Equity investment enables MirrorWeb to significantly scale its business

Introduction

Manchester based MirrorWeb required investment to help scale the business in order to capitalise on exciting market opportunities in the UK and US. By being based in the North West investment through NPIF Maven Equity Finance was an ideal fit, helping management access funding designed for innovative businesses like theirs and enabling them to execute their long-term growth plan.

Watch David Clee, CEO of MirrorWeb and Jeremy Thompson, Partner at Maven discuss the investment in more detail and how the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund is backing ambition across the region.

Transcript

David Clee: MirrorWeb is a compliance archiving and monitoring business that serves customers in both Government and Financial Services. It is based in Manchester, has 50 people, and has recently opened an office in the US.

Jeremy Thompson: What first attracted me to MirrorWeb was the sector and the compliance and regulatory within the public sector and Financial Services, and I thought that is a strong place to be, but then after I'd spent some time with them, it was definitely the team. I think David is a really strong CEO with a sales background and supported by two Founders in Carl and Phil who are extremely technically gifted.

DC: We were looking for investment in order to scale the business to address the market that we had discovered. We found product market fit so needed to scale the team.

JT: Maven's investment in MirrorWeb has been used in a number of ways. When we first invested through the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund back in 2018, it effectively won a contract with The National Archives and then they needed to properly grow a business off the back of that, staff it up and start to move into other sectors and find other customers. Since then, we've gone on to provide further funding through our VCTs which has allowed them to grow even more and grow internationally.

DC: We chose Maven because they were a good fit for our business, we got on very well with the Fund Manager who later became an Investment Director on our Board. The strategy for investment is aligned with our business goals and we found them very easy to work with.

JT: I think we've provided a huge amount of support to MirrorWeb over the years. We've introduced finance professionals, non-executives, Chairs. We've shared challenges and showed them ways of meeting those challenges through they eyes of other portfolio companies and we've tried at every turn really, when they've been entering a new market or thinking about another product, we've tried to bring our contact base and skillset to help and reduce the risk.

DC: Maven have met and exceeded our expectations in a Fund Manager. They are very good to work with and I would recommend them to anybody else considering this route of finance.