Published: Nov 11, 2014
Focus:
Growth Capital
The Scottish Loan Fund (SLF), managed by Maven, has provided follow-on funding to existing SLF portfolio company VisionWare, more than doubling its investment in this dynamic business. The Fund originally invested in April 2013 to support VisionWare in exploiting new opportunities in the UK and US. This proved very successful and now the Company is looking to expand further into the US market.
VisionWare is an innovative software company, based in Glasgow and operations in Boston, USA, which has developed ‘MultiVue’, a specialised master data management (MDM) software platform, designed to allow organisations to integrate remote data sources and actively manage the output to create a single, reliable view of its customers. This enables clients to achieve on-going data quality improvements and ultimately savings on costs, positioning VisionWare for continued growth as the MDM market continues to expand. The market is now estimated to be worth $1.6 billion, reflecting an annual growth rate of 9%.
On the back of strong sector dynamics and VisionWare’s ongoing desire to gain market share in the US, this latest funding round will be used to further invest in building the wider US team, particularly key product management, implementation, and marketing roles.
In the three and a half years since its launch the SLF, set up to address the ongoing market need for growth finance, has now committed over £43 million of funds to 17 Scottish SMEs to help them achieve their business plans and facilitate the next stage of growth.
Julie Glenny, Investment Director at Maven Capital Partners, said: “VisionWare has been an excellent investment for the Scottish Loan Fund and this further round of funding demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the business whilst demonstrating more generally how SLF finance can support ambitious SMEs with their growth plans. We continue to work closely with the management team providing both strategic and financial support towards achievement of their business plan.”
Gordon Cooper, Managing Director at VisionWare, added: “VisionWare is very pleased to have secured further funding from the Scottish Loan Fund. The flexibility of the Fund has allowed for the funds to be tailored specifically to the needs of our business. Maven has been an excellent investment partner and we look forward to working with them during the continued expansion of our business.”
Kerry Sharp, Head of the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise, said, “the biggest potential for transformational growth lies beyond the domestic market, so it’s great to see the Scottish Loan Fund helping companies like VisionWare exploit international market opportunities. We would be delighted to see more companies with targeted growth plans and scalable business models to embark on such ambitious growth initiatives.”
