An equity investment of £16 million has been attracted by Instant as the business looks to grow its Managed Office division.

Instant provides what it calls ‘flexible office services’ including managed workspaces, serviced offices and hot-desking. Its Managed Office division allows companies to outsource the sourcing, fitting-out and managing of office space.

The deal is being led by private equity house MML, which will now hold a minority share in the Instant business.

In August 2012, Patrick Elliott took over the role of CEO with the task of securing external investment. Company founder Rob Hamilton left the role as chief executive when Elliott arrived and has since gone on to retain a stake and become a non-executive director.

Elliott comments, ‘We are delighted to receive private equity investment from MML, because they rapidly grasped the potential of the business and we quickly felt comfortable working with them.’

According to Instant, the firm has achieved revenue growth of 30 per cent during the past year, taking it to £22 million.

The London-headquartered business says that it anticipates ‘rapid expansion’ within the flexible office market. London alone, it predicts, is worth over £500 million.

Bal Johal, managing partner at MML, says, ‘As companies are increasingly recognising the efficiencies of outsourcing non-core services, we see Instant – and particularly its Managed Office services – as an excellent opportunity to benefit from what we anticipate will be viewed as an attractive method for sourcing offices space, by more and more organisations.’

MML Capital Partners is an investment firm with some $2 billion invested across 11 countries during the last 25 years and has offices in the UK, US and France.