Advantage Growth Fund

The Advantage Growth Fund was a £17.5m fund established in 2003 as part of the UK government Regional Venture Capital Fund initiative to invest in West Midlands based small and medium sized enterprises.

The Fund, which was able to make initial investments of up to £250,000, is now closed. The Fund supported 45 businesses across a wide range of sectors and stages, including start-ups and management buy-outs. Midven assisted those companies to raise additional funding, over and above that invested by the Advantage Growth Fund, in excess of £80m.

The Fund achieved particular success in helping grow businesses with strategic value. Notable successes included:

• Scriptswitch (36 times return on investment)
• Allinea (21 times return on investment)
• Dynamic Change (8 times return on investment)
• Midland Industrial Glass (7 times return on investment)
• Quantum Risk Management (7 times return on investment)

Generating these return levels demonstrated that our approach of working closely with companies delivers long-term growth and value.

The Fund was created with funding from the DTI Small Business Service (now the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy), the European Investment Fund, Barclays Bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, the universities of Warwick, Coventry, Aston, Birmingham and Birmingham City and Midven.

The Fund was managed by Tony Stott, Roger Wood and Surjit Kooner.