Blackfinch has invested c.£550k in Poole-based company Spotless Water, founded in 2016. The company offers the UK's first and only network of self-service, pure-water filling stations, available 24/7. It has nearly 40 stations situated across the UK. A key target is to increase this to 450 stations over the next three years as well as expanding into the US.  

Jenson Funding Partners' 2019/20 EIS Fund has invested across six of its existing portfolio companies providing follow on funding to facilitate the next steps of growth for the businesses.  All of the investments were syndicated with external investors providing a cornerstone investment unlocking larger amounts of capital. 

A year after the worldwide sales success of the Channel 5 film ‘Agatha and the Truth of Murder’, the North Yorkshire-based husband and wife team behind it – Emily and Tom Dalton – have received backing from the UK’s leading media focussed investment group, Great Point Media, to start a regional production company. Great Point Ventures’ EIS investment in Factual Fiction is its second to be announced this year and eighth overall, consolidating a successful first 18 months for the fund.

The UK Creative Content EIS Fund has invested in Maze Theory, a digital entertainment studio focusing on the creation and development of immersive entertainment experiences across multiple platforms, including Virtual Reality (VR), PC, Console and Mobile. 

Maze Theory established its reputation with the launch of its first VR game - Doctor Who ‘The Edge of Time’, which launched in November 2019 for PlayStation (PSVR) and Oculus Rift headsets, before also launching on Oculus Quest headsets in January 2020. VR gaming has become more accessible given the advances in technology, alongside the availability of low, medium and high-end devices. The market is scaling rapidly, with significant growth experienced in both hardware and software. 

Newable has completed a £120,000 equity investment in Echion Technologies. This is the second Echion investment round that Newable related Funds have participated in after a deployment of £140,000 in 2018.

Echion Technologies, led by Jean De La Verpilliere are developing a portfolio of advanced Lithium-ion battery materials that look to provide low barriers to market entry along with rapid customer access. The result of their technology is the creation of batteries that possess very-fast charging characteristics and are produced using sustainable materials.

A Newcastle tech start-up whose software helps sales staff to find and close new leads has raised £400,000 to further develop its product and expand its team.  Allegrow has secured funding from the North East Venture Fund (NEVF), which is supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Mercia, along with investment from Mercia’s EIS funds and a number of private investors.

Allegrow is a sales automation platform for business to business companies – where generating new opportunities is a top priority. The platform puts sales representatives in touch with key decision-makers in their target industries through data-driven outreach, which allows them to attract more leads and book more meetings.

Ingenious' Infrastructure Ventures EIS Service has led a $4m A-series investment round in Shoreline. The Norway-based start-up has built an intelligent field operations and project development platform to help develop profitable wind projects by constructing and operating them efficiently using intelligent schedule optimisation and simulation.

Foresight Group has successfully exited its investment in Clubhouse Golf, the UK’s largest independent online retailer of golf equipment, to all4golf, a leading European ecommerce business focused on golf.

Clubhouse has found a strong strategic partner in all4golf and together will look to become the pan-European market leader for golf equipment. 

Foresight Group and Williams Advanced Engineering have made a £540,000 investment from Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund into Living Optics, a spin out from the University of Oxford redefining imaging technology.  The investment is part of a £3.3 million funding round led by Oxford Sciences Innovation.

Blackfinch has invested c.£630,000 in Glasgow-based company Candidate.ID, founded in 2015. Candidate.ID offers recruitment software that provides recruiters daily hot leads based on candidates' interactions with a company’s online content.

Candidate.ID’s talent platform is a fast-track solution to hiring for both mid-large employers and specialist staffing companies. Its sophisticated technology and software can replace a company’s customer relationship management system to provide enhanced recruitment performance. Its technology, packaged in a simple-to-use interface, sits on top of a company’s applicant tracking system and works as the core system of candidate engagement.

Great Point, the UK’s leading independent media investment firm, has invested in Camden Productions, an independent TV and film production company whose team has a track record of producing multi-award-winning, creatively acclaimed and commercially successful scripted comedy and comedy-drama. 

Igloo Vision, the Shropshire-based immersive technology company, has raised an additional £435,000 in funding under the UK Government’s Enterprise Investment Scheme.  Igloo creates immersive projection spaces, such as domes, cylinders, cubes, and immersive workspaces. Igloo’s technology can display any 360° or Virtual Reality (VR) content. And, because entire teams can get inside the immersive spaces and engage with the content, the technology is well-suited to training, simulation, and visualisation, as well as events and experiences.