Stop Press - 22 June 2011 | Beer & Partners

Stop Press - 22 June 2011

Stop Press

22 June 2011

Despite fierce competition from Royal Ascot, our London Investment Fair held last week proved to be one of our best yet in terms of the strong number of investors and their guests who visited us on the day and the high quality of companies presenting and looking for funding. Our selection process of taking on around 3% of the opportunities that are presented to us is key to this and we are actively looking for more companies requiring funding in the £100,000-£3m range.

The strap line for the fair “Face to Face Finance” demonstrates our commitment not to speed investing but to measured introductions to businesses seeking funding on a one to one basis, which can be followed up in detail subsequently if of interest. Feedback from the entrepreneurs was that meetings were much more effective than presenting to a room at large.

Led by Rod Beer with support from Jay Fisher and Matt Beard, the organisation of these events is very time-consuming in the weeks leading up to the Fair and it is a major credit to all three that it runs so smoothly. Matt Beard has been working with us as an intern during his gap year and fronting our PR/Marketing campaigns and events organisation. Matt will be returning to University soon and we are currently looking for a confident and self-starting undergraduate student, with an interest in Marketing, to undertake a year-long, paid work placement in this role. If you know anyone who might be interested in applying for the role, please let us know.

Should you be aware of, or be involved with, any entrepreneurs seeking funding at any time, we would be delighted to hear from you or them. Our guide to securing business funding may be helpful to them and can be downloaded Here.

Our investors are typically looking to invest in to private companies that can show:

A clear and rational business plan demonstrating significant growth.
A management team that has the ability to create profits, particularly when coupled with capital growth for investors.
An exit strategy, perhaps through a public offer, trade sale or buy back.
A realistic valuation for incoming funds.

Mike Weaver, CEO
Beer & Partners Limited

CURRENT OPPORTUNITIES

Events Diary

(click on titles for full event details)

Meet the Team Behind Breakthrough Diagnostics

London
29 June 2011
Morning Session 11:00 - 13:00
Lunch 13:00 - 14:00
Afternoon Session 14:00 - 16:00

Investor Meeting with Eversheds - July

Birmingham
14 July 2011
(Time TBC)

Angel Investment at Aston Martin

Gaydon, Warwick
17 August 2011
EVENT NOW FULL

Other Investor meetings are in the pipeline for the Midlands & Northern regions, in partnership with Eversheds, PKF and Gateley.

Please keep an eye on our Events Page for further information.

News

Investment Fair Press Releases:

Following an interview Growth Business with Beer CEO Mike Weaver at the Fair, Ellie Duncan from Growth Business discusses the importance of having a strong management team when seeking angel investment... Click Here for Article.

Mark Nayler from Spears Wealth Spears Wealth Management Management wrote about the Launch of Beer’s new Life Sciences Division in response to the huge demand from many of our angels for investable life sciences projects... Click Here for Article.

Next Investment Fair confirmed for Tuesday 8th November

We are pleased to confirm that the third and final Investment Fair of 2011 has been booked for the 8th November.

For over 10 years, Beer & Partners have been running the Investment Fair, attracting up to 200 of our private investors and institutions wishing to invest between £50,000 and £2m. The doors open to our investors at 10am and close at 4pm.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in coming along to the Fair as an Exhibitor, please Click Here for further information.

If you would like to come along as an Investor, further details can be found on our website; please Click Here .

Beer & Young Limited

Our sister company, Beer & Young Limited is the leading company in the UK delivering rescue & recovery finance to the SME sector.

They provide the following business finance services:

* Business & Turnaround Finance

* Company Rescue & Re-structuring
* Urgent Company Finance

Please click here for further information

Associate Spotlight

David Rich

David was a high profile, successful lawyer for 15 years prior to changing careers to start his own business. He has started, built and sold successful businesses and holds a variety of board positions.

He has a great depth of experience in raising debt funding, re-financing, equity investment, assisting in business plan writing and providing business strategy advice. He likes to work with early stage and growth businesses.

He has a particular interest in insurance, software and internet related businesses, or anything that is exciting and innovative. He has offices on the Suffolk/Norfolk border and in London.

David is married and lives in the beautiful, rural Suffolk countryside. With four children, life can be quite hectic, especially when surrounded by an array of chickens, ducks, horses and various other animals at home! His youngest, Alfie, is just seven weeks old. He's passionate about skiing and spent a few years as a skiing instructor when he was younger. He joined Beer & Partners in December 2007.

David has an opportunity featured in David Rich this Stop Press (see top of list). This start-up company covers the financial services, IT and software sectors and is seeking £250,000. Please contact David to discuss, or see the entry for 'Managed Forex Trading Service' in the left hand column for further details.

Click Here to Contact David.

New Additions to the Beer Associate Team

We are pleased to announce some new arrivals to our team of associates. Please click on their names below to view their full online biogs and photos:

Oli Randell
Region: North

Oli Randell has 9 years of consultancy, change management, business improvement and transformation experience. He is in the final stages of an MBA at Manchester Business school. He is a member of Pro Manchester and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

Roy Irish
Region: Midlands

Roy is a chartered accountant of some 30 years standing. Roy has introduced companies to Beer & Partners in the past and successfully raised funds. So when approached to be an Associate at funding seminar, he had no hesitation in accepting.

NEW GENERATION HIGH VOLUME DIAGNOSTICS - PRE-IPO GROWTH FUNDING REQUIRED
	Sector: Funds Sought: Location: Stage: Ref. Number:	Bioscience, Food, Medical, Pharma £500,000 London Pre-IPO 51152

Breakthrough test for Mastitis in milk samples. First system delivered. Several more deliveries to follow this year. The test satisfies the burning need to detect at high volume and low cost all the major bacterial causes of this disease, a major cause of economic loss to the dairy industry globally, in a single test. This represents further development of revenues from the demand for rapid diagnostics at the point of sampling or in the lab. For our client this represents a further step towards wider adoption of their high performance molecular diagnostics technology platform. They hope to be making announcements of commercialisation contract(s) in the field of human health later this year. Customers in this field are highly informed, commercially aware and very discriminating. The business has shown that it has compelling market propositions and can deliver to such customers. The £500,000 of equity offered to private individual investors is a discrete tranche of a £3m pre-IPO fund-raising (already 20% funded). Contact: Simon Heywood - 07831 655 533 - heywood@beerandpartners.com & *Richard Silberbauer - 07808 144 609 - silberbauer@beerandpartners.com*

MANAGED FOREX TRADING SERVICE
	Sector: Funds Sought: Location: Stage: Ref. Number:	Financial Services, IT & Software £250,000 North Home Counties Start-up 51248

Our client has developed systems that allow accurate forecasting of the immediate future in the Forex Trading market. They plan to use these systems to provide a managed trading service to their clients, delivering high returns for their clients, whilst deriving high commission revenue for the company. Unlike the many systems sold as one off software purchases, claiming to automatically deliver high returns, our clients are managing their own systems to provide a service. Forex trading is a long established process and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. There is always likely to be the need to deal with and exchange foreign currency. The ability for forecast market movements and trade on those movements gives the ability for significant profits to be made. Key Business Facts: EIS Eligable Full ownership of IP on the software systems Live, working and successful results Live pilot delivering high returns Evidence of demand for service In house development, sales & marketing skills Experienced management team Our clients conservatively forecast profits of £3,529,000 over the next 5 years. Investment in the sum of £250,000 is sought in return for a significant equity stake an possible board position in the business. Exit is expected via trade sale in around 5 years time. Contact: David Rich - 07795 360 713 - rich@beerandpartners.com

MULTI-DIMENSIONAL SEARCH ENGINE FOR SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
	Sector: Funds Sought: Location: Stage: Ref. Number:	Hospitality & Leisure £500,000 North Home Counties Early Stage 51317

This company has a fresh, functionality driven website in the Whats On and Special Offer sector. Through affiliate partners it will have the largest listing of restaurants, events and hotels (over 50,000) in the UK at its imminent launch. It will have Android and iPhone apps, which will show all events, hotels and restaurants in the locality of the user. The site will enable easy cross-referencing between any category covered (such as jazz events and hotels). Through affiliates such as Groupon, TopTable and LivingSocial special offers will be obtainable. It will be free to users. Providers will be able to control and edit their content. Revenue will be generated by commission on bookings through affiliates, premium listing sales (similar to GoogleAds) and newsletter revenue through relationship based advertising sales. Existing competitors such as wozzon.com, ents24.com and wherecanwego.com have not captured the market due to lack of functionality or content. Dynamic and technically excellent management have created this hugely complex website in a year. The company needs to raise £500,000 for which 30% will be offered. It will move into profit in year 2, and it is hoped that the next round of financing will be provided by means other than a further equity placing. Contact: Dwight Makins - 0207 329 4884 - makins@beerandpartners.com

PROFITABLE AND SUCCESSFUL CLAIMS MANAGEMENT BUSINESS SEEKS SUPPORT FOR NEW CONCEPT
	Sector: Funds Sought: Location: Stage: Ref. Number:	Business & Financial Services £1,900,000 South Wales Expansion 51032
Our client already generates profits by managing payment protection insurance policies (PPI) claims and is expanding to provide a one stop shop for claimants with any disputes relating to retail financial products and services. The FSA advise that 60% of the c.3-4 million complaints made annually against regulated firms are rejected but only 8% continue their claim via the Financial Ombudsman Service which upholds 51% of complaints referred to it. So a high proportion of complainants do not pursue their claim for various reasons such as lack of confidence and knowledge of the processes. New FSA rules forcing swifter settlements of PPI claims means that there is an opportunity to acquire high numbers of cases which will support the clients’ expansion whilst diversifying into a wider range of financial disputes over the next 6-12 months. The directors are well placed to develop the business having compliance, litigation and call centre expertise in financial institutions. The investment is required to assist in meeting the cost of supporting the revised strategy of developing the new service including enhanced marketing and branding and enhanced claims management systems. Exit is probably within 3-5 years by trade sale or flotation with the aim of delivering a 5-10x return to investors. Contact: Meredydd Jones *- 07768 022 696* - *mjones@beerandpartners.com*

FIRST INTERNET TV BROADCAST PLATFORM
	Sector: Funds Sought: Location: Stage: Ref. Number:	New Media £500,000 South West Early Stage 51331

A TV channel is a phenomenal marketing tool. Historically the problem has been cost. This Company is revolutionising this global market by offering businesses the opportunity to have their own interactive TV channel, using the world’s first web based broadcast platform, and for 5% of the costs of a traditional channel. The platform delivers a TV experience through an Internet browser or a web connected TV. It can be operated by a single person with no technical knowledge, from anywhere in the world. The platform makes having a TV channel affordable and an excellent way for any organisation, commercial or philanthropic to get and maintain customer loyalty. Channels can be operated on a subscription, ad funded or a combination of both models. Payments can be processed directly inside the channels and for ad funded models the channels have the ability to automatically search for and deliver monetisable adverts from the open market. The principals have a proven track record of using their unique focus to achieve their stated aims on budget and to time. As a proof of concept and to generate an early second revenue stream, it launched its own independent film TV channel in May 2011. £500,000 is sought to expand this company, and a significant shareholding and a Board seat is available. Exit is expected within four years, either as a float or trade sale. Contact: *Malcolm McGregor* *- 07795 250 103* *- mcgregor@beerandpartners.com***

FUND-BACKED, IN-REVENUE COMPANY OFFERING DISTINCTIVE 'SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE' PRODUCT FOR RESTAURANTS
	Sector: Funds Sought: Location: Stage: Ref. Number:	Hospitality, IT, Internet & Software £250,000 London Early Stage 51352

The company provides a full ‘Software as a Service’ voucher marketing solution to a large and under-served market: restaurants. The company enables restaurants, at no upfront cost, to plan and deliver pre-paid vouchers via on-line direct marketing to existing and new customers, increasing sales and building customer loyalty. The company is paid on success (such as purchase of a pre-paid voucher or the delivery of marketing messages). This creates a highly scalable opportunity. Successfully piloted in a number of restaurants across the UK, the solution is now being rolled out commercially. After £525,000 first-round funding from an EIS fund, and successful delivery of key milestones, the company is now seeking second-round funding alongside matching investment from the founders and management team, to enable quicker growth by investing in sales/marketing and further product development, leading to forecast profitable operation in 2012 based on conservative assumptions. The management is highly experienced. A significant minority stake is on offer. Exit is anticipated through a trade sale or listing within five years. EIS advance assurance granted. The company has built an investor website including a CEO webinar – please look for the separate email with access information, or contact us to arrange a call/meeting. Contact: Dave Flockhart - 07815 931 414 - flockhart@beerandpartners.com

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Stop Press - 22 June 2011