Merseyside Special Investment Fund (MSIF) has launched a new fund that is now ready to invest in local businesses through its in house fund management team Alliance Fund Managers (AFM).

The Merseyside Loan and Equity Fund as it will be known, is made up of so called ‘evergreen’ money - capital that has returned to MSIF from repayment and realisations from investments made by funds which launched in 1996 and finished investing in 2008. The new Fund will invest over £25m over the next five years in established small to medium enterprises based in Merseyside. Individual investments will range in size from £50k to £2m in the form of loan, mezzanine and equity finance.

Currently the Fund stands at around £10m with a further £15m estimated to be available through additional returning capital.

In recent years MSIF has been using returns on investment to firstly repay the private sector and then steadily create a legacy fund. MSIF recently fully repaid its last significant investor so that now returning capital will go directly into the new Fund.

Chief Operating Officer Lisa Greenhalgh said: “We are delighted to announce the launch of the new Fund. We have been working very hard since MSIF’s previous funds closed for investment to put the Merseyside Loan and Equity Fund in place. It is fantastic that not only has MSIF achieved all of its investment targets and social objectives, but has now reached its ultimate goal of creating a stand alone successor fund which is ready to again invest in and support local businesses.

Despite the recent changes within our organisation we have retained a core team of key staff including experienced investors who will oversee the investment decisions for the Investment Fund.” Chairman Andy Rigby added: “This is a great achievement for MSIF and AFM and good news for local businesses. Funding has been very difficult to secure in recent times which coupled with the economic downturn has hit businesses hard. Now MSIF can continue what it was set up to do – provide a much needed alternative source of finance to the region’s businesses which will in turn strengthen the local economy.”

MSIF was a unique concept when it was launched in 1996. The organisation was set up to hold the European Regional Development Fund’s (ERDF) contribution to the investment funds as part of the Merseyside Objective One Programme, an EU initiative to help under-performing regions throughout the European Union to improve their economic performance. The ERDF funds were matched with private sector monies from Barclays, the Mersey Pension Fund and the Cooperative Bank.

The success of MSIF has seen the model replicated in other parts of the UK and across Europe. During the 12 years MSIF has been established it has invested over £134m in 1,356 businesses, creating and preserving 13,511 jobs and bringing in excess of £245m private sector investment to the region.

ENTREPRENEUR turned private equity investor Bobby Hashemi is targeting the North West in his quest to find companies with high growth potential.

He spoke at a entrepreneurs dinner in Manchester this week organised by North West accountants Hurst, and held an initial meeting with one firm, which could lead to an investment.

The founder of Coffee Republic has spent the last three years working with renowned investor Luke Johnson at his private equity firm Risk Capital Partners, a niche, hands-on business.

Read the full story

The deadline for applications for the next cycle of the Difference Engine will close this weekend. The programme is due to run between January and March 2011, so get your applications in sharpish.

The simple application form can be found here.

For those you are unfamiliar with the programme or want reminded of what it is all about, the following video helps to summarise the 13 week boot-camp.

This 1-day event features a keynote from Loic Le Meur, Founder of Seesmic and the LeWeb Conference, a startup pitch competition and workshops focused on building business in the Cloud, building your brand online and funding advice for entrepreneurs.

Ali Mitchell, co-founder of Huddle.com

Errol Damelin CEO of Wonga

Panel talks

Workshop 1

Workshop 2

Recently launched north west tech startups (or those thinking of taking the plunge!) should seek the benefit of employer national insurance savings following the recent formal launch of the Regional National Insurance Contribution (NIC) holiday on 6 September 2010.

This tax incentive announced in the June 2010 Emergency Budget allows for a 12 month holiday from paying employer's national insurance contributions (currently 12.8% going up to 13.8% from April 2011) on the first 10 employees for businesses that either started or get started between 22 June 2010 and 5 September 2013.

The relief is limited to £5,000 per employee (so £50,000 in total) - although it is difficult to foresee in practice how many local tech startups will obtain full benefit for this relief given that new recruits would have to be paid approx £45,000 each to trigger a £50,000 employer's national insurance liability?!

It's a welcome tax saving all the same to encourage new tech start-ups, although there are few key points to watch - here are just a handful:

• You must apply for relief under this scheme - it is not an automatic entitlement. You can apply in paper or online. We can help as you need to declare that you are satisifed that you are eligible for the NIC holiday as part of the application process.
• Business start-ups qualify for the first 10 employees recruited during the initial 12 month period. The "initial period" begins on the day the new business commences trading or the date on which the first employee is recruited, whichever is earlier - this cannot be before 22 June 2010.
• Each qualifying new employee receives a 12 month "holiday" provided this period does not cross the 6 September 2013 end date.
• 'Principal place of business' determines whether your startup qualifies for the relief. Certain geographical areas do not qualify (mainly London and South East) but you can foresee situations where this may not be clear (even though the guidance suggests otherwise) - there is, however, a Region Finder search tool available to assist. For example, those tech businesses that are primarily online or virtual, HMRC will look to where your books, records and equipment are kept.
• Employer's Class 1 national insurance contributions can only be withheld from the date of official launch i.e. 6 September 2010. Businesses started before this date cannot claim relief from employer's national insurance until post 5 September 2010.
• Those new employees paid less than the employer's national insurance threshold (currently £110 per week) still count toward the 10 employees even if there is no monetary saving for the new business. Similarly, part-time and casual staff individually count for the 10 employees limit - this provides an opportunity for planning with respect to the order of recruits i.e. ideally recruit senior / management team first (the Business Link guidance specifically states that if more than 10 employees join at once then you are free to choose which ones count toward the 10 employee limit).
• Anti-avoidance legislation is in place to prevent existing businesses from ceasing and restarting substantially the same activities within 6 months to take advantage of the scheme. Sorry guys!
• Class 1A NIC on benefits in kind are unaffected as are the normal monthly employee NIC deductions which must be paid over in the normal way.
• You must retain the letter or email from HMRC that authorises you to operate the NIC holiday scheme.
• The NIC holiday scheme is not yet law. The relevant law should be passed around January 2011 so businesses have a choice - either apply now and risk banking the savings (if the law is not passed the employer's NIC will be due and payable on 19 April 2011) or wait until the law is passed and apply for a refund for the intervening period

HMRC have prepared a flexible form to help calculate and monitor the amount available to withhold under this scheme.

So what appeared to be a straightforward initiative to promote much needed UK startups proves to be a little trickier in practice although, with a little advance planning, this incentive should provide tax cash savings for some north west tech start-ups during their (typically 'bootstrapping') first year of trading.

Steve Livingston is a Chartered Accountant and tax advisor for fast growth companies specialising in the digital, tech and creative sector. Steve is a partner at a Top 20 UK accountancy firm and blogs at BusinessN2K and tweets at @stevelivingston.

The above information is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute professional advice. Please seek advice specific to your circumstances and particular facts. You can contact me if in doubt.

After successfully launching an early alpha version of HandyElephant.com this June and gettign lots of valuable feedback, Benjamin F. Wirtz, the co-founder and entrepreneur behing HandyElephant is proudly announcing the company's first workshop techniques for Strategic Networking, which will be held on 14th September in Birmingham.


With the hype around social networks, blogs and networking, you can now establish and keep track of more contacts than ever before – but also more than you can keep track of and efficiently maintain a relationship with. While you plan your business strategy and activities, working on relationships often becomes an undirected and inefficient.


While the focus of HandyElephant is to enable individuals to
- regain an overview over their network
- realise which relationships are actually valuable to them
- spot potential to strengthen their relationships
the workshop takes the approach of applying techniques from strategy planning (which founders even use when planning their venture) to networking and social capital.

Workshop Structure and Learning Outcomes:

Introduction to Strategic Networking
- What is social capital and how does it affect Your Startup?
- Can You maintain more than 150 contacts?
Working with Strategic Techniques to plan Your Social Capital
- 5 forces in your network – Defining Your Networking Strategy
- Relationshp Portfolio – Which people offer the most value?
- Contact Analytics – Tracking Your Progress
Planning Ahead
- Choosing Networking Activities
- Using web and mobile applications to work on Your relationships

We look forward to seeing you in Birmingham !

Founded in 2006 with the help of KPMG and TechCrunch, Techcelerate is the leading organisation dedicated to building an ecosystem for tech entrepreneurs and their technology businesses in the UK.

1700 strong, dedicated Techcelerate community is made up of tech entrepreneurs (from Michael Birch; Bebo to Steve Purdham; We7.com), senior managers of technology companies (from Tim Barker; Salesforce.com to Bindi Karia; Microsoft); investors (from Ed French; EV Group to Nic Brisbourne; DFJ Esprit); service providers (from Steve Livingston; Horwath Clark Whitehill to Stuart Scott-Goldstone; Aaron & Partners), all united to create a thriving knowledge-centric environment for growth of technology companies.

Event and workshop led core activities are centred on access to finance (Dragons Lair), knowledge (from commercialisation to cloud computing), markets (from building strategic partnerships to geographical expansion) and skills (young graduates into employment).

Braveheart was introduced to me by Andrew Burton who sold Viking Fund to them in 2009. Its good to hear that they are in the process of acquiring Envestors including the North West Franchise setup by Manchester based entrepreneurs Mike Pearls of MC2, Scott Fletcher of ANS Group and Imran Hakim of iTeddy, the three musketeers.

Its also good to hear that having setup the North West franchise in 2009 with big bang party of RAW2010, they have recently made their first investment. As no public announcement has been made yet, I will refrain from disclosing the investee company.

Let's have a closer look at the deal. The £2.45 million exit includes 6 tranches of Braveheart shares over the next five years, subject to a maximum consideration value of £2.45 million. Number of shares attributed is based on turnover generated by Envestors post acquisition. Non-binding heads of agreement was signed on 11 March 2010 with deal announced on 18th August 2010. The advance payment, or the first of the 6 tranches of payment (note these are not necessarily of the same amount), of £150,000 attributing to 442,870 shares are to be paid upon their admission to trading on AIM, disposable only after the completion of first year of anniversary. Selling the shares in the following year requires consent of Braveheart and its advisors.

Looks like the existing team would need to remain committed and its not quite the time to party and head towards the sunset, yet!

What's interesting to me is the details and not necessarily the headline numbers (especially as I am yet to go through such an experience). In one respect, the deal sounds almost one-sided, but I guess, it is not.

Envestors turnover for the year ending 31 March 2010 was £495,346. Interesting to hear that it made significant profits of £254,006 ("available for division among members"), a mammoth 51.27% net profit.

Envestors were voted best Private Investor Network in 2009 and claimed to have helped more than 60 companies raise over £22 million.

I wish everyone involved all the best, and let's see whether we could attract some of them to our BBQ on the 15th September.

I will be attending my third Seedcamp event tomorrow as a mentor. Seedcamp is without doubt the main event for any budding tech entrepreneur team, and it is getting bigger each year attracting companies from all over the world.

For those who are not familiar with Seedcamp, it was first introduced in 2007 by none other than Saul Klien. Reshma Sohoni joined from 3i to run the day to day operations. In 2008, Mini Seedcamps were introduced in four cities to short list companies. The number of Mini Seedcamp events have gradually increased to 9 with Johannesburg added to the  calendar in 2010. The finalists of Mini Seedcamps will enter into Seedcamp week held in September each year.

This year, there will be 21 teams pitching on 27th July at UCL in London. I will be catching the first train out of Stockport tomorrow morning to take part. Unfortunately, no single tech startup from the north west has qualified this year. It would be good to find out how many companies applied this year from the north west. The company I persuaded to apply for did not qualify.

The criteria for selection is getting stronger each year, as Seedcamp is no longer restricted to UK, and even the Mini Seedcamp London is opened to teams from anywhere in the world.

Based on the information at my disposal, I prepared following two mindmaps to help me get through tomorrow.

First one shows approximately 25 venture capital firms confirmed to take part as mentors, and the second mindmap shows the tech companies taking part. My mentoring team includes two familiar faces, one of whom is an alum of webmission08. The teams allocated for us are highlighted with number one on the second mindmap.

Let's hope we could organise something similar to Seedcamp or Difference Engine in the north west sooner rather than later.

Founded in 2007, by Entrepreneur Anish Kapoor, Yuuguu is the UK’s leading and one of the worlds fastest growing Free Web Conference service. With this acquisition, Powwownow, Europe’s fast growing conference calling company, has further strengthened its proposition as the voice and web conferencing solution for SMBs and Corporates in the UK, Europe and beyond.

"This is a historic day for Powwownow, Yuuguu and the businesses we both serve with our free audio conferencing,” comments Andy Pearce CEO of Powwownow. “We want every business to be able to enjoy the ability to collaborate for free no matter what the size of the business. We are confident that by working together with the Yuuguu team we can further enhance our offering and create an offering that far surpasses that of our very expensive competitors.”

"Today marks the beginning of an exciting new era," said Anish Kapoor of Yuuguu. "We want to work with Powwownow to create the best web collaboration software on the market. As of today our clients will benefit from Powwownow’s free conference calls, free recording plus a selection of other free benefits. Powwownow also have a dedicated UK based customer service team that will now service our clients too.”

Powwownow have paid an undisclosed sum for a 70% share in Yuuguu.

About Powwownow: Powwownow was founded in 2004, offering customers low-cost conference calling facilities with the ethos of no booking, no billing, no fuss. (The customer does not need to book a conference room and never receives a bill from Powwownow, just the cost of a 0844 call added to their bill). Turnover for 2010 is expected to reach £8m. The company operates in 15 countries including the US and major European markets. Powwownow employs 41 people and is based in Richmond, London.

About Yuuguu: Yuuguu, named after the Japanese word for fusion, was founded by entrepreneurs Anish Kapoor and Philip Hemsted in 2007 after they became frustrated by working together remotely and not being able to see and share each other's computer screens in real time. The company is based in Liverpool and received funding from Rising Stars and Liverpool Seed Fund among others.