Finance South East is delighted to announce that the £5m South East Seed Fund is open for business
Release date: 27/01/2008
Finance South East (FSE) is delighted to announce the launch of the South East Seed Fund.
The new Fund fills a key position in FSE’s family of funds, between its Proof-of-Concept funds
and the Accelerator Fund, its mezzanine-debt growth fund.
 The South East Seed Fund is a £5 million fund to make equity investments in ambitious, highgrowth businesses based in the South East region of the UK. The Fund will support the
development of young businesses at an early stage, when funding from institutions or individuals is often hard to find. Investments will be made on typical venture-capital-industry terms.
Key investment parameters
A business eligible for consideration will meet the following criteria:
- Headquarters, significant operations or strong university links in the South East (Note 1)
- An incorporated company seeking equity funding
- Small or medium-sized enterprise seeking start-up or early-stage growth capital
- Funding requirement of up to £250,000 (Note 2)
- Funding from private sources to match the Fund’s investment will be required (Note 3)
- Not in an excluded sector (Note 4)
- No rescue or refinancing situations.
In addition the company should have the following:
-
Compelling, high-growth business case that is scalable
- Clearly sustainable competitive advantage, which may be based on Intellectual Property
- Readiness for market, with strong evidence of market demand
- Strong and committed management team
- Well-developed business plan and detailed financial projections
- A clear and realistic exit strategy for investors.
The parties
Investors in the Fund are a group of South East universities (under the programme of the
universities consortium known as CommercialiSE), SEEDA (the South East England
Development Agency) and ProLogis Developments Limited, the UK subsidiary of a listed US
company.
The universities are: Buckinghamshire New University, Oxford Brookes University, The
University of Reading, University of Brighton and University of Sussex.
The Fund Manager is South East Fund Managers Limited, which is authorised and regulated by
the FSA and is a subsidiary of Finance South East, an associate company of SEEDA.
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