Imperial Innovations Group Regulatory News (IVO)

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27 July 2015

Imperial Innovations Group plc

Innovations completes £3.0 million investment in Concirrus

Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM: IVO, 'the Group', 'Innovations') has completed a £3.0 million investment in Concirrus Ltd ("Concirrus" or the "Company") a leading Internet of Things (IoT) solution provider based in London. Innovations now holds a 28.6% stake in the Company.

Concirrus was founded in 2012 by Andrew Yeoman (CEO) and Craig Hollingworth (Corporate Development) who came directly out of the telematics and communications industries. Andrew (formerly with Trimble Navigation) and Craig (formerly with Orange, O2 and Masternaut), identified an opportunity to launch a company providing fully integrated business solutions built on a scalable cloud-based platform. 

This platform enables customers to gather and analyse IoT data and use it to improve, disrupt and create innovative businesses and processes. Last year the Company provided connected solutions in a range of business applications, including asset monitoring, predictive maintenance, fleet management and vehicle insurance, whilst at the same time winning awards from Gartner, Nexus, Scale-Up London and TechMarketView. Concirrus was also featured by both the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph for its contribution to the IoT.

Over the past two years, Imperial Innovations has developed an investment thesis around the "Internet of Things" with a focus on specific vertical market applications where data capture and insights drive tangible business value. In 2013, Innovations hosted a thought-leaders event to discuss opportunities in the emerging field of IoT with the participation of a number of leading academics and innovators, with speakers and attendees from Imperial College London, University College London, University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, as well as senior representatives from companies such as BT, BG, Qualcomm, NESTA, Telefonica, and Unilever.

The £3 million investment into Concirrus complements Innovations' growing ICT portfolio. Innovations will take two board seats alongside the founders, one for Ventures Director Kelsey Lynn Skinner and one for Innovations' Venture Partner Chris Gomersall (formerly CEO of Acunu, a data analytics company). The funding will allow Concirrus to build out its suite of products for the vehicle insurance market and fund expansion of the sales team to capitalise on existing channel partnerships.

Andrew Yeoman, CEO at Concirrus, said:

"My co-founder Craig Hollingworth and I have built this company to bring IoT capability and its underlying business value to a broad range of companies.

 "Despite approaches from a variety of corporate and financial investors, we have not taken any outside capital to date. However, we were attracted to the Imperial Innovations model for working closely with management in technology-differentiated companies to build and scale for long-term success."

Kelsey Lynn Skinner, Director Technology Ventures at Imperial Innovations, added:

"Concirrus is an established revenue generating business and provides us with an exciting opportunity to work closely and shape the development of a pioneer of IoT solutions.

"Customer reaction to the Concirrus platform has been very positive, highlighting the fundamental business value it brings to the bottom line. The Company is well positioned with ambitious plans and key partnerships already in place.

"The technical development pipeline is exciting, and combined with their existing customer base and visionary management, it provides us with an opportunity to build a global IoT solutions leader in a rapidly growing market."

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Notes to editors

About Imperial Innovations - www.imperialinnovations.co.uk 

Imperial Innovations Group plc creates, builds and invests in pioneering technologies developed from the academic research within the 'Golden Triangle' broadly bounded by London, Cambridge and Oxford, which is home to the UK's four leading research-intensive universities.

This area is home to many new technology companies through its proximity to the academic communities of Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and University College London, as well as other leading research institutions.

Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and University College London collectively have research income of £1.4 billion per annum and are ranked as four of the top ten Universities in the world (source: QS World University Rankings 2014/15).

Innovations supports scientists and entrepreneurs in the commercialisation of their ideas through the licensing of intellectual property, by leading the formation of new companies, providing facilities in the early stages, providing investment and encouraging co-investment to accelerate development, providing operational expertise and recruiting high-calibre management teams. It also runs an incubator in London that is the initial home for many of its technology spin-outs.

Since admission of its shares to trading on AIM in 2006, Innovations has raised more than £346.0 million of equity from investors, which has enabled it to invest in some of the most exciting spin-outs to come out of UK academic research. In addition, the Group has agreed £80.0 million in loan facilities from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

During the period from admission on AIM up until 31 January 2015, Innovations has invested a total of £198.3 million across its portfolio companies, which have raised collectively investment of £926.8 million rising to £1.0 billion including post period end investments and commitments.