business coaching – venture capital - longevity science

- football platform – luxury hotels - 

wealth management software

London x 6

Mind Gym £37m | Octopus Ventures £325m | Juvenescence | Copa90 | Z Hotels £24.1m | Intelliflo

News about 6 UK growth companies and/or accelerators + turnover in the GRID marketplace 10th – 16th June 2018:

MIND GYM: business coaching - London

On your head: Mind Gym boss Octavius Black mulls £140m float | Oliver Shah, The Sunday Times. June 10 2018

DZ profile: Mind Gym Limited

Business: training business which uses behavioural science to encourage its clients’ staff to think differently. Mind Gym now has 250 “coaches” around the world delivering 500 training sessions a week — typically 90-minute “workouts” for middle managers with titles such as “Breaking bias” and “Wake your mind up”. Mind Gym claims to have worked with 62% of the FTSE 100 and 59% of the S&P; 500. Clients have included AUDI OF AMERICA, BRITISH GAS, CURRYS, DEUTSCHE BANK, GLAXOSMITHKLINE, METLIFE, MACE, MICROSOFT, NET-A-PORTER, O2, SAINSBURY’S, SANTANDER, THAMES WATER, THOMSON REUTERS, UNILEVER, VODAFONE and ZURICH

Launched: 2000

Location: London

Founder: Octavius Black, 50 and occupational psychologist, Sebastian Bailey, 43. Black, known for his political connections, is friendly with David Cameron and Michael Gove, the environment secretary. Black worked for the management consultancy BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON, the MIRROR GROUP tycoon Robert Maxwell and internal communications agency SMYTHE DORWARD LAMBERT, before setting up Mind Gym.

Financials: on course to deliver underlying earnings of £8m on turnover of £37m this year.

Investment: has hired advisers from LIBERUM CAPITAL to handle a listing on AIM and is expected to be valued at up to £140m. Black and Bailey are expected to remain the majority shareholders.

OCTOPUS VENTURES: venture capital - London

Fund manager with tentacles in many pies | Peter Evans, The Sunday Times. June 10 2018

DZ profile: Octopus Ventures Limited

Business: fund manager that has invested more than £1.2bn in hospitals, GP surgeries and other healthcare properties. Business with six divisions, including venture capital, property lending and the power supplier Octopus Energy. Has 300,000 customers. Through the venture capital fund, it has backed some of Britain’s most promising start-ups, including the mattress maker EVE and predictive text app SWIFTKEY. OCTOPUS ENERGY has 220,000 customers. Rogerson says Octopus wants to be in industries where trust has been eroded: Financial services, healthcare, energy supply.

Launched: 2000

Location: Holborn, central London

Founders: Simon Rogerson, 43, Guy Myles and Chris Hulatt, 41, who met in the late 1990s when they were graduate trainees at Mercury Asset Management. Rogerson is chief executive and runs the company day-to-day. Hulatt handles financial strategy and represents the company around the world. Myles left in 2014 to start his own firm.

Staff: 700

Financials: For the year to April, it reported a profit of £15m on turnover of £325m.

Investment: The two founders and their staff own 70% of the business, with the rest held by family and friends who provided early funding. They are adamant they will not sell or float Octopus.

JUVENESCENCE: longevity science - London

Juvenescence aims to tap longevity ‘money fountain’ | Clive Cookson, FT. June 11, 2018

DZ profile: Juvenescence Limited

Business: UK start-up developing anti-ageing therapies. Juvenescence is building a team of 20 scientists and drug developers in London who will co-ordinate its portfolio of investments in “longevity science”. Includes: $8.3m in INSILICO MEDICINE, an artificial intelligence company in the US that applies “deep learning” technology to drug discovery and ageing research; $5m in AGEX of California, which is using stem cell technology to regenerate human tissues that are failing through age-related degenerative disease; LYGENESIS, a spinout from the University of Pittsburgh, which aims to use the patient’s own lymph nodes as a bioreactor to grow a replacement organ if the original is destroyed by disease or fails in old age.

Launched: 2016

Location: Isle of Man + London

Founders: Alexander Pickett, Anthony Chow, Declan Doogan, Greg Bailey, chief executive and Jim Mellon, Chairman. Jim Mellon, a billionaire investor, whose main investment vehicle BURNBRAE is based in the Isle of Man. He made a fortune in the 1990s from Russian privatisation, international mining and German property, among other fields. Mr Mellon became interested in biotech investing a few years ago and recently became enthusiastic about life-extending research. His book Juvenescence, published last year shortly after the company’s formation, is a 400-page guide to investing in longevity.

Investment: Since its formation has raised $13m in seed finance, followed by this $50m Series A round involving a variety of international investors, with another $100m funding round planned for later this year and an IPO in 2019. The company’s estimated value is in the $175m to $250m range.

COPA90: football platform - London

World Cup: why millennials will transform football’s greatest event | Simon Kuper, FT. June 12, 2018

Copa90 nets £70m valuation following investment by Dalian Wanda’s Infront Sports | John Glenday, The Drum. 30 April 2018

DZ profile: Copa90 Limited

Business: Digital football platform and online media company that focuses on fan culture and has 150m views a month. Has established a significant presence on YouTube, one of its chief outlets for free content. The company plans to send about 40 reporters to Russia, and deploy another 300 correspondents globally, but they will be telling fans’ stories rather than covering matches. Narrated videos will show fans from Tehran to Lagos living the tournament. Brand partnerships include: HYUNDAI, NISSAN, BUDWEISER, ADIDA, HTC, PEPSI, VISA, NIKE, LUCOZADE, UEFA, ITV and TURKISH AIRLINES.

Launched: 2006

Location: Farringdon, London / New York / Los Angeles

Founder: Tom Thirlwall, chief executive

Investment: investors include Thomas Hesse (co-founder of Vevo), Michael Jackson, Jamie Wood and Gustave Voute. April 2018 - 10% cash investment from INFRONT SPORTS, the Dalian Wanda owned marketing group, to finance international growth ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. …which values Copa90 at £70m following investments from major shareholders TURNER, LIBERTY GLOBAL and MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER.

Z HOTELS: luxury hotels - London

Challenger bank Oaknorth loans a further £7.3m to Z Hotels for new London sites in Covent Garden, Holborn and Tottenham Court Road | Emily Nicolle, City A.M. 12 June 2018

DZ profile: Z Hotels Holdco Ltd

Business: compact luxury hotel brand - hotelier which has undergone rapid growth and now owns and operates eight hotels at sites across London, Glasgow and Liverpool. …boasts 80 percent occupancy rates in its London hotels, and even higher figures than this across all sites

Launched: 2011

Location: London

Financials: to 31 March 2017: £24.1m (£18.1m 2016). Challenger bank and fintech unicorn OAKNORTH has provided £7.3m in a debt financing deal to finance the 120-bedroom Z Tottenham Court Road hotel on Poland Street in Soho. It adds to Z Hotels’ existing £15.2m facility from Oaknorth for the new sites in Covent Garden and Holborn.

INTELLIFLO: wealth management software - London
Fund management giant Invesco scoops up London software and robo-advice firm in £200m deal | Lucy White, City A.M. 6 June 2018
DZ profile: Intelliflo Limited
Business: software business which provides office software to help businesses such as wealth managers, advisers, insurance companies and brokers manage and keep track of their clients' investments. It also creates products for the end investors, such as client portals and automated "robo-advice" sites. Around 2,200 firms are using its technology, and a third of all UK advised wealth runs through its platform.
Launched: 2004
Location: London
Founders: executive chairman, Nick Eatock; CTO, Akeel Ahmed
Staff: Hamish Purdey, CEO
Investment: private equity owner HG CAPITAL, advised by investment bank EVERCORE, has sold Intelliflo to Atlanta-headquartered fund manager INVESCO for around £200m. Hg originally invested in 2013.