AEGF ranked top fund in the UK by "thefunded.com"

The international VC industry feedback website "thefunded.com" ranks AEGF as top fund in the UK, and 2nd in Europe with an average ranking of 4.8 out of 5. The site lists over 3,700 funds with contact information for over 17,000 investment professionals working at those funds. There are approximately 7,300 Members, over 95% of whom are CEOs of well-know start-ups. The site is a staunch advocate of anonymity, allowing Members to post their honest feedback without concern for a stigma by venture capitalists.

July 2008: AEGF completes its 79th investment in 48 companies.

Investments in Trust Health Ltd, Self Awareness Limited and Sans Peur Estates Ltd at the beginning of July 2008 a brings the total number of investments made by the fund in 38 months to 79 (in 48 different companies).  The fund has invested a total of £6.44m and this has been matched by over 430 individual private investors with a further £18.07m meaning that the AEGF portfolio has attracted a total of  over £24m of additional equity investment to West Midlands based businesses.  AEGF is maintaining its target investment rate of three deals a month and is finding no shortage of good quality investment opportunities.

February 2008:Following support from AEGF Teamworks Karting succeeded in becoming the first company to sucessfully float on Birmingham's new stock exchange "InvestBX".

January 2008: Top industry feedback website - www.thefunded.com - "the premiere source of venture funding information for entrepreneurs and CEO's worldwide" currently ranks AEGF as the best fund in Europe to deal with!  TheFunded.com gives entrepreneurs receiving investments a chance to provide confidential feedback on their experience and comment on the funds they have dealt with.  TheFunded.com is beginning to have a major influence on the venture capital industry worldwide and is an important source of information for those seeking funding.  In less than a year has grown to over 4,000 entrepreneur members and now features over 3,600 funds.  With an average score of 4.7 out of 5 AEGF leads all the other European funds and only 20 out of 3,600 funds worldwide have a higher score!

8th November 2007 - 4th Annual Investee Conference: AEGF's 4th annual conference was another great success with over 130 people attending. During November two existing investee companies received additional investments from the fund and matching private investors.

7th September 2008: AEGF's 39th investment is in Polycomm Ltd, based in Pershore. PolyComm has been established to exploit patented technology for the oil industry and develop the next generation of ‘down hole’ power supplies and communication equipment allowing drilling over longer distances and at higher temperatures.

AEGF is the 8th most active investor in the UK! In a recent industry report by Library House AEGF is identified as the 8th equal most active investor in the UK during 2006 with 14 investments, only 4 behind 3i Group and 3 behind NESTA Ventures!  In a Top Ten list of public sector investors AEGF was 4th.  Taking into account that there are over 360 institutional investors and they made 634 investments between them during the year this is a remarkable achievement, made even more remarkable by the fact that we have only three full time and one part time staff!

For a copy of the report click here: www.libraryhouse.net/publications/downloads/UKVBReport_finallowres.pdf

2007 Conference: Plans are underway for the fourth annual investee company conference to be held on November 8th will be the biggest so far.  With 38 40 investments and over 380 400 private co-investors there should be plenty to talk about!

31st July 2007 Investment in SciSite Ltd brings the Fund's investment to £5.14m since February 2004.  This has been matched by £11.59m of investment from over 380 private investors and £5.6m in bank and other loan funding.  The Fund's latest investment, SciSite Ltd is a Keele University spin-out with an innovative non-destructive way of detecting rust in re-inforced concrete.

AEGF's continues to maintain its investment average of one deal a month making it consistently the most active VC fund in the region over the past 3.5 years!  At the end of May 07 the fund invested in Warwickshire-based Ephex Media Ltd, an established business involved in a range of video related production and development work.

May 2007 AEGF's investment has encouraged EHM to relocate to the West Midlands.  EHM provide an end to end screen advertising solution across the NHS, displaying dynamic health information direct to patients, visitors and NHS
staff in Hospitals and GP practises.  National, regional and local advertisers utilise the EHM network of screens to promote products and services to a huge audience of NHS users.  Screen time is divided three ways; giving information about the practice and which rooms patients should go to, general health information and advertising (both local and national). EHM is currently running campaigns with leading pharmaceutical companies raising awareness of COPD, Cervical Cancer vaccinations and other major health issues.

May 2007 AEGF announced an investment was in Wolverhampton based Medical Devices Technology International Ltd who work closely with the NHS to licence and exploit the many simple medical devices invented by NHS staff.  This investment brings the total invested by the Fund to just over £4.5m.  Interestingly, the fund now has over 350 individual co-investors who between them have invested £10.3m.

AEGF is finding that there are increasing opportunities for inter-trading and co-operation between its investee companies and with such a large portfolio there are now clusters of companies involved in such things as security, mobile telephone technology and the health industries.  By bringing them together the fund can offer more than just capital

3rd Annual Conference - The best one yet! Over 120 investee company directors, private investors, prospective investee companies and business advisers attended the third and largest AEGF conference on 9th November 2006.  Despite 26 presentations in a single day the atmosphere was remarkably positive and supportive and attracted a great deal of positive feedback such as “the best conference I have ever attended” and "It was a great day, lots of really good contacts and great presentations".  At least three companies received offers of funding from private investors and several joint ventures were discussed. Click here for a PDF newsletter giving more information about the AEGF Conference.  This year's conference will be held on 8th November 2007.

AEGF receives funding boost from Advantage West Midlands: Having exceeded expectations and invested £3m in 2.5 years against a plan of £4m over 5 years the Fund was in danger of running out of capital to invest.  However, Advantage West Midlands has provided a further £3m of capital which will allow the pace of investment to be maintained over the next 2.5 years, providing that suitable high quality investment opportunities can be found.

23rd November - AEGF completes its 42nd Investment since Feb 04!:  Based in Birmingham, Enigma Glass Ltd has developed a method of manufacturing glass tiles at a price competitive to ceramic tiles.  They have also patented a method of producing matching electrical switches and sockets to match the tiles as well as splash backs and work tops.  Future product plans include photo-voltaic solar roof tiles.

3rd November 2006: AEGF completed its 41st investment in Enate Limited, providers of the industry's leading software solution for Business Process Outsourcing.

September 2006: Plans are well underway for the third AEGF conference for investee companies on 9th November which will be much bigger this year because there are 50% more investee companies.  This year the 308+ private investors who have co-invested with the fund are being encouraged to join in.  AEGF is rare amongst venture capital funds in encouraging a 'family spirit' of intertrading and mutual support amongst its investments and it reflects AEGF's radical approach to managing a small fund.  As the portfolio grows and the number of individual investors increase, there are many more opportunities to share contacts and marketing information.  Joining the AEGF 'family' now provides a company with far more than just money ...

August 2006: Support for UK's fastest growing commercial radio: VFM Retail Radio Ltd provide music and point-of-sale advertising for shopping centres and individual stores using the internet and the existing PA system.  AEGF invested to help finance their plans to extend coverage and build a larger audience than any UK commercial radio station by Christmas 2006

AEGF's investment in Wapple.net Limited on 21st July 2006 was it's third new investment in only 4 weeks.  Wapple.net are based in Bromsgrove and have developed industry-leading website editing software aimed at producing websites for access by mobile phone or PDA.  A key advantage of the Wapple software is its ability to recognise the type of phone being used and adjust the formatting to make the best use of the display available.  Kevin Caley, AEGF's MD commented that the Fund is now seeing its best ever flow of new investment opportunities and the main constraint on making new investments was the requirement to always find private co-investors

On 30th June 2006 the Fund invested in Wolverhampton based 3rdiSecure Ltd who have developed a mobile phone based security camera system.  On 6th July the product was featured in some detail on ITV's 'This Morning' programme where it was demonstrated capturing images of an 'intruder' in the presenter's dressing room.

7th June 2006: AEGF Invested £100,000 alongside members of the Advantage Business Angels 'Claret' Investment Club in Access Management Systems Ltd, based in Bewdley, who supply a range of innovative 'intelligent locks, time tracking and biometric security.

On 28th April the Fund invested in DVD (UK) Ltd alongside members of the Advantage Business Angels 'Claret' and 'BIG' investment clubs.  DVD (UK) Ltd owns the rights to a range of video materials for distribution via DVD and other methods.

On 31st March AEGF completed its investment in an established consultancy business Profit Focused People Ltd who have developed a computer based method of delivering their business cost saving techniques.  They are based in Ombersley, Worcestershire.

20th March 2006: Piezotag Ltd successfully raises second round finance with which to complete product development

As a result of making very good progress in developing its 'next generation' tyre pressure monitoring system, Piezotag has successfully raised a second, much larger, round of equity investment from a range of existing and new private and institutional investors.  This allows the company to accelerate development work and remain significantly ahead of the competition.