Oxford Capital has led a $5 million (£3.3 million) investment into Abiquo with help from Balderton Capital and Nauta Capital.

The new investment is the third time the business has secured the backing of venture capital, and will be used to speed up the commercial roll-out of its technology.

Based in Berkshire, Somerset and Barcelona, Abiquo develops software that supplies a management platform used to control various applications.

Abiquo began its funding efforts in 2008 when Eurecan led an $800,000 angel investment. A Series A round worth £2.05 million involving Nauta Capital and Caja Navarra then followed in February 2010 before a larger Series B transaction involving Balderton Capital, Nauta Capital and Eurecan netted the business $10 million later in the year.

On top of the venture capital Abiquo has brought in, the company has also been the beneficiary of a $1.53 million grant and $1.36 million of debt cash.

Jim Darragh, chief executive of Abiquo, comments, ‘This latest funding round led by Oxford Capital will allow us to accelerate our global distribution and marketing and marks and important step in our commercial development.’

Oxford Capital recently picked up Investor of the Year at the sixth annual New Energy & Cleantech Awards, hosted by GrowthBusiness. The accolade came following a 2012 which saw £15.9 million injected into nine companies, including a number of new additions to the portfolio.

More on Oxford Capital Partners:

• iJento receives backing from multiple VC sources
• Oxford Capital Partners amongst winners at 2012 awards

Oxford Capital Partners now has some £100 million of assets under management, a figure which grew last year by 32 per cent. Its three 2012 exits all came about in different ways and reflect the way in which the firm looks for innovative ways to divest interests.

Colin Watts, partner at Oxford Capital, adds, ‘Abiquo already has a well-developed customer base which includes global enterprises, government contractors and leading managed service providers. We see excellent growth prospects for the business.’

Speaking to GrowthBusiness in March, Oxford Capital co-founder David Mott said that the rest of the year would be about completing a number of new investments, around four he predicted.

The firm, he added, is still very interested in the mobile phenomenon that is going on and, combined with being active in big data and the cloud, is somewhere it expects to make returns.