Member Article

Region has 'wealth' of VC opportunities

An audience of business leaders will be told that there’s a wealth of exciting businesses in the North East ripe for new investment to fund the next stages of growth. That will be the message from Steve Garbutt, fund manager at Evolve, the specialist debt and mezzanine finance division of regional fund management company NEL. As a speaker at Ward Hadaway’s Debt Funding seminar on 15 May at Newcastle Falcons Rugby Club, Steve Garbutt will stress his disappointment at hearing the news that Sir Peter Vardy is winding up his venture capital fund.

Steve will say: “It’s certainly been our experience that there’s no shortage of quality businesses out there in the North East looking to secure investment finance to fund their growth plans or bring new products to market. Companies like ours have blazed a trail in the last few years, opening up new ways to access funding for a wide variety of regional businesses looking for growth but unable to secure finances from traditional sources. Success is about recognising that there are quality businesses out there, recognising their individual requirements, seeing the potential and, at the need of the day, being prepared to take a risk.”

Businesses looking for investment of up to £500,000 are being urged by NEL not to despair at the perceived lack of available funding in the wake of Vardy Venture Capital news. Sir Peter was said to be disappointed with the applications he received since the initiative was launched, and no investments were made.

For further details of NEL Fund Managers Ltd’s investment criteria, please call 0845 111 1850 or visit www.nel.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .