The final month of the year is notoriously a particularly busy period for those professionals involved in equity investment deals and 2021 was no different – lawyers and investors alike were burning the candle at both ends finalising deals before the Christmas break. And they did a great job, December saw nearly £11m raised in equity investment across 17 companies located around the South West of England.
The majority (12) of those investments (totaling £6.37m) haven’t been announced publicly so I can’t tell you very much about them – they range in location from Poole to Bristol, Salisbury to Stroud and Cheltenham to Chippenham. In terms of amounts, these companies raised a max. of £2.1m and at the other end of the scale, £15k. In true South West form, the sectors represented are broad including deeptech, Saas, edtech and hardware amongst others.
There were five companies that announced their investments in the press – find out more about them in the quick summaries below:
Alectro – QVentures announced their latest fund investment into Alectro, a Virtual Sustainability Officer for small-medium businesses to track, audit and offset their carbon footprint. Alectro is bringing climate measurement to every employee through a dynamic online measurement platform. Their vision is to empower every organisation to become carbon neutral so that they can be climate champions for this generation and the next. Their mission is to supercharge sustainability and offset 1 million tonnes of carbon by 2030. Read more here.
Talewind – Talewind has raised $3.41 million to fund its Breezy Bay casual game and partner with Roblox game developers. The deal comes on the heels of an announcement in June when Talewind raised $800,000 in a round of funding to create games for the Roblox user-generated content platform. Talewind is part of a big shift toward user-generated content in gaming – find out more about it here.
When in Rome Wine – A UK producer of Italian craft wines has surpassed its £400,000 crowdfunding target. When in Rome, which is registered in Worcestershire and based in Stroud, has currently raised £404,579 from 202 investors on Crowdcube. The business was co-founded in 2015 by Rob Malin, Andrea Marchesi and Lorenzo Canali, with it beginning to trade on Bath Farmers Market and via a homemade website in 2016. Read more here.
The Bunch – Bristol-based utilities scale-up The Bunch has closed its latest investment round. Founded by then-student Elliott Herrod-Taylor in 2017, the company consolidates household bills into one monthly payment. Its cash injection, funded solely from existing investors including Haatch, SFC Capital and Bristol Private Equity Club, will enable The Bunch to develop its technological capabilities including a new app. Read more here.
Officely – Co-founded by Max Shepherd-Cross and Rich Turnbull, Officely was launched in April 2021 and in 6 months has amassed a customer base of over 1,500 companies using their platform, including over 38k employees around the world who are relying on Officely to book into their offices and collaborate with coworkers. Read more here.
This article is written as part of the Investment Activator Programme (IAP) in the West of England. This programme is run by TechSPARK and is kindly sponsored by TLT LLP, delaware, West of England Combined Authority, UWE, Sanderson, Engine Shed and Rocketmakers. Find out more about the IAP here.
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