~DEAL ZONE~
NEWS IN BRIEF
• A public offering remains on the table for online sports retailer Wiggle, with majority shareholder Isis Equity Partners meeting potential bookrunners this month.
• GlaxoSmithKline spin-out Autifony has closed a £10 million financing from Imperial Innovations and SV Life Sciences to develop medicine that could treat hearing disorders.
• Dragons’ Den investor Peter Jones has sold IT comms firm Wireless Logic to private equity firm ECI Partners for £38 million.
• Call centre technology business NewVoiceMedia has secured £2.5 million of growth capital in a second round of funding from Notion Capital and Eden Ventures.
• Cleantech firm RLtec, a developer of technology that aims to cut carbon emissions, has secured £4 million in growth capital from Ombu Group.
• Entertainment-focused VCT manager Ingenious Ventures is positioning to exit some of its festival investments before the end of the year.
• Net-A-Porter founders Murray Salmon and Mark Quinn-Newall have led a first round of investment in e-retailer Cult Beauty.
For more deals and business news, visit
GrowthBusiness.co.uk
raise £120 million to make further investments in renewable energy. In a statement, the firm says it hopes to raise up to £120 million for its Octopus EIS, which is currently open to investors, and a new soon-to-be-launched venture capital trust (VCT).
A
sset manager Octopus Investments has signalled a continued commitment to back the UK’s solar industry, announcing plans to
MyVoucherCodes founder Mark Pearson ‘actively investing’
number of start-ups as he aims to grow a portfolio of highly scalable digital businesses. After committing £1 million to the user-generated news start-up Blottr earlier this year, Pearson injected £250,000 into online music organiser ShareMyPlaylists in July. The funding will enable ShareMyPlaylists, which claims to be signing up 400 new members a day, to ramp up sales and marketing initiatives, particularly through social media. Founded by Kieron Donoghue in March 2009 and
T
relaunched last October, ShareMyPlaylists is a resource for users of the online music service Spotify to share and explore Spotify playlists, which are pre-planned lists of a variety of songs. The site is free and can be used by people across the world. The equity stake adds to Pearson’s growing portfolio.
The entrepreneur, whose personal worth exceeds £60 million, has interests in online marketing consultancy Petoba, social gaming company NoisyDuck, and mobile vouchers and coupons business VouChaCha. In August, Markco Media, the parent company of MyVoucherCodes chaired by Pearson, agreed to acquire
he founder of online discount business MyVoucherCodes, Mark Pearson, has upped his angel investing activities, taking stakes in a
Vouchacha for £6 million. Pearson told
GrowthBusiness, ‘I am actively looking for businesses to invest in. I like having my fingers in lots of pies, but I know I have to focus on my business at hand. That’s why I have started investing. I try to find people who can take a business venture and grow it. It’s like trying to replicate yourself.’ Pearson says he is particularly interested in companies that are developing products in gaming and using mobile technologies, adding that he is attracted to businesses with an ‘online community’ aspect to them. He continues, ‘I don’t want to invest in too many because I like to be hands-on and I want to be able to add value. My best work is in marketing, namely online and in search engine optimisation.’ In other developments, MyVoucherCodes continues to expand globally. The firm launched a Dutch website in August, and continues to explore opportunities in the Far East, namely China and Japan. n
Octopus to raise £120 million for renewable energy
The minimum investment for the VCT fund will be £3,000, which is an amount the firm expects will lead to smaller investors participating in the fundraising. The move follows the firm’s delivery of 11 large-scale solar sites last month that were funded in a joint venture between Octopus investors and solar development partner Lightsource Renewable Energy. All of the power sites, located throughout England, were connected to the National Grid ahead of the feed-in tariff (FIT) deadline of 1 August.
Octopus managing director Paul Latham says, ‘People
haven’t missed out on the investment opportunity from solar, but now that the 1 August deadline for large-scale farms has passed, the focus has turned to a portfolio of smaller solar installations. By smaller we mean sub-50kW sites, about the size of two tennis courts.’ ‘Investments in solar currently qualify for both VCT and EIS tax benefits, although this is set to change after 5 April 2012.’ adds Latham. ‘So there’s a limited opportunity for investors and they can’t afford to wait until next tax year.’ n
BUSINESS XL 41
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