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11 April 2006
Scottish Enterprise is now able to offer risk capital support for growing businesses right through from early stage to development stage with the introduction of three complementary Network-wide investment products: - the Scottish Seed Fund, the Scottish Co-investment Fund and the Scottish Venture Fund.
This suite of products, provided in partnership with the private sector, will form the building blocks of funding packages for many more Scottish businesses helping to grow and retain these businesses in Scotland and enabling the development of more companies of scale within the Scottish economy.
Director of Investment, Gerard Kelly, said: The re-prioritisation at SE required some hard decisions and difficult choices for our organisation as we looked at what areas of the business would have the greatest economic impact.
We believe that by strengthening the Investment Directorate and offering this suite of complementary investment products we can have a direct and significant impact on the Scottish economy. We have had great success with the Scottish Co-Investment Fund and we hope to mirror that success in both of these new funds.
The SCF has contributed £17.3 million and leveraged in a further £40.7 million from the private sector.
The two new investment funds will be the Scottish Seed Fund, and the Scottish Venture Fund.
The Scottish Seed Fund will be launched in April 2006 and will invest up to £100,000 in start ups and early stage businesses seeking to raise their first round of growth capital. As well as receiving company investment proposal via the Scottish Enterprise Network, the Seed Fund will be able to receive deals directly from individual business angels via LINC Scotland.
The Scottish Venture Fund will be able to invest up to £2m in individual deals, with the private sector at least matching SEs investment on a pari passu basis, within equity deals typically in the range of £2-5m but with the flexibility to invest in larger deal under specific circumstances.
The Business Growth Fund will be suspended for two years as of April 2006 so that we can concentrate on realising value from its mature portfolio of over 260 investments. Companies which would have sought investment from the Business Growth Fund will now be able to seek investment from either the Seed Fund or the Co-Investment Fund.
The objective of our investment activity is to work in partnership with the private sector to provide capital and expertise that will enable more Scottish companies to develop and grow from a Scottish base, retaining high value services in Scotland, with the aspiration that more Scottish companies can become internationally competitive companies of scale.
For further information contact Nicola McGowan on
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