News

A Bracknell based food production business specialising in Caribbean and Mauritian cuisine has secured funding from the Thames Valley Berkshire (TVB) Funding Escalator. 

Coco Labelle has received a new £168,000 trade finance loan, which follows a £100,000 expansion loan in 2021. With the initial funding used to fit out a commercial unit and obtain food safety accreditations SALSA & Approved Premises Accreditation, enabling the business to scale from a kitchen table catering venture to a full-production operation, this new loan will be used to support the company to deliver a contract to supply the 2022 Commonwealth Games. 

Set up in 2014 by trainee solicitor turned chef Elisabeth Brown, Coco Labelle provides African Caribbean food served from a vintage truck to street food markets, high-end festivals and private events including celebrity weddings. By 2020 Elisabeth had won a tender on the NHS Supply Chain for the supply of African & Caribbean meals to the NHS and has gained an impressive reputation, with social media endorsement from acclaimed chefs Michel Roux Jr and Nadia Hussain and Chair of NHS Food Review Philip Shelley. 

The contract to supply the Commonwealth Games is substantial, with Coco Labelle providing over 110,000 frozen meals across 35 different recipes.   

Elisabeth said: “With the initial expansion loan helping us to grow our operation capabilities, this latest investment has allowed us to take on a contract that we may have otherwise had to decline. Large contracts often require a level of up-front investment that small businesses like ours do not have the working capital to support. We are grateful to FSE for taking the time to really consider our proposal, see the full potential of our business and continue to back us as we expand. The support of FSE has been incredible. Thank you” 

Simon Blackbourn, Investment Manager at The FSE Group, which manages the TVB Funding Escalator on behalf of TVB Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), commented: “Elisabeth is a resourceful entrepreneur who has deftly balanced the demands of building a business from the family home. Coco Labelle has a demonstrable track record of growth and profitable trading and with its professional kitchen facilities now in place, is in a strong position to take advantage of the opportunities this brings. We are delighted to continue to support Elisabeth as Coco Labelle delivers this contract and we look forward to working with the business as it grows further.” 

Thames Valley Berkshire Funding Escalator is an £11.3m initiative funded by Thames Valley Berkshire LEP. The Escalator includes an Expansion Loan Scheme, a Trade Finance Loan Scheme and a Growth Equity Fund, providing eligible companies with loans and equity funding between £50,000 and £300,000 for activities that will deliver high-growth and employment opportunities across Berkshire. 

Award-winning audiobook platform xigxag has secured a £500,000 equity investment from the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (CIOSIF), as part of a larger £1m funding round.

The funding round was led by the FSE Group, the appointed fund manager for CIOSIF, and includes a number of private angel investors and a successful crowdfunding campaign on the Seedrs platform.

The funding will enable the company, based in Gunnislake in South East Cornwall, to expand the capacity of its development team and broaden its marketing channels with the recruitment of 17 team members over the next three years.

xigxag was recently voted Best New Business in the 2022 Cornwall Business Awards.

xigxag aims to shape the future of books with the world’s most accessible, engaging and sustainable listen-and-read platform. It has a technologically advanced content platform, powering a market-leading mobile app. AI-enabled technology integrates human-voice-narrated audiobooks and ebooks in an exclusive new format called the x-book®.

Users can listen to a book being read by the author then switch to reading it on their device, picking up the story in the same place and with the added features of being able to see illustrations, search in the text, look up words, take notes and share quotes.

Customers have access to over 40,000 titles from 15 publishers on the xigxag app. Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan and Bonnier are among the publishers on board with more in the pipeline and plans for US expansion already underway. The xigxag app has been downloaded over 40,000 times and the company won the Tech Nation Rising Stars award for 2022.

Kelli Fairbrother, CEO at xigxag, commented: “xigxag is riding a massive global audio trend to power an exciting new listen-and-read experience in a space where digital books haven’t really been innovated in decades. Our revolutionary app makes reading more flexible, engaging and accessible, while also providing a far more sustainable alternative to physical book publishing and distribution. Being an eco-conscious company is something we are incredibly proud of and we are delighted to be one of the many Cornish businesses that are facilitating the change to a greener lifestyle.”

Meg Salt, Investment Manager at The FSE Group, added: “xigxag is in an excellent position within a vibrant sector. Their product is easily scalable and presents real scope for accelerated growth in the near future. We were impressed by the team driving the company forward. Management is made up of highly experienced individuals supported by industry-leading advisors who have immense collective knowledge. The business is committed to building the most engaging digital reading app on the market, with the potential to challenge the dominance of physical formats in the £100bn book publishing industry. We look forward to the next chapter of their exciting journey.”

The £40m Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund provides debt and equity finance from £25,000 to £2 million to help growing small businesses across the region. It has been established by the British Business Bank in partnership with the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Ken Cooper, Managing Director from the British Business Bank said: “This is the fund’s largest deal so far this year and has leveraged significant additional investment from angels and a successful crowdfunding campaign. This package will accelerate xigxag’s growth at a critical time in its evolution, including expansion into the US.”

John Acornley, LEP non-executive director and chair of the CIOSIF Advisory Board, said: “xigxag is another example of a disruptive Cornish tech company using innovation to break new ground in global markets. They are reinventing the digital book concept and giving customers much more flexibility in how they access and enjoy digital content.”

CIOSIF is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.

For more information about the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund including how to apply, please visit www.ciosif.co.uk  or follow the fund on Twitter at @CIOSIFBBB2​​​​

A leading UK provider of secure, integrated IT and communications equipment for government and military use has received a £275,000 Enterprise M3 trade finance loan, enabling the business to take on new contract opportunities and promote further growth. 

Farnborough based TriCIS specialises in the design and modification of computing, network and peripheral equipment to the highest-level security requirements. Established in 2017, the company has grown significantly and now offers a wide range of TEMPEST accredited products as well as a range of services providing secure, integrated solutions in the fields of encryption, geo-fencing and remote working. TriCIS’s customers include UK government, MOD and NATO. 

The FSE group has been working with TriCIS since 2017, facilitating investment from its business angel network as well as equity funding from the Enterprise M3 Growth Fund. This new Enterprise M3 loan will permit the delivery of a large new contract in advance of an upcoming equity raise. 

Antony Summerfield, TriCIS CEO, said: “As a smaller company, large contracts can be inaccessible because of the level of working capital needed to cover upfront purchasing requirements. Throughout our relationship with FSE they have encouraged us to be brave in innovative R&D to increase and expand our product portfolio. FSE have invested in our potential, as well as support us beyond the financial input to help us create a robust business. We are grateful for this latest facility, which allows us to take on new opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to us.”   

Simon Blackbourn, Investment Manager at The FSE Group, added: “Over the past five years TriCIS has established itself in a market dominated by much larger organisations. Its technical engineering expertise, alongside its first-class design and manufacturing capabilities, has resulted in a strong reputation across the sector. Antony and his team excel in providing both modifications to existing equipment as well as bespoke, R&D driven projects to deliver solutions where identified gaps exist. We are delighted to provide the working capital needed for new contract delivery and look forward to continuing to support the business on its high-growth trajectory.”   

The Enterprise M3 Funding Escalator is a £10million initiative funded by Enterprise M3 LEP. The escalator includes an expansion loan scheme, a short-term trade loan scheme and an equity growth fund and provides eligible companies with loans and equity funding between £50,000 and £300,000 for activities that will deliver high-growth and employment opportunities across the EM3 area. 

Life Ledger has received a £250,000 equity investment from the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (CIOSIF) as part of a £1.25m funding round to expand its online service to consolidate and automate death notifications.

The CIOSIF investment, along with additional private equity, will be used to recruit new staff in sales, marketing and tech support in order to accelerate new users and to build partnerships with service providers.

Following a death, the recently bereaved face a huge administrative burden during an emotionally difficult time. Life Ledger solves this problem by consolidating the notification process with a free to use service that removes the need to have the same difficult conversation over and over again.

Life Ledger currently sends notifications to over 900 UK companies across sectors ranging from banks and pension providers to gas, water, telecoms and social media. The company’s platform has been built with four different groups in mind: the recently bereaved who need to notify the service providers, professional notifiers such as solicitors or probate firms, pre-registrants who wish to organise their affairs before their own death, and service providers who need to know about a customer’s death.

Life Ledger has seen significant interest from service providers who recognise the potential time savings for their own customer service teams, and the goodwill that can come from the ease of transactions for the deceased’s family. Life Ledger says professional users will also find the facility quicker, easier and more comprehensive to use than any other service currently available.

Founder and CEO of Life Ledger, Tremayne Carew Pole, comments: “This timely investment from CIOSIF will support the recruitment and training of new staff. Due to the sensitive nature of the business, our customer service operators will be the core to our success. In addition, new sales and marketing staff will allow us to grow brand recognition both directly to consumers and companies, as well as creating partnerships with other businesses that will benefit from referrals.”

There are upwards of 600,000 deaths in the UK every year, and 25 million over 50s who would benefit from some form of end-of-life planning. Life Ledger aims to have a significant market share of the death notifications for this group while also providing a service to ease the burden for bereaved families. There is also potential to expand the market through worldwide rollout.

Meg Salt, Investment Manager at The FSE Group, the appointed CIOSIF Fund Manager, added: “We were extremely impressed by the pro-active, committed and experienced founders of Life Ledger who have created a solution to a recognised problem in this market. We look forward to enabling the company to capitalise on their market leading solution and the considerable interest from service providers, to generate increased traffic and drive growth.”

The £40m Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund provides debt and equity finance from £25,000 to £2 million to help growing small businesses across the region. It has been established by the British Business Bank in partnership with the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Ken Cooper, Managing Director from the British Business Bank, said: “This deal shows how the fund can help leverage additional private investment as part of a larger funding round, making sure the business has access to the finance it needs to scale up, at the time it needs it.”

LEP director John Acornley, and chair of the CIOSIF Advisory Board, said: “The Life Ledger team have taken their personal experience of handling bereavement and created an innovative business that not only helps families and loved ones at a difficult time, but also adds value to service providers when administering a deceased person’s affairs.”

CIOSIF is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.

For more information about the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund including how to apply, please visit www.ciosif.co.uk  or follow the fund on Twitter at @CIOSIFBBB2

Read more about Life Ledger at www.lifeledger.com

Data Access Governance software firm Torsion Information Security has successfully closed a £1.1 million funding round co-led by Bayes Entrepreneurship Fund, Juno Capital and The FSE Group, alongside investors from several prestigious Cambridge angel networks.

Torsion will use the additional funding to roll out its automated Data Access Governance platform and significantly expand its business development, customer success, engineering, marketing and financial operations.

Enterprises the world over are faced with huge volumes of data being shared on a daily basis, through collaboration platforms such as SharePoint, Teams and Office 365. At a time when file sharing is rising exponentially and spiralling out of control, the Torsion software automatically monitors who has data access to what, why and when, controls inappropriate access, and works with business users to prevent potential breaches.

Torsion is built on business-focused intelligent automation, instead of complex manual tools for IT administrators, which makes it a highly effective and scalable solution for controlling data access in a cloud-first world.

Not only can customers keep data secure by getting control of sprawling data access and sharing, they also benefit from real-time visibility for assured compliance and reporting.

Peter Bradley, Founder and CEO of Torsion said: “We’re very excited to announce this new funding as we embark on a significant new stage of our growth plans.  To receive backing from such reputable and experienced investors is a huge testament to our vision, technology and team. We strongly believe our automated business-centric approach to controlling data access and sharing is the only way that enterprises can truly control access to their data. With this funding, we are truly solving the ‘who has access to what’ problem, on a global scale.”

Linda Coyle, Investment Director of the Bayes Entrepreneurship Fund adds: “In 2020/21, cybersecurity came to the fore due to the growth in remote working and the accelerated cloud adoption of companies worldwide cause by the pandemic. As a result, staff are sharing data at a prolific rate, both inside and outside their organisations. Inappropriate access has been the root cause of many serious cyber breaches, and businesses need to invest in solutions to protect themselves. Whereas early cybersecurity solutions focussed on network infrastructure, the focus is shifting to data governance and monitoring the activity of users. Torsion is well placed to take advantage of this shift and their solution offers a straightforward and easy mechanism for users to ensure that rights granted are in line with the security policy of the company. It is their focus on the user and their emphasis on end user simplicity which makes Torsion stand out. The Bayes Entrepreneurship Fund are excited to invest in Torsion and look forward to following their success and continued growth.”

Paul Lyristis, Investment Manager at The FSE Group, added, “Torsion is a unique, powerful solution to a big unsolved problem in a massive global market. Peter and his team are very driven and are experienced corporate operators. The overall cyber sector is growing rapidly, and Torsion operates in a key area providing a solution that is crucial. We are delighted to be supporting them and look forward to watching the business grow and prosper.”

Edward Rudd, Founder Partner of Juno Capital Partners LLP concludes: “We are pleased to announce our new investment in Torsion. The team at Torsion has built a software product that solves the problem of managing data access security at scale, and we believe they have built something that will change the way organizations protect their data. Torsion already has an impressive client base and we are excited to work with the team as they scale their operations and grow their revenues.”

Visit www.torsionis.com.