Edge Investments, an investment house focused on the creative industries sector, has strengthened its team with the appointment of two investment professionals.
Steve Carle joins the firm as investment director and Joanna (Jo) Smith as investment manager.
Carle is an experienced private equity and venture capital specialist. He enjoyed a 20-year career with the UK's two leading mid-market private equity companies – 3i Group and LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group – leaving in 2010 to take on a number of private successful business opportunities, before joining Edge.
Smith has spent her career in finance both in practice at PwC and then in an investment role at Channel 4, where she launched a new fund to invest in UK independent television production. In May 2016, Smith was selected by Financial Director magazine for its ‘35 under 35 – Business’ annual review of UK finance personnel. Smith joined Edge earlier this year.
Carle and Smith will focus on investment opportunities through Edge’s largest fund raising to date, the GBP40 million Edge Creative Enterprise Fund, launched in November 2015 with backing from the British Business Bank; and in managing Edge Performance VCT, a specialist venture capital trust focusing on the creative industries and the technologies that enable them, and its portfolio companies.
