£1m Collider fund returns seeking tech start-ups

TECHNOLOGY firms are being encouraged to enter this year’s Collider programme which matches equity investment with mentoring.

The national fund has £400,000 from the Regional Growth Fund, via Creative England, and £600,000 from investors. It is managed by the London-based Pembridge Partnership.

It is offering finance of up to £100,000 in return for an equity stake in start-ups that specialise in mobile, internet and technical innovations that can be of value to global brands.

The investment comes hand-in-hand with mentoring from major organisations including Bauer Media, BBC Worldwide, CBS Outdoor, Unilever and William Hill.

Last year’s programme supported nine firms with six of them in the North West. These were: mobile marketing business Avocarrot; internal comms app developer Beem; map-based social media platform HitMeUp; radio streaming developer Moment.Us; software developer Seeker Industries; and social media analytics firm WhichSocial.

Rose Lewis, founder and director of Collider, said: “The 2012 programme surpassed our expectation and we secured follow-on investment in three startups, drawing in new investors as well. The formula of brands working with startups was immensely powerful for both parties.
 
“We’re expecting to deepen and broaden the investor, brand and adviser relationships we had with Collider12 into Collider13 – the format works well and the niche is focused and well defined. Collider12 has turned out to be productive for all parties and we will continue with this model with Collider13.”
 
Jim Farmery, Creative England’s director of business investment, said: “We are leveraging significant private sector investment of £600,000 against our Regional Growth Fund investment of £400,000, and we also looking to create and safeguard almost 70 jobs.”

A launch event is being held at TechHub in Manchester on October 31.