Fintech company, Growth Capital Ventures (GCV), has secured GBP1 million of growth capital from institutional investors to continue its expansion and fast-track the growth of Britain’s burgeoning tech sector. GCV has now opened up the investment round to new private investors via its online investment platform – growthfunders.com
Investment from the current round will enable GCV to support 30 high-growth start-ups and create hundreds of new tech jobs within the North East through its venture builder unit, G-Labs. It will also enable GCV to increase internal headcount from 22 to 40 in the next 12-24 months.
The funding announcement comes as Britain looks to the tech industry to kick-start a post-COVID economic recovery, after UK GDP fell by a record 20.4% in the three months to June 2020. Investments in the UK tech sector soared to a record GBP10.1 billion (USD13.2 billion) in 2019, according to trade body Tech Nation – a GBP3.1 billion increase on 2018 figures – and the industry is widely regarded as a key driver of future job creation and economic growth.
GCV is very much immersed in this important sector, having facilitated GBP45 million of investment in high-growth tech businesses – including digital lenders Atom Bank and B-North, and employee engagement platform Hive HR – and the creation of more than 600 new jobs in the past five years.
Craig Peterson, co-founder and chief operating officer at GCV, says: “Over the past five years we have been on a mission to support entrepreneurs and innovators to build and launch high-growth businesses that transform industries.
“The fundraise will not only increase our capacity with further quality hires and expand our venture builder arm but in turn will enable the creation and scaling of the UK’s next wave of innovative tech start-ups.
“As consumers and businesses are relying more on technology as a result of Covid-19, we feel this investment comes at the right time to combine capital and intensive support to build better, more sustainable businesses.”
GCV has evolved rapidly since its inception in 2015. The company started life predominantly as a fintech company, developing and operating online investment platforms focused on alternative investments. Formally launching their first platform GrowthFunders.com in 2015, the company has since built an extensive private investor network across the North of England.
The network has backed high-profile businesses including UK challenger banks B-North and Atom Bank, as well as high-growth tech start-ups such as employee engagement platform Hive.HR and global intelligence and risk management provider, Intelligence Fusion. These businesses are using technology to transform their respective industries and between them have already created more than 600 jobs across the North East of England.
GCV operates across three core business units – a private investor network, a specialist fintech software division and an innovation lab – all working together to drive growth, create value and deliver impact.
The private investor network, G-Ventures, brings together an online and offline investor network of experienced private investors and institutional investors to co-invest in growth-focussed investment opportunities.
Providing investment opportunities across three core asset classes of venture capital, property and private equity, tax-efficient structures are utilised where possible including the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) to take advantage of generous tax reliefs.
GCV originates, structures, distributes and monitors these investments through its online co-investment and reporting platforms, which have been developed by the fintech software development division of the business (Quva).
GCV’s innovation and venture builder unit, G-Labs, invests capital, knowledge, experience, ideas and infrastructure to help tech entrepreneurs incubate business opportunities in high-growth sectors. Taking their ideas from concept to launch, scale, maturity and exit, this approach also provides the G-Ventures Investor Network with access to well structured, high-quality investment opportunities where investors and founders interests are fully aligned.
The latest addition to the GCV business divisions is fintech software, Quva.
Quva designs, builds and operates online investment and reporting platforms aimed at streamlining the overall investment process and providing an end-to-end solution for investment managers and investor clients. As a platform-as-a-service solution for investment firms and asset managers in the alternative investment sector, Quva has the potential to carve out a niche within this sector and create significant enterprise value as a standalone business unit.
Peterson says: “Through our three business divisions we’ve developed a powerful approach to creating, launching and scaling high-growth businesses. We have the capability to support the start-up and expansion of several ventures that have the capacity to add real value to the UK’s tech industry. This sector will be vitally important to the UK as the economy tries to recover from the devastating impact of the coronavirus.
“Our aim now is to invest in and support exciting new projects that can build, launch and scale businesses, creating much-needed jobs at a time when employment is falling due to Covid-19.”
