{"id":2163690,"date":"2025-11-27T09:44:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T09:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/northwest\/?p=2163690"},"modified":"2025-11-27T09:44:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T09:44:56","slug":"six-figure-investment-drives-growth-at-fledgling-manchester-recruitment-venture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/northwest\/news\/2163690-six-figure-investment-drives-growth-at-fledgling-manchester-recruitment-venture","title":{"rendered":"Six-figure investment drives growth at fledgling Manchester recruitment venture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liverpool-based fund manager River Capital has welcomed specialist finance and accounting recruitment business Sowena Group to its portfolio following a significant six-figure investment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Based in Manchester city centre, Sowena has received the funding from the North West Business Growth Loan fund with River Capital\u2019s streamlined processes ensuring drawdown within a month following its initial enquiry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Founded in June 2024 by recruiter Perran Cooke, Sowena specialises in placing finance candidates from newly-qualified accountants to executive board level for high growth businesses, pre and current PE-backed companies, and venture capital entities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite being relatively new to the market, the business has quickly established a reputation for quality placements, achieving a 100% success rate across all roles filled to date &#8211; in an industry where 25-30% attrition is typical.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The funding will be deployed strategically to accelerate Sowena\u2019s growth trajectory and will assist with the recruitment of three fee-earning consultants across different experience levels that will strengthen the firms capabilities across three key pillars of is business &#8211; senior executive search for CFO and finance director roles, mid-tier finance management positions, and the growing interim and fractional finance director and CFO market.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The investment will also fund the final development and roll-out of Kelmi Intelligence, an innovative data-led candidate matching platform that uses behavioural and emotional data alongside traditional skillset analysis to deliver superior candidate-to-role fit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The platform will initially be rolled out to Sowena\u2019s existing private equity and corporate clients through the search process and will present a significant competitive advantage, enabling more precise candidate matching and faster placement cycles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chris Carter, investment manager at River Capital, said: \u201cPerran and his team have built an exceptional business in a remarkably short time, demonstrating a clear focus on quality over quantity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cTheir commitment to innovation through the Kelmi Intelligence platform, combined with their strong relationships across the private equity and high growth business sectors, positions them well for significant expansion and this funding will enable them to scale their team and meet the increasing demand from their client base.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perran Cooke, CEO and founder of Sowena Group, said: \u201cThe speed and efficiency of this transaction from River Capital and Chris has been exceptional. From our first conversation to completing the funding took four weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThis has allowed us to recruit in key positions and to capitalise on the significant opportunities we\u2019re seeing in the market and to meet the demand of our current client base.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sowena specialises in placing finance candidates from newly-qualified accountants to executive board level<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217725,"featured_media":2163691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127684],"coauthors":[46761],"class_list":["post-2163690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recruitment","tag-featured-story","tag-greater-manchester"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - 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