Freddie Achom to Target the True Equity Gap for Internet and Technology Companies

    LONDON, ENGLAND, May 08, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Rosemont Group Capital Partners the London based early stage venture capitalist recently announced that it aims to invest in 20 start up and early stage companies over the next 24 months, a majority of which will be UK based and predominately within the technology sector. The group says its strategy will be to focus sizeable portion of its future investments in internet and technology companies. The emphasis will be on the early stage investments as this is where the group feels it can add the greatest strategic value and acceleration, as well as hopefully achieving the best investment valuations and returns. The idea is based on Rosemont Group specifically targeting early stage businesses which fall within or often below the conventional equity gap, generally businesses seeking less than GBP1 million in financial capital and as little as GBP50,000. Given the unique characteristics of early stage internet companies, Rosemont Group will look to accelerate and maximise their portfolio companies' executional prospects by working directly with them. Rosemont Group hopes to invest in no less than 20 such companies, which will be carefully screened and evaluated prior to investment.

Freddie Achom CEO of Rosemont Group Capital Partners stated "we intend to target the true equity gap for internet and technology companies because the business accelerators sector which applies less standard sizes of investment and offers greater executional assistance to digital SME's have demonstrated huge success in backing early stage companies with relatively smaller amounts. In the UK we have seen the launch of programmes such as Seedcamp achieve good level of success, emulating those of US based accelerators like YCombinator, Betaworks, Techstars and LaunchBox to name a few. However typically these programmes have served to increase the flow of new startups rather than specifically addressing the funding gap. So we are not only confident in reaching our target of 20 companies by end of 2016 but we believe we will be able to accelerate the growth of these companies and create sustainable businesses as well as a proven investment model."

The private investment group will invest capital through direct equity investments, convertible loan/notes, options, warrants or preferred shares and will invest on its own or with co-investment partners as it has in the past. With the primary emphasis on seed or early stage, it is envisaged that some proportion of these initial investments it will lead and others it will take a back seat. Rosemont Group has already lead investment rounds with AppyParking, JustGo and just last month with Vivid Technologies, investing alongside Sunbridge Capital and Telefonica's accelerator programme.

Another huge factor that Achom feels brings the balance in their favour is that internet and digital technology companies require less operating capital to develop working products and solutions than other more traditional businesses. They typically do not have large capital expenditure requirements, don't produce or manufacture hardware or tangible goods, don't hold inventory and do not have returns or leakage to contend with.

Achom concludes by saying "recent industry trends such as using open source software for building services, cloud computing for storage or processing requirements and distributed flexible teams all contribute to the unique ability of digital SME's to start a project, product or company within months or even weeks for less than the amounts typical VCs look to invest. There is a gap and we aim to achieve as larger market share of this space as possible."

Rosemont Group Capital Partners is a private investment company founded in 2003 by British entrepreneur and venture investor Freddie Achom. It's portfolio is as wide ranging as digital technology, bio technology, solar technology, financial services, land and property development to more high profile ventures in the entertainment sectors. More recently, Achom has re-aligned the group's core focus to investment opportunities in early and growth stage digital technology innovation alongside key investments in bio and clean technology companies in developing markets. Rosemont Group is headquartered in London with international offices in New York and Mumbai.

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