Member Article

Liverpool-based Document Direct secures £400k funding

A Liverpool company which provides a digital dictation and transcription service for law firms and medical and health centres has secured a £400k investment from The North West Fund for Venture Capital, managed by Enterprise Ventures.

Document Direct is based in Old Hall Street, and will use the funding to pursue its expansion plans.

The company was established in 2005 by its managing director, entrepreneur Martyn Best.

A year later he co-founded the Liverpool PR agency Paver Smith, now renamed Influential, where he played an active role until 2013, when he left to focus on Document Direct.

Since then, sales have almost doubled at Document Direct and the company now has over 100 clients with around 2,000 registered users of its service.

The investment by The North West Fund for Venture Capital is financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Investment Bank.

Lisa Ward of Enterprise Ventures said “Document Direct spotted the potential for professional services firms to outsource document production at an early stage, and it is now an established force in the market.

“As more firms look to outsource such services, there are plenty of growth opportunities for the business.

“This investment will help to fund its expansion.”

MD Martyn Best said: “The growth of Document Direct until now has been funded by myself and some very supportive shareholders, and the addition of this investment will enable our service infrastructure to be enhanced, and our business development and client service team to be significantly strengthened.

“We are finding a growing awareness of our offering by many law firms and medical and health centres who recognise the need to move away from traditional means of delivering elements of their service.

“The need for cost savings and efficiency, combined with the emergence of safe, secure and reliable technologies and services such as ours provides the assurance that our clients seek.”

Brabners LLP advised Enterprise Ventures on the transaction.

Hill Dickinson LLP advised Document Direct.

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