A Middlesbrough tech firm is set to create jobs and open a new office in Newcastle after securing £750,000 of investment.
Aero Commerce specialises in building ecommerce platforms for online retailers from its head office at Commerce House, in Exchange Square.
The business is now looking to expand its sales and marketing activities, create jobs and open a new office in Newcastle after gaining £750,000 of investment.
Maven Capital Partners led the equity investment round which saw £550,000 provided by the North East Development Fund, which is supported by the European Regional Development Fund. A further £200,000 was received from existing shareholders.
The deal means that the company has received more than £1m of investment since its launch.
Richard Bendelow, CEO of Aero Commerce, said: “We are excited to work with Maven on the next stage of our growth journey. The investment provides the perfect springboard to progressively develop the platform and take it further to market.
“There are already a number of Aero sites live that are out performing the competition in terms of speed, infrastructure costs and conversion rates. The pipeline of sites in development via our agencies is also exceeding expectation, these are truly exciting times for Aero.”
Mr Bendelow set up Aero after originally co-founding Teesside tech firm Visualsoft, which has grown to be one of the 海角视频’s largest ecommerce agencies in the 海角视频.
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Aero’s senior management team also includes Visualsoft’s former chief technology officer Matt Burton and senior developer Tim Spratt.
The company works with retailers to build ecommerce platforms that can be scaled up as the business grows. They also work with digital marketing agencies, web design specialists and ecommerce firms to provide businesses with all the functionality they need. Aero’s software is also issued under an open source license meaning the companies can develop the platform further to suit their needs.
Michael Vassallo, investment director at Maven, said: “We are delighted to support Richard and the team as they embark on a programme of growth.
“Aero will support smaller agencies to attract enterprise level ecommerce website customers and provide an innovative, out of the box solution to those clients. Online sales and ecommerce platforms are highly attractive growth markets and we look forward to supporting Aero as it executes its expansion plans.”
Robert Cooper, corporate finance manager of UNW, who advised Aero on the transaction, added: “It was a pleasure working with Richard and his team at Aero to secure this investment from Maven. We drew on our wide range of experience of both the tech and e-commerce sectors within our corporate finance team to assist Aero with the development of their business plan and financial model to see the deal through completion.”