[M]aven Equity Finance, managed by Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active SME investors, is pleased to announce an investment of £603,000 in Coeus Software Ltd (Coeus), a workforce mobility platform provider, on behalf of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF)
The investment will enable the company to expand its operations in Cumbria by building its sales team and implementing a new sales and marketing strategy.
Founded by software specialists Simon Hall and Chris Eccles, Coeus provides self-service and cloud-based mobility platforms to digitise day to day business and operational procedures and replace outdated manual, paper-based processes. Coeus’ products are based on a unified platform developed in-house with each product optimised for its target market. The business adopts an agile development methodology, enabling products to continuously evolve and meet changing market or organisational requirements.
Designed for mobile workforces that need to use or collect auditable data and intelligence, Coeus can collect information on any smart handheld device to make any organisation more efficient, accountable and profitable. This is achieved by bringing together tasking, data collection, workflows, real-time dashboards and access to corporate data.
With an ever-increasing requirement for police forces to deliver their current level of service in more efficient ways, Coeus products align with the new ‘digitalisation’ agenda of the police force as well as new Police National Compliance procedures. The need to ‘go digital’ increases in both the public and private sector on a daily basis. The benefits in digitising processes to drive efficiency and cost savings also affords users the chance to perform a better service with what is often severely limited resources.
With strong links to police forces across the UK, Co-founder and CEO, Simon Hall, 30 years’ experience in specialist technology projects in the police/military and public safety and commercial projects across the globe. Having already completed major projects for public and private sector clients, Cambridge University graduate and Co-founder, Chris Eccles, is responsible for software strategy, architecture and implementation as CTO and holds MSc in both Project Engineering and Software Development.
Jim Darlington, Investment Manager at Maven Capital Partners, said: “We are delighted to support Coeus in realising its growth strategy. The company’s offering is innovative and will allow users of the software to seamlessly increase their mobile workforce’s productivity whilst saving time and money. Simon and Chris are experienced and dedicated with excellent contacts in the markets they are targeting and we look forward to working with them in driving the business forward.”
Simon Hall, Co-founder and CEO at Coeus, said: “Coeus has created a mobility platform to enable smarter working. Our vision is to empower organisations to digitally transform their working processes to bring about swift, quantifiable and beneficial business change. This investment is perfectly timed, to enable us to expand into a growing market as customers move over to Office 365 and the Cloud. We are excited to grow our operations and provide fantastic new job opportunities in the North of England and develop our links with Northern universities.”
Jackie Arnold, MBE, Vice Chair of Cumbria LEP and member of NPIF SOB, said: “The first NPIF – Maven Equity Finance investment in Cumbria for Coeus is a key milestone as opportunities for SMEs to tap into the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund are now on stream.
“We hope this will be the first of many successful equity finance ventures for growing and innovative businesses across Cumbria. NPIF investment could be a gateway to accelerating their growth and expansion into growing market places. The Coeus investment is a model example of how NPIF can help and we are encouraging more Cumbrian firms to take a look at what it has to offer.”
Ken Cooper, Managing Director at British Business Bank, said: “The northern tech sector continues to thrive, so we’re pleased that Coeus has become our first equity investment in Cumbria. To date the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund has invested £31m in over 200 businesses, which has been down to the commitment of our fund managers and LEPs working in collaboration with businesses on the ground in all corners of the north.”
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.
