Thursday February 14th 2019

Thursday February 14th 2019

land & marinas – employee finances - legal costs software

- space VC - internet services -

print technologies

Berkshire :: London x3 :: Rochdale :: Cambridge

Yattendon Group £56.6m | Salary Finance | Apperio | Seraphim | Zen Internet £71m | Xaar £100.1m

News about 6 UK growth companies and/or accelerators + turnover in the GRID marketplace 26th August – 1st September 2018:

YATTENDON GROUP: land & marinas - Berkshire

Christmas tree boss Baron Iliffe celebrates rich harvest | Liam Kelly, The Sunday Times. August 26 2018

DZ profile: Yattendon Group Plc

Business: The Iliffe family business group was originally built on ribbon-making and now its diverse interests include local media, agriculture, property and marine leisure in the UK, Europe and Canada. The Yattendon Estate has 9,000 acres of farmland, woodland and grazing and is one of the UK’s largest producers of Christmas trees. The company also owns Europe's leading marina operator, MARINA DEVELOPMENTS LTD (MDL), which owns and operates 20 marinas in the UK, Spain and Italy, with more than 7,000 berths. The group has a property development arm on the west coast of America and Canada. It has a 21.3% shareholding in LOCAL WORLD - created from the media assets of Iliffe News & Media and of Northcliffe - and are the second largest shareholders after Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT). Yattendon group has retained its printing press in Cambridge and produces full colour newspapers.

Launched: 1934

Location: Newbury, Berkshire

Staff: Baron Iliffe, 73, has a family fortune of £297m, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

Financials: pre-tax earnings increased to £24m in the year to March (£15m previous year). Revenues increased to £56.6m (£54.6m).

SALARY FINANCE: employee finances - London

Salary Finance’s growth push in US | The Sunday Times. August 26 2018

DZ profile: Salary Finance Limited

Business: fintech business that helps employees at companies such as BT save staff deposit savings and repay loans by automatic salary deductions. Claims to have helped almost 1m people across Britain save an average of £600 in interest on personal loans.

Launched: 2015

Location: west London

Founder: Dan Cobley, former boss of Google in the UK, with Asesh Sarkar and Daniel Shakhani.

Investment: has raised $20m (£15.6m) from LEGAL & GENERAL and the start-up incubator BLENHEIM CHALCOT to expand into America

APPERIO: legal costs software - London

Fee-tracker app wins cash | The Sunday Times. August 26 2018

DZ profile: Apperio Limited

Business: software developer which helps businesses to monitor their spending on lawyers. It takes in daily data from law firms acting for its customers, such as JUST EAT and NETWORK RAIL, and calculates the fees automatically.

Launched: 2013

Location: Clerkenwell, London

Founder: Nicholas d’Adhemar, a former lawyer

Staff: 20

Investment: has just raised £7.5m from DRAPER ESPRIT, supported by existing investors NOTION, IQ CAPITAL and angels.

News: will move into a new office, in Holborn, London, in the heart of London’s legal district.

SERAPHIM: space VC - London

Start-ups ready for lift-off in space race | Peter Evans, The Sunday Times. August 26 2018

DZ profile: Seraphim Capital (General Partner) LLP

Business: The world's first venture fund for space technology startups. Manages £100m across two funds:

1. the newly launched, £70m, SERAPHIM SPACE FUND is backed by the UK SPACE AGENCY and others. It was created in 2016 to invest in companies that benefit the country’s economy, such as SPIRE, which operates a network of nanosatellites, and ICEYE, which provides satellite imaging. It is interested in start-ups connected to any industry that benefits from satellite technology. Partners include: ROLLS-ROYCE, AIRBUS and the EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY.

2. SERAPHIM CAPITAL, a £30m fund launched in 2006 which is currently in divestment and focused on early stage, generalist, technology opportunities. 

Launched: 2006

Location: London EC1

News:

1. Has just completed an accelerator programme to find the businesses best able to collect and pass on the huge amounts of data sent down from satellites and drones circling the earth. RECONFIGURE.IO, one of the businesses at the space camp, a Manchester company, has brought in £700,000 of investment and is in talks to raise a further £1.5m. Has developed a product that allows computers to process far more data, far more quickly than previously. It means information can be delivered and analysed at much greater speed. The second space camp will open its doors next month.

2. is now raising a $250m (£195m) fund to back businesses around the world.

ZEN INTERNET: Internet Services - Rochdale

Zen touches up its art of broadband provision | Nic Fildes, FT. August 27, 2018

DZ profile: Zen Internet Limited

Business: Britain’s only remaining small independent internet service provider in the residential market. Zen has 127,000 clients including business customers and 48,000 residential broadband clients. Customer numbers grew 14 per cent this year.

Launched: 1995

Location: Rochdale

Founder: Richard Tang

Staff: 500. Mr Tang, chief executive, is switching places with chairman Paul Stobart, a former executive at accounting software company Sage.

Financials: expects revenues of £71m this year, and turns a profit

News: is preparing to tap the debt markets, and acquisitions could also be on the cards for the first time.

XAAR: print technologies - Cambridge

Xaar shares plunge after second profit warning of the summer | Colm Fulton, FT. August 31, 2018

DZ profile: Xaar Plc

Business: industrial printing group and “a world leader in the development of inkjet technology and a manufacturer of piezoelectric drop-on-demand industrial inkjet printheads, the key component in a digital printing system”. In autumn 2014, Xaar cut about 160 jobs in the UK — a fifth of its total workforce — after demand for ceramic printers fell in China. The company had its best year in 2013 when revenues reached £137m, as a construction boom in China boosted sales of its decorative laminates and printing on ceramics products. In 2015, incoming chief executive Doug Edwards, announced the company planned to reduce its reliance on ceramics by investing in new markets such as 3D printing and specialist printers that can be customised.

Launched: 1997

Location: Based in Cambridge, UK, and with manufacturing facilities in the UK and Sweden

Staff: nearly 650 people

Financials: to 31-Dec-17 - Revenue £100.1m; Pre-Tax £12.3m

Investment: Main Market admission 17 Oct 1997

News:

1. Shares dropped by almost a third on Thursday after it issued its second profit warning of the summer.…announced that it expects revenue for the first half of 2018 to be £35m, compared to £44m for the same period last year.  The company said the decline in demand for printers for ceramics “continues to be aggressive” and that sales of a flagship product have been “significantly slower than expected”. The company said in June that it would take “cost actions” to restructure its business in line with “expected future demand” and that included some job losses in the UK.