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July 2023
Develops AI that resembles human brains. HQ: Salford. Funding: £3.7m. Founded: 2017.
Gig economy app to find work and access wages early. HQ: Manchester. Funding: £7.5m. Founded: 2016
Virtual simulation training for medical professionals. HQ: Manchester. Funding: £3.4m. Founded: 2019.
Recruitment tool that assesses potential workers for employers. HQ: Manchester. Funding: £12.3m. Founded: 2014.
Developer of a new form of brain tumour treatment technology. HQ: Manchester. Funding: £4.4m Founded: 2018
A fibre network disruptor, connecting homes and businesses in cities and rural areas, offering optical fibre connectivity. HQ: Salford. Funding: £100m. Founded: 2020.
Wearable tech for sports and fitness. HQ: Manchester. Funding: £7.5m. Founded: 2019.
Automated fraud and low-value click protection. HQ: Manchester. Funding: £13m. Founded: 2018.
Climate tech startup that has created home construction processes with major carbon reductions. HQ: Prestwich, Bury. Funding: £975,000. Founded: 2020.
A platform that supports technical and commercial teams to build, deploy and manage AI applications at scale. HQ: Manchester. Funding: £92m. Founded: 2014.
No-code solution to develop new generative AI integrations. HQ: Stockport. Funding: £450,000 Founded: 2021.
AI-powered content creation tool for brand and marketing teams. HQ: Manchester. Funding: £150,000. Founded: 2019.
Simon Mellin, Tom Shaw, Becky Hilton and Paul White started Modern Milkman with a truck in Colne, Lancashire, in 2018. The delivery startup began by delivering milk, but has since expanded to include groceries such as eggs, butter, bread, fruit and vegetables. The founders were inspired by “Saint David Attenborough” to reduce the impact of plastic waste on the planet.
“We founded Modern Milkman on the basis that being sustainable should be convenient and we’re delighted to have secured the support of so many incredible businesses to further accelerate our eco-ambitions and empower the next phase in sustainable technology,” said Mellin, the company’s CEO.
Modern Milkman says it is bringing milk rounds into the 21st century through data analytics to manage customer orders from the app, track shelf-life dates and map out routes for the deliveries. Radio frequency identification inlays and tags are also used by the company to monitor the life of the glass bottles.
According to the startup, it has saved more than 55 million plastic bottles. Praetura Ventures invested £2.25m into the plastic-free delivery company in July 2022, which was part of a wider £50m Series C funding round announced later in November for its global expansion. The Series C saw participation from branding and packaging firm Avery Dennison, and it was followed by crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, in which Modern Milkman raised more than £560,000 from angel investors.
Simon Mellin, Tom Shaw, Becky Hilton and Paul White started Modern Milkman with a truck in Colne, Lancashire, in 2018. The delivery startup began by delivering milk, but has since expanded to include groceries such as eggs, butter, bread, fruit and vegetables. The founders were inspired by “Saint David Attenborough” to reduce the impact of plastic waste on the planet.
“We founded Modern Milkman on the basis that being sustainable should be convenient and we’re delighted to have secured the support of so many incredible businesses to further accelerate our eco-ambitions and empower the next phase in sustainable technology,” said Mellin, the company’s CEO.
Modern Milkman says it is bringing milk rounds into the 21st century through data analytics to manage customer orders from the app, track shelf-life dates and map out routes for the deliveries. Radio frequency identification inlays and tags are also used by the company to monitor the life of the glass bottles.
According to the startup, it has saved more than 55 million plastic bottles. Praetura Ventures invested £2.25m into the plastic-free delivery company in July 2022, which was part of a wider £50m Series C funding round announced later in November for its global expansion. The Series C saw participation from branding and packaging firm Avery Dennison, and it was followed by a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, in which Modern Milkman raised more than £560,000 from angel investors.
Launched in 2016, BankiFi provides SMEs with various white label financial tools such as invoicing, payments and accounting. The embedded finance company’s goal is to improve the relationship between a bank and its small business customers.
Headquartered at Beehive Mill on Jersey Street in Manchester, BankiFi’s team is spread across the US, Australia and Belgium. Founder and CEO Mark Hartley was the chief innovation officer for Clear2Pay before launching Bankifi.
Praetura Ventures led a £4m funding round into the fintech in August 2022, a round that also drew investment from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). The company raised funds to support its move into the US market and open a sales office, hiring Keith Riddle to lead BankiFi’s America division. It has since hired Lindsay Hodges to oversee product management and client success in the region.
BankiFi had previously raised £2.2m in September 2021, also led by Praetura Ventures with support from the GMCA, to open its Australia office. To date, the firm has secured £7.5m in total capital from backers such as Nationwide Building Society. It has grown to a team of nearly 50 employees. Its customers include TSB and Axiom Bank.
Launched in 2016, BankiFi provides SMEs with various white label financial tools such as invoicing, payments and accounting. The embedded finance company’s goal is to improve the relationship between a bank and its small business customers.
Headquartered at Beehive Mill on Jersey Street in Manchester, BankiFi’s team is spread across the US, Australia and Belgium. Founder and CEO Mark Hartley was the chief innovation officer for Clear2Pay before launching Bankifi.
Praetura Ventures led a £4m funding round into the fintech in August 2022, a round that also drew investment from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). The company raised funds to support its move into the US market and open a sales office, hiring Keith Riddle to lead BankiFi’s America division. It has since hired Lindsay Hodges to oversee product management and client success in the region.
BankiFi had previously raised £2.2m in September 2021, also led by Praetura Ventures with support from the GMCA, to open its Australia office. To date, the firm has secured £7.5m in total capital from backers such as Nationwide Building Society. It has grown to a team of nearly 50 employees. Its customers include TSB and Axiom Bank.
HACE is an impact startup that uses data and AI to tackle the issue of child labour and support ethical action from companies. Founded in 2020, HACE has developed an index designed for financial institutions and investors that will help them make informed decisions on which firms are compliant with anti-child labour regulations.
The company has said that an estimated 10% of children globally are involved in child labour and it is not always clear which firms are guilty of perpetuating this. HACE’s child labour index scores companies on their involvement in child labour using AI to analyse public perception, company disclosure and risk.
The platform-based solution can be integrated into clients’ existing ESG data platforms. HACE was founded by Eleanor Harry, who has a background of working in corporate sustainability. Harry says that building her company in Manchester has supported growth.
“Manchester is increasingly seen as the innovation hub of the UK, especially in the technology sector,” Harry said. “There are almost limitless networking options in the city, which are always well populated with other entrepreneurs.”
Harry added that proximity to The University of Manchester and University of Salford allowed the company’s “academic research arm” to make a strategic partnership that helped HACE to “expand its recruitment network further towards passionate and innovative young people”.
HACE has been backed by a £50,000 grant from Greater Manchester AI Foundry and has participated in a handful of startup growth programmes, including the NatWest entrepreneur accelerator and CISL Women in Sustainability Innovation.
HACE is an impact startup that uses data and AI to tackle the issue of child labour and support ethical action from companies. Founded in 2020, HACE has developed an index designed for financial institutions and investors that will help them make informed decisions on which firms are compliant with anti-child labour regulations.
The company has said that an estimated 10% of children globally are involved in child labour and it is not always clear which firms are guilty of perpetuating this. HACE’s child labour index scores companies on their involvement in child labour using AI to analyse public perception, company disclosure and risk.
The platform-based solution can be integrated into clients’ existing ESG data platforms. HACE was founded by Eleanor Harry, who has a background of working in corporate sustainability. Harry says that building her company in Manchester has supported growth.
“Manchester is increasingly seen as the innovation hub of the UK, especially in the technology sector,” Harry said. “There are almost limitless networking options in the city, which are always well populated with other entrepreneurs.”
Harry added that proximity to The University of Manchester and University of Salford allowed the company’s “academic research arm” to make a strategic partnership that helped HACE to “expand its recruitment network further towards passionate and innovative young people”.
HACE has been backed by a £50,000 grant from Greater Manchester AI Foundry and has participated in a handful of startup growth programmes, including the NatWest entrepreneur accelerator and CISL Women in Sustainability Innovation.
Be.EV specialises in the operation and maintenance of public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations based in the city of Manchester. Founded in 2019, the company was created with the idea that everyone – not just the wealthy – should be able to make the switch to EVs. The founding team saw a lack of public charging infrastructure beyond London and wanted to bring the technology to less represented areas in the UK.
Be.EV is currently the largest provider of EV charging facilities in Greater Manchester, having secured major contracts in Manchester, as well as Bury, Stockport, Trafford, Rochdale and other towns in the North of England, such as Warrington.
The company secured £110m in funding from the Sky Fund from Octopus Energy in October 2022. Octopus had already been working with the startup by providing electricity to its charging stations. The investment allowed the company to ramp up the rollout of its charging stations across Northern England. Be.EV was founded by current CEO Asif Ghafoor and Adrian Fielden-Gray.
“Greater Manchester is one of the fastest growing regions in the UK. We are lucky to have an amazing mayor and forward-thinking councils,” Ghafoor said. “The region genuinely wants to help tech firms grow, and our work with councils and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has really helped accelerate the business.”
Ghafoor praised the region’s top universities for providing a “great pool of talent” to drive business growth, adding that Greater Manchester provides opportunities to work with the rest of the North of England.
“There’s exciting work going on between Liverpool, Manchester and cities in West Yorkshire,” he adds. “These collaborations span up into the North East too and present a real opportunity for businesses to supercharge their growth.”
Be.EV specialises in the operation and maintenance of public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations based in the city of Manchester. Founded in 2019, the company was created with the idea that everyone – not just the wealthy – should be able to make the switch to EVs. The founding team saw a lack of public charging infrastructure beyond London and wanted to bring the technology to less represented areas in the UK.
Be.EV is currently the largest provider of EV charging facilities in Greater Manchester, having secured major contracts in Manchester, as well as Bury, Stockport, Trafford, Rochdale and other towns in the North of England, such as Warrington.
The company secured £110m in funding from the Sky Fund from Octopus Energy in October 2022. Octopus had already been working with the startup by providing electricity to its charging stations. The investment allowed the company to ramp up the rollout of its charging stations across Northern England. Be.EV was founded by current CEO Asif Ghafoor and Adrian Fielden-Gray.
“Greater Manchester is one of the fastest growing regions in the UK. We are lucky to have an amazing mayor and forward-thinking councils,” Ghafoor said. “The region genuinely wants to help tech firms grow, and our work with councils and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has really helped accelerate the business.”
Ghafoor praised the region’s top universities for providing a “great pool of talent” to drive business growth, adding that Greater Manchester provides opportunities to work with the rest of the North of England.
“There’s exciting work going on between Liverpool, Manchester and cities in West Yorkshire,” he adds. “These collaborations span up into the North East too and present a real opportunity for businesses to supercharge their growth.”
Located in Manchester’s city centre, Praetura Ventures is one of the main investors within the region’s tech sector. It invested in 23 Manchester-based companies between 2013 and 2022, according to Beahurst data. Its portfolio companies include Bankifi, Orka and Patchwork. Recently, it provided funding for virtual training platform Re:course AI and Macclesfield-based AeroCloud’s Series A.
It manages the GMC Life Sciences Fund, which consists of commitments from Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Bruntwood SciTech with Cheshire and Warrington LEP. The venture capital firm also runs an enterprise investment scheme (EIS) growth fund, which last year surpassed £100m after launching in 2019. Its total assets under management stand at £213m.
The Manchester-based investor is currently raising £10m for its venture capital trust for North of England startups. Its VCT already has £1.02m in the pot from directors and those closely connected with Praetura Ventures.
The angel investment network is a joint initiative started by Investment bank GP Bullhound and commercial property business Bruntwood in June 2022. It invests in technology and life sciences businesses with a pre-money valuation smaller than £5m. Typically its angels participate in pre-seed and seed rounds requiring anywhere between £50,000 and £1.5m. In its first year, the network invested around £475,000 into Greater Manchester startups.
There are around 30 active angels in the group. GP Bullhound’s vice president Ed Prior is the director of Manchester Angels. Fixtuur founder David Levine is principal for the network and a non-executive director and advisor for some Manchester tech firms. Levine says the network was “set up specifically to fill the early-stage funding gap” for startups reaching the minimum viable product stage.
“Manchester has incredible founders building true venture-scale businesses by disrupting very large markets – but with very few exceptions there is nobody funding those early-stage businesses with the right type of operator-led experience that supports those founders by unlocking their ambitions,” Levine said.
Manchester Angels is partnered with Praetura Ventures, Northern Gritstone, Octopus Ventures, and The University of Manchester’s Innovation Factory.
Sure Valley Ventures is a more recent addition to the Greater Manchester investment space. The early-stage investor, which focuses on AI software companies, branched out to Manchester and Leeds last year as part of a strategy to identify more startups across the UK. Based out of the Manchester Technology Centre, Sure Valley Ventures has George Mensah as principal and Ciaran Rawcliffe as investment analyst for the region.
Sure Valley Ventures landed £85m for its AI, cybersecurity and metaverse UK Software Venture Capital Fund to invest in 25 startups. Backers of the fund include a £50m contribution from the British Business Bank. In total, it has approximately £140m in assets under management.
While it is yet to close its first investment in the Greater Manchester region, it has been active in the region’s tech scene. Elsewhere it co-led CCTV software business Everyangle’s round in October and led the £3m seed investment in the AI workflow startup Jaid in December. John Frizelle was brought on board to Sure Valley Ventures this year as CTO and venture partner, bringing experience in the same role at blockchain games studio Emergent Games. Alongside its offices in the North of England, it has a presence in London, Dublin, Waterford and Cambridge.
Northern Gritstone was created by the Universities of Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield to support the startups and spinouts in the regions. It is located at Circle Square in Manchester city centre and led by Duncan Johnson, former boss at Caledonia Private Capital. Northern Gritstone is chaired by former Treasury minister and chief economist at Goldman Sachs, Lord O’Neill.
It first closed £215m in 2022, with backing coming from the likes of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund, the Greater Manchester Pension Fund and others. The majority of the investor’s pot comes from pension funds, but it has also secured funds from British Patient Capital, which provided £30m in March. As of March 2023, its total assets under management stood at £245m.
So far it has supplied finance to Manchester medtech Imperagen, healthcare virtual training platform Re:course AI, and X-ray startup Silveray. Outside of Manchester, Northern Gritstone has invested in Sheffield spinout Opteran and Leeds spinout LC AuxeTec.
Venture capital firm BGF has a wide UK reach. In Manchester, it operates from its office at 1 Marsden Street in the city centre, which homes 10 of its investors and CEO Andy Gregory. The investor has backed seven Greater Manchester tech firms with a combined £76.9m. They are: Celerity, Driveworks, Gaist Holdings, KCA Holdings, Planixs Group, Unique Digital and Voicescape.
Neil Inskip, head of BGF North West, said: “Greater Manchester has built up a vibrant tech ecosystem rivalling any hub across the UK. It’s bursting with talent, has fantastic connections with leading universities, as well as benefiting from the stature and influence that a heavyweight city such as Manchester can bring.”
In 2022, BGF provided £69m of funds to early-stage businesses, £38m in new companies and £31m in existing investments. Its total assets under management across the whole UK stand at £2.34bn. “The region is brimming with innovative and entrepreneurial tech companies, pushing the boundaries in sub-segments such as cloud-based IT, AI, and data. They are taking that expertise and translating it into sectors such as retail, manufacturing, banking, and property,” adds Inskip.
Early-stage investor DSW Ventures, the investment division of the Dow Schofield Watts group, is another recent addition to the Manchester tech investment space. It closed a £2m SEIS fund in May to invest in early-stage startups based outside of the ‘golden triangle’ of London, Cambridge and Oxford and is aiming to address a “regional imbalance” for funding.
It typically takes part in rounds of up to £2m in “founder-led” startups. Dow Schofield Watts’ partners and associates have committed £295,000 to DSW Ventures’ fund. It is based in St James’s Tower, Manchester, with further offices in Cheshire, Glasgow, Leeds, Reading, Aberdeen, London and Edinburgh.
Its Manchester investments include white-label customer loyalty software developer Propello, which closed a £650,000 seed funding round in December led by DSW Ventures, and ecommerce software startup Shopblocks. So far it has invested £2.1m in Greater Manchester startups and has £12.5m in total assets under management.
Healthy deal activity demonstrates Manchester's tech strength
Nick Wyatt
M&A partner, RSM.
Nick Wyatt
M&A partner, RSM.
During the 2023 London Tech Week, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the UK as an “island of innovation”, highlighting the importance of investment in making it “the best country in the world to start, grow and invest in tech businesses”. Whilst London will be a key driver in this, the regions have a significant role to play. Manchester – widely recognised as one of the largest tech hubs outside of London – is well positioned, in part thanks to its healthy deal flow and merger and acquisition (M&A) activity.
Companies House data analysed by RSM shows that 3,285 of the 46,474 tech companies incorporated in the UK in 2022 are based in the North West – the highest outside London and the South East. This is a 29% increase on 2021 levels. Manchester showed its strength as a tech hub by maintaining the number one spot as the leading tech city in the UK outside of London, according to the CBRE’s 2022 UK Tech Cities report. It’s safe to say that tech entrepreneurs and founders see the North West as a strong place to start and grow a tech business. So, what about investment?
In 2022 the UK tech sector retained its number one spot in Europe for investment and number three globally. The £24bn raised by UK tech companies was more than France and Germany combined. The regions played a key role in this. Manchester is one of eight UK cities that is home to two or more unicorn companies valued at $1bn or more. In fact, Manchester is home to six. The record £532m raised by Manchester tech companies in 2022 represented a 50% increase on 2021 – it was also more than many major European cities including Rome, Brussels, Warsaw and Lisbon.
According to data from PitchBook, Manchester was home to 135 tech deals in 2022, making it the third most active outside of London after Cambridge (261) and Bristol (225). Whilst this represents a reduction on the 158 deals it saw in 2021, this slowdown has been seen across the globe with worldwide tech deal volumes falling by 10% following the boom of 2021. Looking back further, the long-term trend in Manchester tech deal volumes is positive. Since 2015, the city has shown a 6.4% CAGR in deal volume – the highest of all the UK’s eight most active regional tech cities including London.
Manchester tech sector M&A activity has continued to go from strength to strength and is now one of the most active in the UK. Despite a global slowdown in M&A activity following the highs of 2022, the future remains bright and Greater Manchester is set to play a key role in the UK’s tech growth.
Find out more about RSM by visiting https://www.rsmuk.com/ 
