Growth company investor Bridges Ventures has backed the development of cloud.IQ, a business located in London’s tech hub.

The investment, which has been made through Bridges Ventures’ Sustainable Growth Fund, is part of the firm’s commitment to support ‘underserved areas’, such as East London’s Tech City where cloud.IQ is based.

Technology business cloud.IQ provides services that allow organisations to manage marketing communications across multiple channels such as phone, email, web and mobile. The business was spun-off from Ad.IQ, a mobile marketing agency.

Following the £2 million investment, cloud.IQ is planning to launch an off-the-shelf cloud-based version of its technology in June. The new product is geared towards small and medium-sized enterprises and not-for-profit oganisations.

James Critchley, co-founder and CEO of cloud.IQ, says that the old approach to digital marketing of using only email is no longer effective.

He adds, ‘These days fewer than 12 per cent of emails are actually opened. Using our technology, firms have been able to increase their sales conversions by 10 per cent and client retention rates by 35 per cent.’

Critchley believes that being located in Tech City, close to similar companies, means that cloud.IQ can collaborate and learn from them.

Bridges Ventures currently has £275 million under management across its Bridges Sustainable Property Fund, CarePlaces Fund and Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund.

Alistair Tillen, investment director at Bridges Ventures, comments, ‘cloud.IQ presents us with an exciting proposition to invest in proven technology in a large and growing market.

‘Their technology has been rigorously tested over many years with some of the world’s largest organisations.’