After a busy year of investments, acquisitions and growth moves, it’s now time to pause and take stock of what the last 12 months have produced. Take a minute to look at our round up of the most popular news stories of each month.
January:
Our top story at the start of the year was a finance deal and saw investor MMC Ventures lead a £850,000 round into home-swapping website Love Home Swap, allowing serial entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow to grow her business.
February:
Through our own in-house research, GrowthBusiness revealed that chief executive pay on AIM pushed its way through the £200,000 barrier for the first time, despite a slump of 25 per cent in the AIM All-Share index.
March:
During March a rescue deal captured the interest of our readers when property management business Peverel Group ended 11 months of administration anxiety by securing two private equity backers through a £62 million deal.
April:
In a piece of news which gave hope to many an early-stage entrepreneur, a mega investment deal saw taxi app business Hailo drive off with £10.6 million of cash in one of the largest first round financings for a European start-up ever.
May:
A little bit of prying was involved to discover that Dunfermline-headquartered M&C was bought by Schneider Electric, a French energy management company, through a deal a GrowthBusiness source said was worth close to £90 million.
June:
In a move that shook the core of financing firms around the country, London-based start-up Escape the City turned down a £500,000 venture capital investment in favour of crowdfunding.
July:
The bank-backed Business Growth Fund were a regular feature on the GrowthBusiness homepage during 2012 and this deal saw the firm back the fancy dress and party fashion business behind the Morphsuits phenomenon.
August:
M&A news dominated August and top of the pile was the announcement that network integrator MDNX acquired Derby-headquartered Griffin, a business which has provided internet services to UK businesses since 1994.
September:
Having appeared on BBC’s Dragons’ Den on the Sunday, SendmyBag was backed by Lough Shore Investments by way of a seed funding round….fishy much?
October:
Football fans latched onto news that Scottish club Rangers was planning to join the Alternative Investment Market to raise funds for squad development.
November:
More big football news in November but this time involving the sale of Leeds United by chairman Ken Bates to a Dubai-based investment bank GrowthBusiness had never heard of.
December:
Closing things off, and our biggest story of the year despite it occurring in the last month, was chancellor George Osbornes’ giveaway to SMEs by way of an incrase in the Annual Investment Allowance from £25,000 to £250,000.
