The Mersey Special Investment Fund (MSIF) and Cattles Invoice Finance have contributed to an investment package in marketing and communications agency Paver Downes Origin that could be worth as much as £1 million.
The Mersey Special Investment Fund (MSIF) and Cattles Invoice Finance have contributed to an investment package in marketing and communications agency Paver Downes Origin that could be worth as much as £1 million.
MSIF invested £550,000 for a 30 per cent shareholding in the Liverpool-based company, while Cattles made an initial payment of £250,000. The agreement with Cattles includes the option to extend its funding by £100,000 if invoicing levels are higher than forecast.
The £100,000 balance was provided by four individuals including Paver Downes Origin’s directors Steve Downes and Guy Cooper. The other investors were shareholder Phil Simmonds and new non-executive chairman Mark Hurley.
Paver Downes Origin, which specialises in the debt management, sport and leisure and crisis management markets, will use the funding to expand its interactive voice messaging services.
Steve Downes tells Growth Business the company has previously received money from MSIF. He adds: ‘The nature of the investment is to accelerate growth and the prime application of the funding is in sales and marketing resource. That kind of resource gets used pretty quickly and equity funding is more suitable for that type of application than loans.’
An official at Cattles Invoice Finance notes the firm has started to move away from funding traditional industries and is looking at interactive voice messaging as a growth market for investment.
Paver Downes Origin was established in 1997 by Dougal Paver and Steve Downes and today lists Littlewoods, United Utilities, Deloitte, Grant Thornton, Nokia, Orange, The Times as well as Liverpool and Chelsea football clubs among its clients.
The company, which recently bought an interactive voice and text messaging service, generated a turnover of some £1.7 million in the year to September 2006.
