Thames Valley: Companies get seed funding

Proving that innovation and entrepreneurship is very much alive and kicking in the Thames Valley area, several companies are celebrating funding success.

In the past three months, the Thames Valley Enterprise Hub has helped more than half a dozen of its business clients to secure over £2.5m in investment and funding.

Susan Elliott, Hub Director, said: “This is a fabulous achievement both for our clients and the Hub itself, at a time when perhaps investors may be more cautious. We have worked extremely closely with these business to help them progress to their next stages of development and it proves that despite the gloom of recession, investors are still keen to commit to innovative businesses that are in the early growth stages yet have great potential to grow.”

Among the investments secured has been £500K of Angel and Seed funding (from Finance South East) for Fav.or.it, a company which has created an innovative internet blogging platform that allows individuals, businesses and brands to interact with thousands of blogs through a customised portal that accumulates content from all relevant blogging platforms; and £1.6m from the Wellcome Trust awarded to Orthox, a company which is developing a range of novel orthopaedic products for the repair of cartilage. Orthox will use the funding to develop its regenerative meniscal (knee cartilage) repair device.

Elliott added: “The Enterprise Hub works with entrepreneurs that have developed commercial concepts with the potential for scalable growth and the prospect of national and international development. Helping to secure investment and funding, such as we have seen over the past few months, is just one aspect of how a business can benefit from working with the Enterprise Hub.”

Backed by SEEDA (South East England Development Agency), the Thames Valley Enterprise Hub comprises a close-knit team of commercial experts who provide bespoke services such as business modelling and investment strategy business mentoring, intellectual property support, peer learning, knowledge seminars and business networking opportunities. In addition, the Hub actively explores ways to link young businesses with corporations and other large institutions for sales, investment and open innovation opportunities.

For more information about Thames Valley Enterprise Hub visit http://www.thamesvalleyhub.co.uk or call 0118-9357369.