Beaton and YFM team up in £3.5m deal

SERIAL North West software entrepreneur Richard Beaton has teamed up with YFM Private Equity for a £3.5m buy-in at a Reading Internet security firm.

Mr Beaton, who built up and sold Crewe software firm Boldon James and last year repeated his success with the £20m sale of Manchester construction-sector specialist Tekton, will be chairman of Deep-Secure.

Deep-Secure’s products protect against threats to security via high defence network border gateway technology.

Its chief executive Kieron Sambrook-Smith previously worked with Prestbury-based Mr Beaton at Boldon James.

Nigel Barraclough, investment director of YFM, said: “We are delighted to be working with Richard again. His expertise, acumen and attitude provide the grounds for a great working relationship whenever we work together.

“Deep-Secure is going to be an interesting and exciting company to work with, the future developments will see ground-breaking technology reach highly sensitive markets, changing the way companies defend their intelligence.”

Mr Beaton said: “During my last two ventures I developed a strong relationship with YFM. Both parties have a mutual understanding of how and where we see the business propositions going, even when times get incredibly tough YFM can still be relied upon and I hope to work with them again in the future.”

YFM invested along with three other institutions, Chandon Fund, British Smaller Companies VCT and British Smaller Technology Companies VCT2.