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SEA expands in Altrincham’s landmark building

Sam Whitear
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Altrincham’s iconic building at 1-5 The Downs is one of the town’s office venues of choice and it has certainly proved to be a good one for Signing Enabling Access Ltd (SEA). It has continued to grow its business and has now taken a first floor suite of 500 sq ft in addition to the 1,000 sq ft of office space its parent company already occupies.

Signing Enabling Access Ltd provides care training services that benefit the deaf community, providing staff and services that are fully accessible to people who use BSL as their first or preferred language.

Signing Enabling Access Ltd’s spokesman said: “The business has expanded and grown beyond expectations and we are now able to offer more services to the deaf community. The extended office space provides us with valuable accommodation in which to train our staff to the highest level.”

Daniel Lee, managing director, Regional Property Solutions, responsible for the management and letting of the building on behalf of the landlord TELL Holdings, said: “Any available office suites in this building let very quickly so we are really pleased that this space became available at the right time for this existing occupier’s expansion requirement”.

KOMI Group makes ten new appointments across business

Sam Whitear
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KOMI Group – the Manchester headquartered social media, marketing, and licensing business – has grown its team by 10 since the start of the year. The new appointments are spread across the business and increases its total headcount to 62.

Aban Mechti joins KOMI as a social media manager from LadBible where he worked for two years. Aban’s focus will be on working with the firm’s network of social and viral content creators to manage the flow of content from submission through to client delivery.

Abbey Lam, James Farrington, Luke Hampson, Bailey Sadler, and Phoebe Johnson-Bird have all been appointed junior video editing coordinators. Their roles involve every part of the video creation process including ingesting, syncing, and editing footage as well as graphics and audio elements.

Hannah Green has joined KOMI as a junior graphic designer from Stonegate Group; Lewis Rattigan is a new gaming streamer; and Lucy-Kate Green is the company’s newest junior community coordinator. She joins from ASDA.

The final new starter is Jodie Giblin – KOMI’s new business development manager. Their last role was at MediaBodies in Leeds. They will be driving KOMI’s agency sales revenue, with a particular focus on selling partnerships and community management opportunities direct to brands and organisations.
Andrew Trotman – Managing Director of KOMI – said: “2022 is going to be a pivotal 12 months for the business as we capitalise on the growth that we have achieved over the past couple of years. Our success is as a result of the talent, creativity, and strategic thinking of our team so we are delighted to welcome each of these new starters as they all bring some fantastic experience that I’m sure will add real value to our offering.”

KOMI Group is a three-divisional business consisting of one of the UK’s largest digital publishing portfolios, a social first digital agency, and video content licensing hub. Its team of content creators, analysts and video producers have made and then distributed video content and viral campaign adverts for international brands such as BBC Films, O2, Universal, Bud Light and Disney.

Content is shared across its Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn accounts including the It’s Gone Viral page as well as Happiest, which focusses on bringing the most entertaining and inspiring real-life stories; and Ultimate which is a community based around home and lifestyle. On average the company delivers over one billion views across its portfolio of pages each month.
In September last year, ARK Media, KOMI’s licensing division, signed distribution partnerships with Reuters and AFLO that will give the business the opportunity to distribute its content to a broad network of leading international publishers and broadcasters for the first time.

Octopus moves to Bruntwood SciTech’s No.2 Circle Square as its recruitment drive heats up

Sam Whitear
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Renewable electricity provider Octopus Energy Group is moving into a brand new, hybrid office-retail base within Bruntwood SciTech’s No.2 Circle Square as part of a drive to create 300 new jobs in Manchester.

Combining its new 40,000 sq ft workspace with a 1,300 sq ft ground floor retail unit on Oxford Road, Octopus Energy is cementing its commitment to the city after its partnership with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) was announced in the autumn. Octopus is to trial green energy tariffs and heat pumps with customers in the city region, helping GMCA to meet its target of becoming carbon neutral by 2038.

In selecting the tech-led innovation district created by Bruntwood SciTech, which is a 50:50 joint venture between Bruntwood and Legal & General, Octopus joins taxi dispatch software provider Autocab, global technology provider Hewlett Packard Enterprise, tech-driven professional services firm Accenture, multinational construction technology supplier Hilti, cloud-based accountancy software company Xero, and tech industry specialist law firm Mills & Reeve.

No.1 and No.2 Circle Square have both been specifically designed to accommodate high growth digital and tech businesses, equipped with a range of collaborative and social spaces alongside an original line-up of retail and leisure outlets such as Canvas, a new live entertainment venue, and Hello Oriental, a destination pan-Asian market hall and dining concept.

Circle Square is also part of Bruntwood SciTech’s UK-wide network of innovation districts, which will provide Octopus with the opportunity to collaborate more widely with a 500-strong specialist community of tech and science-based businesses across the country.

Bradley Topps, Commercial Director, Bruntwood SciTech said: “Octopus complements our high-calibre line-up at Circle Square, as well as our ambition for this new neighbourhood to be the go-to home for high growth businesses operating within the digital-knowledge economy.

“Octopus is leading the way in its sector at a particularly critical moment for consumers as well as the planet, which means the impact of this move will be felt far beyond Circle Square and the jobs created. The innovations born here will have a long lasting impact.”

Devrim Celal, CEO of Octopus Energy Group’s KrakenFlex added: “Our team in Manchester is growing at rapid speed, driving the green energy tech revolution across the UK. So we were looking for a new office that would give us enough space that would accommodate our team while placing us in the heart of Manchester’s research ecosystem. The tech cluster at Circle Square offers up the rare-to-find combination of high levels of footfall, innovation and collaboration, fulfilling both of our requirements. It was a perfect match, and we can’t wait to move in.”

Located at the heart of Manchester’s Oxford Road Corridor, Circle Square is a joint venture between Bruntwood SciTech and Vita Group. Once complete, it will boast over 1,700 new homes, 1.2 million sq ft of workspace and over 100,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space, including a variety of boutique retailers, restaurants, bars and pavement cafes, all centred around Symphony Park, Manchester’s largest and newest city centre park.

Mike Bathurst of Helico Consulting advised Octopus Energy Group on the deal, while Knight Frank, Savills and JLL are Bruntwood SciTech’s retained agents on the scheme.

Green energy innovation in store with Exergy Solution’s move to Manchester

Sam Whitear
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Sustainable energy tech company, Exergy Solutions, has launched a European hub in Manchester – to support the UK’s transition to new power sources and renewable energy.

It is the UK-based operations of Japanese-founded company, Exergy Power Systems, the spinout from The University of Tokyo that has developed a unique high power battery energy storage system (BESS). Designed to rapidly respond to electricity network fluctuations caused among others, by the less predictable nature of renewables, the technology can be retrofitted to give existing power assets, such as back-up generators, new abilities to perform in a hybrid system.

Bringing 6 specialist jobs to the city region with sights set on further expansion, it is one of a growing number of specialist energy and environment companies to confirm a move to Manchester – with collaborations now underway to develop its grid control software and existing technology for the UK and European markets.

Dr Mike Musil, CEO of the UK-based operations – Exergy Solutions Limited, said: “We chose Manchester as our European base because of the clear vision it has for its own net zero future and the specialist digital and engineering talent the city attracts. It also provides us with the opportunity to establish the right partnerships, being in the North West.

“The sectors move to renewables has brought with it new challenges for reliable energy transition – with unpredictability of power supply and many assets too slow to react to grid disturbances. The Dynamic Containment (DC) market requires very fast reaction times from providers and the requirements are too challenging for some assets, such as back-up generators and fuel cells. Our team has developed a battery energy storage system with a patented cell design and chemistry, to provide fast power supply to support both the grid through DC provision and large power consumers through uninterruptible power supply (UPS) services thanks to our small capacity, high power battery, these capabilities can be provided with a lower environmental impact and at a lower cost. We are therefore developing an energy management system to hybridise our BESS with any other assets to maximise the capabilities thereof.”

It is also collaborating with The University of Sheffield, an expert in maximising the capabilities of BESS, to develop its 1 MW containerised system with funding from Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo Gas. It will simulate the hybrid operation in a virtual power plant and demonstrate how the system can participate in the Dynamic Containment (DC) market.

Tim Newns, Chief Executive of MIDAS Greater Manchester’s inward investment agency, which supports significant expansion and relocations into Greater Manchester, said: “Manchester saw significant growth in the energy and environment sector last year – and Exergy Solutions is a powerful example of the green innovation happening here. As a city region, we are taking important steps towards Greater Manchester’s own net carbon neutral 2038 target – as well as seeing major moves by companies developing the innovation to support a greener economy here in the UK and internationally.

MIDAS, in collaboration with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority is hosting a virtual conference on 9th February 2022, highlighting the low carbon business opportunities for Japanese companies. Guests will hear directly from Exergy Power Systems and Kansai Electric Power Company about their experiences and how they’re capitalising on the opportunities presented by the city region.

7 Tips for Mentally Recovering After a Car Accident

Sam Whitear
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Ex-Apple executive, Social Chain co-founder and Praetura Ventures back pioneering AdTech business

Sam Whitear
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Apple’s former director of US consumer retail, and the co-founder of Social Chain have been named as investors in Illuma, an AdTech business that’s spearheading the future of advertising, alongside venture capital investor, Praetura Ventures.

The company, which is already disrupting the digital advertising industry with its unique GDPR-compliant AI platform, uses contextual signals from live advertising campaigns to help brands make better decisions about where to place ads in real time, without using personal data or cookies, which are being phased out.

As well as investing alongside Praetura Ventures, Colin, who is responsible for supporting Praetura’s portfolio companies and founders as an operational partner, will also join the Illuma Technology board, bringing decades of global technology and enterprise experience.

Fellow operational partner Dominic McGregor, who is also investing through Praetura Ventures, will work with Illuma as a consultant to aid the company’s expansion into social, after he and Dragons’ Den newcomer Steven Bartlett grew Social Chain into a global agency which debuted on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Illuma, which works with several of the world’s biggest brands and advertising platforms, is expecting to capitalise on Google’s plan to end cookies support on Chrome by 2023, as more and more global brands look to re-route their ad spend.

In an industry first, advertisers using Illuma can maximise their return on investment (ROI) by considering sophisticated details about best-performing contexts, such as article sentiment and reader mindset. Using these insights, they can then expand campaigns in real time, reaching relevant new audiences at scale.

Illuma plans to use the investment to expand beyond display ads and into connected TV, audio and social media. The company is also planning to grow its technology, business development and client services teams as well as increase its presence in the US. Financial details of the investment are undisclosed.

On Illuma’s impact, Colin Greene said: “Having worked for over a decade at one of the biggest technology companies in the world responsible for the elimination of cookies, I know how important the privacy debate has been in completely reshaping the market. Illuma, like all great disruptors, has not only seen an opportunity to shift the needle but is also having an immense amount of success doing so, which isn’t always easy in a space that’s as established as advertising.”

Reflecting on the opportunity for advertisers, Dominic McGregor said: “Illuma Technology’s ad platform is an incredibly exciting prospect for advertisers, who are constantly looking for innovative ways to improve ROI and reach audiences they may not be targeting currently. With ongoing conversations around privacy and the future of advertising after cookies, Illuma is well poised to disrupt the industry and do something incredibly unique and exciting.”

Peter Mason, co-founder and CEO of Illuma, said: “Illuma has the privilege of being the right technology at the exact right moment in time, and we are excited to be offering a solution to the greatest challenge in digital advertising. Bolstered by this new investment from Praetura and with the unparalleled expertise of Colin Greene and Dominic McGregor guiding our next steps, the future looks very bright indeed for Illuma and the brands we work with.”

RBS agrees £8m revolving credit agreement with Manchester’s Express Solicitors

Sam Whitear
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Manchester-based personal injury law firm, Express Solicitors, has signed a revolving credit agreement with The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) worth £8m.

The RBS funding will support the firm and give it the flexibility to achieve its ambitious growth plans. It will help finance a strategy based on both organic and acquisition-based expansion, as well as make funds available for increased marketing spend and the recruitment of more employees from graduates to partners.

In September, Express Solicitors Group announced its best ever financial results from April 2020 to April 2021, with group turnover up by 14% from last year to £31.3m and caseloads growing by 36% to 19,015. During this financial year, Express Solicitors employed a further 162 members of staff including a clinical negligence partner and in-house barrister and made 56 promotions, six of these to partner.

Express Solicitors is proud to have achieved all of this, despite all the challenges brought by the pandemic and firmly believes that with the backing of RBS it can go on to gain a greater share of the market in 2022.

James Maxey, managing director at Express Solicitors said: “RBS has given us its funding support for over 21 years and has been integral to the firm’s success. It has enabled significant growth through acquisitions and helped us in implementing a solid marketing strategy, training programmes that help us promote from within and recruiting the best talent out there to service both new clients and our loyal customer base.

“We’ve always been a very ambitious firm and this £8m revolving credit agreement with RBS will not only help us to expand but, crucially, while doing so, retain the high service levels our clients have come to expect.

“We’ve worked with RBS since we first set up the firm in 2000 and its team has continued to work alongside us to develop packages that support our long-term growth strategy; the help and support they’ve provided us along the way has been second to none.”

Paul Gaynor, Relationship Director at The Royal Bank of Scotland said: “We’re delighted to provide funding that will support Express Solicitors in continuing to do brilliant work. We’ve known the management team for many years and are very confident it has the experience, expertise, ambition and resources to meet its objectives in what can be a challenging market.”

Express Solicitors has 389 employees and is ranked in The Lawyer Top 200. Its lawyers and the firm are recognised in The Legal 500 and the firm is noted in Chambers and Partners. Express Solicitors specialises in personal injury and accident claims, clinical negligence claims and serious injury cases.

Express Solicitors has a large number of roles available to people already in the legal sector, or those looking to join for the first time. For details on positions from admin assistants and customer service representatives, to solicitors, IT technicians and more, visit the careers page: https://www.expresssolicitors.co.uk/about/careers

Manchester-based edtech start-up offers personalised parenting guidance for the formative years of a child’s life

Sam Whitear
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My First Five Years, the personalised parenting guidance start-up, has raised £1.4 million in investment to develop its early years education technology app, as the business targets 250,000 users in the next three years.

The edtech start-up, which offers advice to parents in the formative years of their child’s life, was founded in 2021 by Jennie Johnson and Alistair Bryce-Clegg, who both already have successful careers in education and childcare. It previously raised £200,000 seed funding in 2021.

The Manchester-based business has secured its funding from a series of sources including the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) fund, which supports job growth in the region and five unnamed high-net-worth entrepreneurs and business owners in the North West.

Jennie Johnson, co-founder at My First Five Years said: “We’re thrilled to have secured the funding which will allow us to continue operating for at least the next 15 months. We’ve got ambitious targets for growth, including content and app development, and this funding is vital to helping us in the next stage of our journey.

“We’re also pleased for the funding to have come from the immediate area and we were again oversubscribed. We pitched to 30 venture capital firms in the end and many firms do not seem to have the funds to invest in business at our stage. However, through the network and connections we have established, and the support received through the Exchange scale-up scheme, we have managed to secure the funds needed for us to continue to grow.”

Targets for 250,000 users in three years

The company has submitted its app to the Apple iOS store this week and will commission the development of an identical Android app this month.

Johnson, continued: “We launched a beta version of the app to 1,100 users five months ago and we’ve been lucky enough to be able to shape the app’s development based on their feedback and tune into what real parents have found useful, to create a feature-rich product earlier than we anticipated.”

The early years edtech app also has more than 1,000 registrations from users interested in the product once it arrives on the app store and is targeting 250,000 users in the next three years following its latest round of funding.

Plans for further job creation

The firm currently employs 14 staff and has plans to recruit a number of early years content specialists as it continues to develop its library of more than 2,600 skills and activity resources parents can use to support their child in their first five years. The business is also recruiting for a technical role and product owner in the coming months.

Johnson continued: “We want to continue to focus on what we’re good at and be unashamedly best in class. The idea remains to bring something really unique to the child development space.”

Marvel in the moments, not just the milestones

The app is designed to help parents support their child’s development with just the items in their kitchen cupboard and items found outside. Its philosophy remains to genuinely change how parents help their children learn. The app delivers timely content that is of interest to parents based on where their child is on their journey. It also features a scrapbook feature that allows parents to digitally collate videos and pictures and share them with friends and family.

Johnson said: “The app allows parents to marvel in the moments, not just the milestones. It helps parents to tune into their children’s progress and what they’re learning, and provide them with the knowledge of how best to support their children. It is a celebratory app – many products focus on concern and anxiety rather than what is happening and what is coming next. Our philosophy is to really change how parents help their child learn.”

Support from Exchange scale-up scheme

My First Five Years is part of Exchange, a digital and technology start-up support programme located at Department Bonded Warehouse in Enterprise City. The scheme supports and empowers the next generation of UK start-ups, giving them a city-centre workspace, the tools they need to scale their businesses, a peer-to-peer network of founders, and expert advice from industry partners.

Johnson continued: “The Exchange scheme has been incredibly helpful in our start-up journey so far. David Levine, the entrepreneur in residence, has been invaluable and has helped us think differently as a business. The events have given us insights we wouldn’t have otherwise had access to, and the team’s support with the fundraising and introducing connections have made the process of fundraising much easier.”

Councillor David Molyneux, GMCA lead for Investment and Resources, said: “GMCA was impressed with Jennie’s experience and the way technology was being adapted to improve the lives of parents and young children.”

“The continued development of My First Five Years supports the growth of Greater Manchester’s thriving digital economy. The growth of the app will also create a number of new good-quality jobs in the sector for the city-region.”

My First Five Years partnered with Manchester-based Apadmi, a mobile-first digital agency, to bring their idea to life.

The collaboration saw the submission of the My First Five Years app to the Apple iOS store this week…

Apadmi have been creating digital products for mobile users and big-name brands for over 20 years including the likes of the NHS, SailGP, and Co-op, which ensured they were the perfect fit for My First Five Years.

Apadmi said: “This app fills a huge gap in the market by creating a safe and supportive learning space for parents, to support their child’s unique development. We’re so proud to have worked with Jennie Johnson MBE, Alistair Bryce-Clegg, and the team on this project. We’re excited to watch it grow from strength to strength.”

CTS KICKS OFF 2022 WITH A BANG FOLLOWING A RECORD YEAR OF GROWTH AND ACCOLADES

Sam Whitear
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CTS is on track for another exciting year of growth after achieving a record-breaking year of sales and customer wins during 2021.

The company, which is already one of Europe’s largest dedicated Google Cloud Partners, celebrated a record year of sales with revenues for its Google Cloud platform up 200% in 2021.

The past 12 months have also seen CTS secure several top industry awards and accreditations. This includes being named by Google as UK Workspace Enterprise partner of the year and EMEA Public Sector partner of the year for GCP, thanks to work that propels organisations such as Travis Perkins, South East Water and VidaXL on their cloud journeys.

CTS also achieved GCP Infrastructure Specialisation status, which recognises partners that have demonstrated success with customers in modernising, architecting, and building Google Cloud Platform infrastructure and workflows.

More recently, the company has renewed their Google Cloud Managed Services Provider (MSP) accreditation, following a rigorous third-party assessment of its people, process, tooling, and service to customers. CTS secured the status thanks to its continued commitment to excellence in supporting customers with both migrations and continuous improvement on Google Cloud Platform.

The assessment process required a detailed audit of managed services practises which included a deep dive into areas such as GCP technical knowledge, technical support, and operations, design and migration of GCP environments, security, and customer satisfaction.

The MSP accreditation continues to highlight CTS as a top-tier Google Cloud partner, which in turn also means that the company qualifies for premium GCP support, which is of great benefit to customers.

2021 also saw a restructure of the CTS leadership team, with former COO Chris Bunch moving into a Managing Director role, while previous MD Tom Ray was named CEO of the wider CTS Group, with oversight for both CTS and its partner company Cloud M.

Chris Bunch, Managing Director at CTS, said: “It’s safe to say that we had a great 2021. Google Cloud continue to accelerate their growth, and CTS have been – and will be – right alongside them.

“As we look forward to 2022, we expect another year of record numbers and a range of interesting solutions to be created for our amazing customers, across both GCP and Google Workspace.

Regency Factors announces UK support for SMEs in 2021

Sam Whitear
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Regency Factors Ltd one of the UK’s leading invoice finance and factoring companies is pleased to announce that over £90m was paid out to UK SME’s in 2021 with our bespoke invoice finance solutions. Ensuring that our clients were supporting throughout 2021 by releasing the cash tied up in their unpaid invoices.

“Through the relationship Regency, we have grown sales by over 50%. This growth would have been constrained had funding not been available through the invoice finance facility.”

A current client, a clothing manufacturer, based in London, needed a funding solution that would allow them to supply customers both within the UK and beyond our borders. The funding from Regency has enabled the client to provide credit terms to customers, something they were previously unable to offer and subsequently

Regency Factors, based in Greater Manchester with a nationwide coverage, provide bespoke invoice finance solutions to UK SME’s providing vital cashflow from their unpaid invoices. We work with hundreds of businesses to weather the financial storm with tailored and affordable solutions.

Rachel Craft of Regency: “Our goal is to help businesses grow and our dedicated team works tirelessly to ensure that this happens”

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