We have helped successfully close the latest three investments for fund manager SPARK Impact Limited from the North West Fund for Biomedical, totalling in excess of £1.2 million. The funding rounds have together raised more than £2.5 million.
The firm secured the appointment to advise SPARK on the first of seven portfolio investments for the newly-formed North West Fund for Biomedical in April 2011. The £25 million North West Fund for Biomedical opened for applications in December 2010, with an investment strategy to provide a flexible equity package for growth oriented businesses operating within the biomedical sector; including companies involved in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, healthcare technologies and medical devices. The fund, 40 per cent of which is earmarked for companies in the Merseyside area, will provide equity funding of between £50,000 and £1.5 million to more than 50 businesses based in, or relocating to the North West, to support a broad range of needs from start-up and early stage development through to expansion plans for trading businesses.
We have provided advice to the Fund’s latest investments in Ai2 Limited (Ai2), Incanthera Limited (Incanthera) and Albert Medical Devices Limited (Albert Medical Devices).
Ai2 is an award-winning company developing an innovative technology to prevent infection on a wide range of commonly used medical devices such as urinary catheters, stents and wound dressings. Their products are proprietary human protein-like substances which safely and cost-effectively inhibit bacteria, fungi and viruses. The Fund invested approximately £800,000 in Ai2 alongside existing investor, UMIP Premier Fund managed by MTI in an investment round totalling approximately £1.75 million.
Incanthera was spun-out of the University of Bradford’s Institute of Cancer Therapeutics and has developed a novel drug delivery system for solid tumour chemotherapy, with impressive pre-clinical results to date. The Fund invested £375,000 in Incanthera in a £415,000 investment round.
Albert Medical Devices is an award-winning medical technology company, which creates easy-to-use, high quality devices for the urology sector, which improve patient care and quality of life. The Fund invested £50,000 in Albert Medical Devices in a £200,000 investment round.
Our team was led by corporate finance partner Zickie Lim, assisted by corporate solicitor Pippa Pearce and by specialist tax, technology and employment advisers from the firm’s Cambridge and Manchester offices.
Zickie Lim commented: “The North West Fund for Biomedical is providing vital early stage capital to help get genuinely exciting biotech businesses in the North West get off the ground and provide much needed growth capital for more established SMEs. We are delighted to be working with the Fund and SPARK Impact on these investments, which fit well with our existing and expanding venture capital and private equity practice.”
Andy Round of SPARK said “The North West Fund for Biomedical has had an excellent first year, we have invested in 14 companies and deployed more than £2.2 million. Our investment pipeline for 2012 is extremely healthy and we continuing to see some great opportunities”.
Andy further added “Mills & Reeve continue to demonstrate their depth of experience and expertise in early stage venture capital investments, which has been instrumental in us navigating the issues and successfully closing this latest round of investments. The Mills and Reeve team have been a pleasure to work with”.