Mercia Asset Management

Last updated

Mercia Fund Managers
Company type Public company
LSE:  MERC
Industry Private equity
Founded2010;14 years ago (2010) in Birmingham
Headquarters
Birmingham
,
United Kingdom
Key people
Mark Payton
Mike Hayes [1]
Tim Hazell
Stuart Palmer
Peter Dicks
Number of employees
85 (2019)
Website www.mercia.co.uk

Mercia Asset Managment (Mercia) is a British venture capital and investment firm that provides venture capital to businesses focused on innovative technologies. [2] [3] [4] Mercia offers investment under the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), both investment-based tax-reliefs, operating one of the largest such combined funds in the United Kingdom. [5]

Contents

Startups in which Mercia has invested have gone on to earn awards for their innovations. Allinea Software was a 2011 Red Herring Global 100 winner and Molecular Solar earned the 2011 Lord Stafford Innovation in Development award. [6] [7]

In April 2021, Mercia co-authored a report on UK-India Energy Opportunities [8] with think tank Bridge India [9] and law firm Howard Kennedy. [10]

History

The company was co-founded as Mercia Fund Management by Mark Payton as a venture capital fund manager in 2010, after a buyout of WM Enterprise. Based in the United Kingdom, Mercia provides venture capital primarily to start-up businesses focused on innovative technologies. [3] [4] These startups are usually in the very early stages of development and often have yet to earn revenue. [11] Mercia is led by Mark Payton, its managing director. [5] [12] [13] [14] Mark is a member of the Faculty of Science Engineering and Computing Advisory Board, Kingston University.

Mercia was initially set up to manage one of WM Enterprise's portfolios, the Mercia Fund 1, which was aimed at providing seed capital for innovative projects emanating from the University of Birmingham and the University of Warwick. The Mercia Fund 1 has since expanded its portfolio to other universities. [2] Mercia Fund Management, now an independent firm, currently collaborates with eight universities within the West Midlands region of England, in addition to other unaffiliated startups, [15] supporting technology innovations in a variety of sectors [1] as well as a number of businesses that are not technology based. [2] Mercia has Financial Conduct Authority authorisation. [2] The fund is supported by shareholders including Forward Group, a private equity fund. [16]

In 2014 Mercia Technologies PLC listed on Alternative Investment Market, raising £70.0million. Mercia Fund Management became the wholly-owned subsidiary of Mercia Technologies. The Group at that point had 7 employees.

In 2019 the company changed its name to Mercia Asset Management PLC. [17]

Funds

Mercia Fund Management distributes and manages several funds including options under the UK's SEIS and EIS options. [3] [4] [18]

Mercia Growth Fund

The Mercia Growth Fund was the first of Mercia's funds offered to retail investors. The Mercia Growth Fund was launched to take advantage of the SEIS and EIS tax incentives, [2] [4] under the UK's Finance Act. [19] The SEIS is invested into startup businesses while the EIS is targeted at already established businesses looking to expand. [5] The SEIS and EIS tax incentives provide income tax relief and removes capital gains tax, under certain conditions. [4] The Mercia Growth Fund was invested in two separate rounds: the Mercia Growth Fund 1 was launched in 2012 [19] [20] and the Mercia Growth Fund 2 was launched in 2013. [2] [20] [21]

Mercia Technology Seed Fund

The Mercia Technology Seed Fund invests in businesses with a viable technological concept but which may lack adequate revenue. [22]

Startups

Mercia has invested in startups in various fields. It invested in Oxford Genetics Ltd (a UK based DNA engineering company), [12] in Warwick Audio Technologies from Warwick Ventures of the University of Warwick and in LM Technologies. The fund manager has also invested in Allinea Software, which was a winner in the Red Herring Global 100 and Molecular Solar, also from Warwick Ventures, which got the Lord Stafford Innovation in Development award, both in 2011. [6] [7]

In June 2014, Abzena was the first Mercia Fund Management company to be listed on a public stock exchange. [23]

Related Research Articles

A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital</span> Form of private-equity financing

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc.. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.

Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses its internal reserves to satisfy its necessity for cash, while the term financing is used when the firm acquires capital from external sources.

The Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) is a series of UK tax reliefs launched in 1994 in succession to the Business Expansion Scheme. It is designed to encourage investments in small unquoted companies carrying on a qualifying trade in the United Kingdom.

Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California which specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. As of 2022, the firm had approximately US$85 billion in assets under management.

Social venture capital is a form of investment funding that is usually funded by a group of social venture capitalists or an impact investor to provide seed-funding investment, usually in a for-profit social enterprise, in return to achieve an outsized gain in financial return while delivering social impact to the world. There are various organizations, such as Venture Philanthropy (VP) companies and nonprofit organizations, that deploy a simple venture capital strategy model to fund nonprofit events, social enterprises, or activities that deliver a high social impact or a strong social causes for their existence. There are also regionally focused organizations that target a specific region of the world, to help build and support the local community in a social cause.

An angel investor is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage, once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accel (company)</span> Venture capital firm

Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional operating funds in London, India and China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GV (company)</span> Venture capital unit of Alphabet Inc.

GV Management Company, L.L.C. is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides seed, venture, and growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Ventures in 2010, the firm has operated independently of Google, Alphabet's search and advertising division, since 2015. GV invests in startup companies in a variety of fields ranging from the Internet, software, and hardware to life science, healthcare, artificial intelligence, transportation, cyber security and agriculture. It has helped finance more than 300 companies that include Uber, Nest, Slack, and Flatiron Health.

Corporate venture capital (CVC) is the investment of corporate funds directly in external startup companies. CVC is defined by the Business Dictionary as the "practice where a large firm takes an equity stake in a small but innovative or specialist firm, to which it may also provide management and marketing expertise; the objective is to gain a specific competitive advantage." Examples of CVCs include GV and Intel Capital.

Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components, and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubators are often government-funded, generally take no equity, and rarely provide funding, accelerators can be either privately or publicly funded and cover a wide range of industries. Unlike business incubators, the application process for seed accelerators is open to anyone, but is highly competitive. There are specific accelerators, such as corporate accelerators, which are often subsidiaries or programs of larger corporations that act like seed accelerators.

The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) was launched by the United Kingdom government on 6 April 2012 in order to encourage investors to finance startups by providing tax breaks for backing projects they may otherwise view as too risky. SEIS acts as a powerful incentive to encourage investors to invest as the tax relief can allow individual investors to reduce their effective income tax liability, for the year in which they make the investment, to zero.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AngelList</span> Website connecting startups, angel investors, and job-seekers

AngelList is an American software company for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.

Angels Den is the Europe's first and largest online investment platform that connects businesses with angel investors. It was founded in 2008 and is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

SyndicateRoom is a UK venture capital fund, headquartered in Cambridge, founded by Gonçalo de Vasconcelos and Tom Britton in September 2013. The company is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SFC Capital</span>

SFC Capital is an investment fund manager and network of business angels founded in 2012 by Stephen Page, the CEO of the company. It manages the SFC Angel Fund which invests in small companies qualifying for the SEIS and EIS investment schemes in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital in Poland</span> Overview of venture capital in Poland

Venture capital in Poland is a segment of the private equity market that finances early-stage high-risk companies based in Poland, with the potential for fast growth. As of March 2019, there is a total of 130 active VC firms in Poland, including local offices of international VC firms, and VC firms with mainly Polish management teams. Between 2009–2019, these entities have invested locally in over 750 companies, which gives an average of around 9 companies per portfolio. The Polish venture market accounts for 3% of the entire European ecosystem of VC investments, mainly in the digital space.

Chiratae Ventures, is a technology venture capital firm focused on growth-stage startups in the Indian market. The venture firm was founded by Sudhir Sethi and T. C. M. Sundaram as the Indian arm of the global venture capital firm IDG Ventures in 2006. The firm manages total assets of over $775 million in over 85 investee companies. It is headquartered in Bangalore, with offices in Mumbai and New Delhi.

Icehouse Ventures is a New Zealand-based venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Auckland and mainly focuses on the technology industry and has backed 200 companies. The firm also operates a variety of angel groups networks such as Ice Angels and Arc Angels. Icehouse Ventures was formally founded in 2019 as a separate company but had operated as part of the Icehouse group since 2001. In 2019, the founding CEO of the Icehouse stepped down as CEO and joined the board of directors of Icehouse Ventures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CIIE.CO</span> Indian startup accelerator

CIIE.CO is an Indian startup accelerator and incubator that supports early-stage startups located at IIM Ahmedabad in Ahmedabad, India. It was founded in 2002 to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in India. It is a Center of excellence set up at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad with support from the Government of India's Department of Science and Technology and the Government of Gujarat.

References

  1. 1 2 Weber, Rachel (19 September 2013). "Ex-Sega CEO joins VC fund Mercia Fund Management".
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Mercia Fund Management" . Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 "Mercia Fund Management launches hybrid EIS and SEIS fund". 23 July 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Bollen, Jennifer (20 November 2012). "Mercia looks to tax breaks for new growth fund".
  5. 1 2 3 "City Alliance's client Mercia Fund Management, announces over-subscription to the SEIS portion of Mercia Growth Fund 1". 19 November 2012. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
  6. 1 2 "Molecular Solar shines at Lord Stafford Awards". 23 November 2011. Archived from the original on 16 January 2012. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  7. 1 2 "Mercia Fund Management backs another award winner". 19 January 2012. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  8. ↑ India, Bridge. "UK-India Energy Collaborations Report". bridgeindia.org.uk. Bridge India. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  9. ↑ India, Bridge. "Bridge India Homepage". bridgeindia.org.uk. Bridge India. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  10. ↑ Kennedy, Howard. "Howard Kennedy Homepage". howardkennedy.com. Howard Kennedy. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  11. ↑ "Mercia Fund Management, a supporter of Midland university spinouts, hears feedback from two Keele University start-ups". 10 June 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  12. 1 2 "Mercia Fund Management invests GBP150,000 in Oxford Genetics". IVC POST. 22 July 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  13. ↑ Dunsby, Megan (22 July 2013). "Oxford Genetics secures £150,000 backing from Mercia Fund Management". Archived from the original on 12 October 2013.
  14. ↑ Pitts, Andrew (20 March 2013). "Generous tax breaks extended for investors in start-ups". Money Observer.
  15. ↑ "Funding University of Keele spin-outs". Bdaily. 6 June 2013.
  16. ↑ "Forward Group becomes Mercia shareholder". 19 February 2013.
  17. ↑ "Our history". Mercia Assets Management. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  18. ↑ "Mercia Growth Fund 2". City Alliance. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  19. 1 2 "Mercia launches hybrid SEIS/EIS fund". Private Equity Wire. 23 July 2012. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  20. 1 2 "MabLyte and Watertronix backed by new Mercia Fund Management hybrid EIS and SEIS fund". 10 April 2013.
  21. ↑ "Second EIS/SEIS fund from Mercia Fund Management aimed at tax-break-seeking investors". 6 March 2013.
  22. ↑ "Seed fund puts £300k into Bluetooth and Wi-Fi". Archived from the original on 20 September 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2013.
  23. ↑ "Intention to float – AIM – London Stock Exchange". London Stock Exchange. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
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