The latest deal by BGF, the independent fund that backs small and medium-sized firms with strong growth potential, has taken its total investment in the South West past the £100m mark.
The £4.43m equity funding in marketing technology software and service firm Adestra means BGF’s regional office has now invested in 17 fast-growing companies around the region in less than five years. The £2.5bn fund was launched in May 2011. 
The regional team of BGF – the Business Growth Fund – is now on the lookout for further investment opportunities and is keen to hear from businesses seeking funding to pursue their growth plans this year.
BGF South West and South Wales regional director Paul Oldham, pictured, said: “This has been an exciting and busy start to the year for BGF’s Bristol team, and we have already met with a number of interesting and ambitious business owners and management teams.
“The more investments we make, the more we are able to demonstrate the benefits of our model of funding – which essentially gives business owners the financial firepower to scale-up their operations, without losing control of their company.”
BGF is the UK’s most active provider of growth capital to small and mid-sized businesses. It makes initial investments of between £2m and £10m and can provide additional funding to support further growth.
Investment is typically in the form of equity in return for a minority equity stake and a seat on the board for a BGF director.
Among the 17 firms backed by BGF is Magmatic, the Bristol firm behind the successful Trunki kids’ ride-on suitcase. It received a £3.92m injection of growth capital in 2013 with BGF taking a minority stake in the company and a seat on its board.
In 2014 Corsham and Farnborough-based Skyscape Cloud Services, a leading provider of cloud infrastructure services to the public sector, received a £4m investment, and last year BGF’s £3.5m investment in Chippenham-based communications infrastructure and outsourced IT service provider Vysiion enabled it to make two strategic acquisitions.
Oxford-based Adestra is to use the BGF investment to fund significant US and global expansion. The firm has 500-plus clients worldwide across a number of key sectors and has experienced annual double-digit revenue growth for more than a decade.
The immediate success of its recently opened US operations in Dallas and New York was a significant factor in Adestra’s decision to partner with BGF.
BGF is backed by five of the UK’s main banking groups – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Standard Chartered and is managed autonomously with an independent management team.
