Recruitment specialist secures new investment to expand operations

Twine, a platform that helps companies hire quality freelancers from a network of more than 350,000, has secured investment from GC Angels, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and private business angels from across the North of England, bringing its total funding to £1.2m.

Based in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and founded by Stuart Logan, a graduate from the University of Manchester, Twine handpicks the best freelancers for a job to provide companies with high-quality and consistent talent.

The number of freelancers and businesses using the platform has increased by 45% during the coronavirus pandemic as companies have had to be more flexible and freelancers have sought quality, reliable work.

Twine will use the investment to build on this growth by expanding its development, sales and marketing teams.

To support Twine’s fundraising process, Jess Jackson, investment director at GC Angels, introduced Stuart to several angel investors and secured an opportunity for him to pitch to other potential investors earlier this year.

GC Angels supports SMEs in raising early-stage, scale-up and growth capital ranging from £25,000 to £2m.

Made up of more tdhan 400 associate angels, institutional capital partners and in-house co-funds, it has raised in excess of £25.5m for more than 30 businesses since 2015, with 30% of those businesses raising follow-on capital.

Jess Jackson said: “GC Angels is delighted to announce this deal, investing alongside GMCA and our network of private angels, completing at a time when early stage deals are suffering in the ecosystem.

“We were established to fill the early-stage equity gap across the North, so we are pleased to continue to support Greater Manchester’s innovative start-ups.

“Twine has incredible potential, and we are looking forward to watching it grow as more businesses turn to quality freelancers.

“We are particularly pleased that the investment comes during the Creative Scale-Up Programme, delivered by our sister company GC Business Growth Hub, which we support by encouraging investment into creative businesses like Twine.”

Twine chief executive Stuart Logan said: “We founded Twine with a vision that, by mid-2030, 30% of jobs would be automatable due to AI and machine learning.

“As a result, we also predicted that companies would shift more of their budgets to less automatable roles in research, creativity, strategy, development and marketing.

“To fill this skills gap, more of the workforce would freelance because it enables flexibility and a wider talent pool that is not geographically constrained.

“When the coronavirus pandemic accelerated these trends, we needed to raise money to capitalise on the opportunity and deliver our vision of an authentic network of quality freelancers.

“We approached GC Angels and were quickly introduced to a number of investors that have since put money into the business. We’ve built a proven revenue model in recent years, and we look forward to growing the platform together.”