BGF, which is the UK & Ireland’s most active growth capital investor, has invested in excess of £50 million in the Midlands during the first half of 2021.
With offices across Nottingham, Birmingham and Milton Keynes, BGF has provided growth capital for 12 businesses, with £28 million of the total invested supporting new investments and more than £23 million of follow-on funding for existing portfolio companies based across the region.
In total, £23 million of the capital deployed was used to back East Midlands businesses. Investments included East Midlands-based mobile data specialist and eSIM Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), Jola Cloud Solutions Ltd for £10.25m, together with a £7 million investment in secure lock and hardware supplier, Brisant Secure.
BGF has also provided follow-on funding to seven existing portfolio businesses in the Midlands, including £5.87 million to Northampton-based Medigold Health – a leading provider of occupational health and corporate wellbeing services. BGF initially invested £9.5 million in Medigold in 2017 to support its ambitious growth plans and facilitate strategic acquisitions.
BGF’s Midlands team has also led six successful exits in the Midlands in the past six months, generating significant returns for all shareholders. In the East Midlands, BGF successfully exited from Nottingham-based life sciences incubation business, BioCity.
BGF backed BioCity in January 2019 with funding facilitating BioCity’s investment into a number of seed-stage life sciences businesses. BGF has also invested alongside BioCity in deals such as its investment into North West-headquartered proteomic-data science and diagnostics company, Kinomica, in November last year.
