What is the Finance Durham Fund

The Finance Durham Fund is part of Business Durham’s strategy to deliver economic growth across County Durham and has been providing the essential capital and support required for entrepreneurial businesses to take the next step in their growth journeys. In this video you can find out more about the Fund, which is managed by Maven Capital Partners, and how it has helped dozens of companies across County Durham to scale up and transition into a more valuable businesses. Hear from some of the ambitious portfolio companies that have received flexible equity, debt or mezzanine finance through the Fund enabling them to support their growth strategies, including expansion into new geographic markets or product areas, accelerating technological innovation, launching new or enhanced products, strengthening their team, or developing new client relationships.

James Rowlandson: The fund was launched in 2017 to support the existing businesses in County Durham and looking out of County Durham to try and attract other businesses. It has supported 16 business across County Durham in many sectors, technology, engineering, manufacturing, business services and healthcare.

Sarah Slaven: The Finance Durham Fund is all about funding for businesses that are looking to grow, and we know it can be difficult for companies to access the right funding that they need at the right time. So that's really where Finance Durham comes in, and we are looking for a fund management organisation with a strong track record, professional staff, obviously FCA authorised. Maven were the ideal choice and came out on top of that process.

Michael Vassallo: The first thing we do when we look at a new opportunity, is to get to know the business in detail. Then we can decide what kind of funding package that business requires. Benefits of speaking to Maven and the Finance Durham Fund is the flexibility the funding offers. Which means we can invest up to a small amount, up to several million via equity or debt.

Ean Parsons: The funding support helped me grow my business because it enabled me to buy out a long-term business partner, as well as bringing in some working capital to support growth.

Michael McCabe: So Finance Durham and Maven helping us to achieve our objectives through providing us access to capital. That capital is then either to increase our team, improve our technology team, our sales and marketing team, our operational team.

Michael Vassallo: Working with Maven and with the Finance Durham Fund doesn't just mean access to capital and money. We also provide a great deal of advice and support in helping businesses scale. It's only of the start of the journey, the point of investment. The important point is how ytou execute your growth plans.

Michael McCabe: So one of the reasons why I chose Finance Durham was because they were a local investment arm, they had offices here and I could actually go and meet the investment managers and pitch to them. And they had funds that were appropriate to the type of business that I wanted to grow.

Sarah Slaven: Maven bring with them that strong track record of investment fund management, national connections, but also a dedicated, committed, professional team.

Neil Spann: During the process of raising the investment, we enjoyed engaging with the Maven team, in particular the specialist they brought in to assess our technologies, and it was a very clear, straightforward process of raising the investment.

Michael McCabe: So the process from applying for funding to actually getting the investment was really straightforward.

Neil Spann: Working with a private equity firm such as Maven provides many opportunities in terms of access to other investors, getting the input from Maven and then executing that in a collaborative way.

Michael Vassallo: We're five years into the fund now, we've attracted private sector leverage, such as the volume of deals that we've actually delivered is an inward investment of the county, is close to £25 million. In this period, we've safeguarded and created hundreds of jobs, provided business support and advice to hundreds of companies and individuals looking to start businesses and grow businesses in the region