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A Worcestershire business has secured a £250,000 investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), provided by The FSE Group managed by MEIF Debt Finance Fund and backed by the Recovery Loan Scheme.

Little Mixers create high-quality fruit purees and syrups for use in cocktails, smoothies and desserts. The MEIF funding will be used to purchase and install a range of machinery at a new production facility in Worcestershire, making Little Mixers the first UK manufacturer of fruit purees specifically for the drinks industry.

Co-founders Shaun Elder and Simon Little formerly worked in the sector as agents for another manufacturer’s product, but with the creation of Little Mixers, they are now producing their own branded purees.

Little Mixers are managing the supply chain through direct relationships with fruit growers and bringing all manufacturing in-house with the aim of becoming the market leader for fruit purees that are allergen free, gluten free, kosher, halal and suitable for vegans and vegetarians.

Simon Little, co-founder of Little Mixer, said: “With the hospitality industry impacted so heavily by the pandemic, we re-evaluated our business model, identifying an opportunity to develop a premium, UK manufactured product for this category. As such, despite our extensive experience and commercial success in the sector, we are effectively starting a new business, meaning traditional lines of funding are not available to us.

“We are thankful to MEIF and FSE for looking at the strengths of our business proposition and being prepared to back our potential, enabling us to bring innovative processing techniques and new-to-market products to the UK.”

Since 2014, the number of outlets serving cocktails has risen by 75% with cocktails now accounting for 10% of total venue drinks sales. Little Mixers will supply its high-quality, commercially competitive and uniquely UK manufactured purees to premium hospitality venues that are looking for the finest ingredients.

Harriet Saunders, Fund Executive at The FSE Group, added: “Shaun and Simon have a deep understanding of the UK drinks sector with a strong network of industry connections. This, along with their technical expertise, data driven forecasting of the market and intellectual property ownership, sets them up well for the successful delivery of their business plan.

“We are delighted to be supporting them and look forward to helping them achieve their ambitions for growth.”Little Mixers has secured a £250,000 investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), provided by The FSE Group managed by MEIF Debt Finance Fund and backed by the Recovery Loan Scheme.

Little Mixers has secured a £250k investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, provided by The FSE Group managed by MEIF Debt Finance Fund and backed by the RLS.

Mark Wilcockson, Senior Investment Manager at the British Business Bank, said: “The MEIF is committed to supporting businesses like Little Mixers in its growth plans in the Midlands. MEIF funding options are available to other businesses with growth plans in the region that are looking to scale-up and we’d encourage these businesses to consider the options.”

Gary Woodman, Chief Executive of the Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “It’s great to see yet another Worcestershire business being supported to grow through the Midlands Engine Investment Fund. I am so pleased to see this support enabling Little Mixers to invest in their new production facility in Worcestershire, allowing them to bring their new innovative ideas to market. This has been down to the support of the Worcestershire growth hub and the partners supporting this business.”

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.

The FSE Group, MEIF Debt Finance Fund provides loans between £100,000 and £1.5million to help growing SMEs across the region.

Codices, the UK’s leading interactive gameshow creator are launching the first platform to allow anyone to create live interactive gameshows.

With the UK being the leading producer of un-scripted TV formats, accounting for 42% of worldwide export sales in 2020, it has proven to be a reliable source of some of the world’s best entertainment.

A new start-up is helping the UK become the leader of next generation entertainment – live mass participation gameshows where everyone watching is a contestant. The trend started initially with the app HQ Trivia in 2017 which validated there was mass market appeal for interactive shows.

“The reason we haven’t seen any mainstream live interactive gameshows since HQ Trivia is because they are hard to create and there isn’t really a platform setup for people to easily access them” says co-founder and CEO Tim Edwards.

Codices Interactive started their gameshow journey on the livestreaming platform Twitch where they launched their gameshow extension Quiz Kit, which amassed over 4 million monthly viewers and has been used by over a million different live-streamers to create live online quiz shows.

They have worked with the likes of Amazon Prime Video, The Premier League and a number of large game development studios to create new gameshow formats on Twitch. They also ran the largest ever mass quiz show with studio Digital Extremes boasting over 350,000 concurrent participants whilst giving away over 100,000 prizes.

“The one thing everyone wants to do when watching a gameshow is play along. We found by making them live and interactive it increased the enjoyment factor significantly.” Last year, after raising around £1m in investment, they set out to build a brand-new gameshow platform, Moar, to facilitate the creation and supply of mass participation shows. ‘Twitch is the best platform to watch video games content, but we found the market for live interactive shows was much broader than gamers.’

Moar provides tools to creators to build their own live gameshow formats - starting out with the ability to make quiz shows, live polls, give out prizes and bring on live guests through their phone.

Another key aspect of the platform is making sure anyone with an internet connection can make their own interactive gameshows. “Today, anyone can be a content creator and we didn’t want to restrict the tools to businesses or professionals by making them too complicated to use.”

Through watching shows on Moar viewers can also earn ‘stubs’, similar to winning tickets on an arcade machine, which can be spent on in app rewards and a number of real-life prizes soon to be announced.

“Right now we are in our Open Beta phase so it’s a great time to install and take advantage of our early offers and take a front row seat in seeing the platform develop” says Tim. If you would like to experience Moar, either creating or watching some of their shows, you can find them on the iOS App Store by searching Moar where they are running daily trivia shows alongside shows run by new creators.

Cornish digital community engagement platform, GoCollaborate, has secured £120,000 equity investment from the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (CIOSIF), as part of a larger £240,000 funding round.

The round was led by the FSE Group, the appointed fund manager for CIOSIF, and includes a number of private angel investors, Falmouth University and Coastline Housing. The funding will be used to develop additional features to the application, obtain national presence and a growing market share and recruit an in-house team.  It is expected that all new hires will be Cornwall-based.

GoCollaborate is an easy-to-use online platform which enables communities to directly impact the planning and development of their local area. The platform builds on traditional consultation methods by making the engagement process more effective, while saving time and resources.  

It can be used for multiple different stages of a consultation process, from initial data-gathering to generating reports, and provides an easy overview of data so that findings and decisions to be fed back to communities.

GoCollaborate was piloted with a range of Cornwall based Parish Councils including Portreath, Carn Brea, St Keverne and Redruth. These initial engagements resulted in the councils receiving a high level of in-depth qualitative data and being in a better position to act on their communities’ wishes.

Neil Kirkland, Chief Executive Officer and Finance Director at GoCollaborate, commented: “Engaging with local communities can be extremely challenging for councils or property developers who are tight on time and low on resources. GoCollaborate was created to solve the problem of conversing with groups of people during the pandemic, but it has become much more than that. We originally designed the platform to consult on Neighbourhood Development Plans, but we now offer a variety of services which help locals have an impact on sustainable planning, improving community facilities, protecting the environment, enabling affordable housing and revitalising high streets, towns and villages. This funding will give us the ability to grow and develop at a great pace so that we can help even more people have a say in their community.”

Anna Staevska, Investment Manager at The FSE Group, added: “GoCollaborate is tackling a clear need which to date has not been addressed. The company has strong relationships with others in the housing and planning sectors which, combined with the excellent business model, makes it an impressive business. Listening to and acting on the views of local communities is key to sustainable development. We look forward to seeing more councils take advantage of this modern platform, leading to further contracts being established beyond the South West.”

The £40m Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund provides debt and equity finance from £25,000 to £2 million to help growing small businesses across the region. It has been established by the British Business Bank in partnership with the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Ken Cooper, managing director from the British Business Bank, said: “CIOSIF is helping to grow a portfolio of businesses in Cornwall that are applying technology to tackle everyday issues. The fund’s equity stake has leveraged significant match funding from other investors and we look forward to seeing the company embark on its next phase of growth.”

John Acornley, LEP non-executive director and chair of the CIOSIF Advisory Board, said: “GoCollaborate has created an online platform that really empowers local communities by helping them engage in the planning process. And it’s great to see another spin-out business from Falmouth University’s Launchpad business incubation and accelerator programme securing the investment it needs to grow.”

CIOSIF is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.

For more information about the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund including how to apply, please visit www.ciosif.co.uk  or follow the fund on Twitter at @CIOSIFBBB2

A Birmingham based technology company has secured investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), provided by The FSE Group Debt Finance Fund and backed by the Recovery Loan Scheme, to support further growth of the business.

Learning Labs has developed FlashAcademy®, a leading UK digital education platform, which is used by schools and colleges across the UK to support teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL). The £250,000 MEIF funding will be used to create new jobs and expand its digital marketing department.

The award-winning FlashAcademy® app teaches English from almost 50 different languages, providing an independent learning experience on any device, smartphone, tablet or PC that can be used in a classroom setting or for remote learning.

The app uses a mix of digital lessons, gamification and the world’s first object translator where the user can take a photo of any object to be instantly translated. The software is currently being used in almost 1,000 schools across the UK and is supporting over 250,000 individual learners.

Veejay Lingiah, Learning Labs CEO, said: “At Learning Labs we believe that every child and young person across the UK deserves to be getting the best from their education experience. Our product supports teachers in unlocking the potential of non-native-speaking students without the need for time and budget resources that many schools and colleges do not have. With this MEIF loan, FSE has provided the right funding at the right time to support this next phase of our growth as we continue to develop our offering, expand into the FE market, and further scale the business.”

Harriet Saunders, Portfolio Manager at The FSE Group, commented: “Learning Labs has been on a high-growth trajectory since creating its EAL offering in 2018. Having already attracted significant equity investment, its management was keen not to dilute ownership with further equity at this stage. We are delighted to provide this market-leading business with the growth funding needed to support it through this next phase of growth and look forward to working with this innovative team.”

There are currently over 1.6m EAL pupils in the UK, representing 1 in 5 at primary school and 1 in 6 at secondary school. In more than 4000 schools this accounts for over 30% of their pupil cohort. Learning Labs, which builds all its products internally, with in-house development, design, content and product management teams, is well-placed to support the growing EAL and ESOL markets across all age groups.

Tracy Sherratt, Senior Manager UK Network at British Business Bank, said: “The MEIF supports businesses across the Midlands that provide a range of innovative products and services, with Flash Academy’s award winning app proving their success to date. The MEIF continues to provide funding to companies across the Midlands to help develop the wider region with continued job creation and more investment.”

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2022 and the European Investment Bank. The FSE Group manages a section of MEIF that provides investments between £100,000 and £1.5 million to support growing SMEs across the region. For more information visit: www.thefsegroup.com/fund/midlands-engine-investment-fund-debt-finance.

Maidenhead based MyWorkspot has secured a £280,000 expansion loan from the Thames Valley Berkshire Funding Escalator. The funding has helped the company to fit out and launch their new site in Maidenhead town centre, which was opened by Rt. Hons Theresa May on Friday 14th October.

MyWorkspot provides coworking, office space and meeting rooms and has been in operation in Maidenhead since 2017. They provide flexible workspaces with over 100 established local businesses, start-ups, and corporate businesses currently active as residents and members. Their clients range from start-ups to employees of global brands including Rack Space, Lexis Nexis, Google, and Microsoft.

Whilst COVID-19 has undoubtedly proved challenging for many businesses, it has had a dramatic impact on the way people work. Flexibility is seen as standard and the increase in hybrid and remote working has caused a rise in demand for MyWorkspot’s spaces.

Will Ballantyne, Co-Founder at MyWorkspot, said, “We are a ready-made community for solopreneurs and freelancers, providing a supportive network as well as high quality workspaces. Our new office on York Road is spread over three floors and can offer drop-in spaces, hybrid working options or a permanent private office space. This funding will support the fit-out phase of our development and ensure all needs are met to exacting standards. Maidenhead based businesses deserve the best and we aim to give it to them.”

Brett Chowns, Investment Manager at The FSE Group added, “MyWorkspot offers an all-in-one cost approach which covers rent, rates, utilities, internet, furniture, additional events and even coffee. In short, they look after the office so their residents can concentrate on growing their business. This level of care mixed with a supportive community is of huge benefit to SMEs in Maidenhead and we are delighted to be helping MyWorkspot on the next stage in their growth journey.”

Alison Webster, Chief Executive of the Berkshire LEP added, “We’re delighted that MyWorkspot is responding to the changes brought about by the pandemic and delivering this high-quality flexible office space to meet the needs of local businesses both now and in the future. By focusing on funding opportunities for local growth and inward investment, the Berkshire LEP is helping businesses like MyWorkspot to deliver the right environment for businesses to grow and create more high-quality jobs in Berkshire.”

Thames Valley Berkshire Funding Escalator is an £11.3m initiative funded by the Berkshire LEP. The Escalator includes an Expansion Loan Scheme, a Trade Finance Loan Scheme and a Growth Equity Fund, providing eligible companies with loans and equity funding between £50,000 and £300,000 for activities that will deliver high-growth and employment opportunities across Berkshire.