NPIF invests £10m in Tees Valley businesses

Tees Valley businesses have been significantly boosted with the support of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF), which has made 45 investments in the region, worth a combined £10m.

NPIF, delivered by British Business Bank, offers funding options, ranging from £25,000 to £2m, to businesses based in the 10 Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas that make up the Northern Powerhouse region. These options include Microfinance, Debt Finance, and Equity Finance.

Since the Fund’s launch in February 2017, enquiries have come from growing businesses across a number of the region’s strongest performing sectors. These include manufacturing, information and communication technology and wholesale services.

Notable transactions in the region include a £250,000 investment in 2PD, a research and development business based in Fusion Hive, Teesside made by NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, managed by Mercia Fund Managers and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.

The funding will be used to take the firm’s product, which uses two-point discrimination therapy to treat phantom limb pain, through studies and clinical trials at Teesside University. The automated medical device could replace the traditional two-point discrimination therapy method, which typically requires a healthcare professional for up to 90 minutes a day for as long as four weeks.

Aedis, a provider of private sector building control services, is another Tees Valley-based company which has benefitted from investment from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund. The business specialises in delivering cost-effective and client-friendly alternatives to local authority building control, with a turnover of £6.8m in the fiscal year 2018.

NPIF - FW Capital Debt Finance, managed by FW Capital and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund invested £650,000 to support Aedis in scaling up its business by shifting focus towards larger domestic, residential projects and commercial clients.

The funding will also aid the company in employing a wider team of fee-earning surveyors over the next two years.

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: “These investments have backed some of the most important people in the Tees Valley, the job-creators, innovators, entrepreneurs and risk-takers at the forefront of our economic ambitions. In helping businesses such as Aedis to go from strength to strength, the funding in the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund is making a huge difference to the whole of the region.”

Ken Cooper, Managing Director at British Business Bank, said: “It is good to see that businesses in the Tees Valley are rising to the challenge and accessing the funding available from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.  Small businesses, like 2PD and Aedis, will be key to the future growth of the region.  NPIF has the capacity to back many more companies like them and we look forward to more growth and more jobs as the region’s SMEs seek this investment.”

The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.