UK development agency launches new £5M venture fund

New start-up fund

The UK’s East Midlands Development Agency (emda) has launched a £5 million fund to invest in start up and early stage companies in the region.

The East Midlands Early Growth Fund, to be run in collaboration with fund manager E-Synergy Ltd, will work at the bottom end of the equity gap, investing between £20,000 and £200,000 per company.

Jeff Moore, emda Chief Executive, said the fund is one plank in emda’s strategy for providing investment capital for the region’s start-ups. “emda’s approach to improving access to equity finance is to put in place an ‘escalator of funds’ that can support the creation and development of high growth businesses in the region. To date, around £80 million of new risk capital has been made available to SMEs since 2002.”

E-Synergy also manages a £5 million Early Growth Fund for the UK Department of Trade and Industry’s Small Business Service and a £30 million Enterprise Capital Fund focused on sustainable technologies

The East Midlands Early Growth Fund will invest alongside private investors, with a requirement that  every one pound it invests must be matched by at least one pound from the private sector.