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Back to Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund News – Issue 13

Deal Round Up

With restrictions lifting in the UK and the North’s business community largely back to business, NPIF has seen an active period of summer and early autumn investments, setting up for a strong finish to 2021. NPIF will continue to push economic growth across the region in the coming months and beyond, helping small businesses across the North access finance.

Over the last quarter, NPIF investment has helped businesses build skilled teams, scale-up their platforms, and launch new services – here are just some of our recent deals.

Here are some of our recent investments.

RWHealth – Manchester & Leeds

RwHealth, a provider of predictive analytics and insights into the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors, has received a £3.25 million investment from Maven Capital Partners. This includes £1.25 million from NPIF – Maven Equity Finance, enabling the business to set up a new clinical research team based across Manchester and Leeds.

AlphaGrahics – Stockton-on-Tees

AlphaGraphics, which develops graphic work and delivers end-to-end media campaigns, has secured investment from NPIF – FW Capital Debt Finance. The investment has allowed the Stockton-on-Tees-based team to safeguard six jobs staff whilst creating two further roles. As experts in multi-channel marketing campaigns, AlphaGraphics will use the investment for additional working capital, building on their existing turnover of more than £7.5m.

Foilco – Warrington

Stamping foil specialists, Foilco, has received a £750,000 loan through NPIF – FW Capital Debt Finance. Based in Warrington, Foilco empowers brands and galvanises creatives to take their products and designs to the next level. With the investment, Foilco plans to update its machinery and recruit three new employees.. Foilco also plans to also use the loan for working capital to support the business through a five-year development plan.

Digital Converters – Ripon

Ripon-based Digital Converters, which helps customers reconnect with their old footage, has secured a £250,000 investment from NPIF – Mercia Debt Finance, which will enable them to continue their rapid growth and also launch a new cloud-based platform. The company is seeking to double its team in the next five years and expand into Europe, ultimately becoming a worldwide service.

Mindtech Global – Sheffield

Mindtech Chameleon, a platform of Mindtech Global, enables developers to generate a sequence of synthetic images and create scenarios that show an algorithm what to look out for. With £2.3m secured in funding led by NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, the Sheffield-based start-up is planning to use the investment to open up its Chameleon platform to even more customers in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Bricks In Bloom – Carlisle

Bricks in Bloom is one of the leading Lego brick suppliers in the UK. The Carlisle-based business has secured a £75,000 loan from NPIF – BFS & MSF Microfinance, managed by GC Business Finance & MSIF. The loan will spur Bricks in Bloom to extend its offerings by increasing their stocks of product that Lego no longer supplies, and assist the business in hiring two new members of staff and moving to a new premises four times the size of their existing unit.

Bespoke Stairlifts – Huddersfield

A Yorkshire-based stairlift manufacturer, which specialises in producing bespoke designs for curved and complicated staircases, is targeting significant growth after securing £100,000 in loan funding from Finance for Enterprise and NPIF.

 

The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.

Editors Notes