has outlined the important part that alternative finance providers can play in rebalancing the UK economy away from London.

“With devolution now on the agenda, the investment community will be fundamental in helping to realise the vision of a Northern powerhouse.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .