New North East office and jobs for Aero Commerce following £750k funding

E-commerce platform provider Aero Commerce is opening a Newcastle office thanks to investment from the North East Capital Fund.

The North East Capital Fund, managed by Maven Capital Partners, led the £750k equity investment into the firm, paving the way for its expansion in the North East.

As well as establishing a new office in Newcastle, Aero will invest the money in sales and marketing activities to increase brand awareness and generate business. Aero also anticipates the money will enable them to create a number of new jobs as well as roll out product enhancements.

Aero is a digital platform that helps retailers to develop secure e-commerce sites. As Aero work in partnership with digital marketing, web design and e-commerce agencies to deliver their services, the investment is potentially good news for creative agencies in the North East.

In this round of funding, the North East Development Fund provided a total of £550k, and a further £200k was provided by existing shareholders. This takes the total investment in Aero to over £1m.

Aero Commerce is led by CEO Richard Bendelow, who co-founded and led the growth of e-commerce agency Visualsoft, before selling the business in a management buyout in 2014.

Richard is joined by former colleagues Matt Burton and Tim Spratt who were respectively chief technology officer and senior developer at Visualsoft.

Michael Vassallo, investment director at Maven, said: “We are delighted to support Richard and the team as they embark on a programme of growth, supporting smaller agencies to attract enterprise level e-commerce website customers and provide solutions to those clients.”

Chartered accountants UNW advised Aero on the transaction, drawing on their experience of tech and e-commerce sectors to see the deal through to completion.