FinderMonkey finds funding for growth

A PEOPLE tracing service that has helped reunite players from Leeds United’s Don Revie era has received funding to expand.

FinderMonkey is aiming for growth after using its location tools to find people for commercial reasons, as well as for personal ones.

Business owners Ryan Shaw and John Arco are set to increase the size of the Leeds-based company’s  tracing team as part of a £25,000 investment provided by Santander Business Banking.

The company was established three years ago by the two childhood friends who launched the service to reunite long lost friends and relatives.

Since then they have traced more than 5,000 people, for both personal and business reasons, including absentee landlords for Burnley Council and players from the Don Revie era for Leeds United.

More than half the company’s work now involves tracing debtors, cleaning up company databases, finding tenants who owe money and helping lawyers uncover the owners of unregistered land.

Mr Shaw said: “There are a lot of people search websites that allow people to search databases but very few organisations like ours where the searches are carried out by experienced tracing specialists and genealogists.

“There may not be a teary-eyed reunion at the end of the job but it is the sort of work that has helped us expand both our team and our turnover.”

Naz Haq, business manager at Santander Business Banking in Leeds, said: “I’m pleased we have been able to support the expansion of FinderMonkey. I think they have found an ingenious niche in the market and I think they will continue to go from strength to strength.”