Co Angel Investment Completes First Deal For Gelexir Healthcare of £414k
The Co Angel Investment service, www.coangelinvestment.co.uk has completed its first deal by supporting Gelexir Healthcare with their first close of £414,000 of its current £950,000 funding round.
The Combined Authority of Greater Manchester have taken a new and innovative approach to helping exciting young businesses find the early stage equity they need to build and grow. Co, which launched in November 2014, supports businesses access equity investment from Syndicates of Angel investors, the Angel Co Fund and VCs from across the region and the wider UK. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority has funded this service to better facilitate investment early stage deals for businesses, with the first deal now closed. The Co service has already generated a qualified pipeline in excess of £40m in just a few months and is aiming to leverage £10m of investment in each year into businesses in Greater Manchester.
Gelexir http://gelexir-healthcare.co.uk, a University of Manchester spin-out, has developed a hydrogel to relieve back pain by allowing cells in the disc to get back to “normal” functioning, hence relieving the cause of pain. The gel will be injected into the disc by a healthcare professional and is expected to replace the need for invasive back surgery. This has the potential to reduce back-pain suffering for millions of people globally and save the NHS and healthcare systems around the world significant sums of money.. Gelexir engaged Co in offering instrumental and specialist support in preparing for and facilitating the fund raise.
Gelexir is led by spine surgeon and veteran ex-medical device corporate executive, Philippe Jenny, and has received investment from sector specialist investors including The North West Fund for Biomedical, managed by SPARK Impact http://www.sparkimpact.co.uk(£250,000), the Central Manchester Foundation Trust http://www.cmft.nhs.uk/and a number of overseas and local angel investors. The funding is needed to take the business through a pivotal pre-clinical study and into first “in man” studies. The Co team will continue to work with Gelexir to help complete the round.
Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive Manchester City Council said:
“Manchester is committed to its strategic and operational support for business growth and Co Angel Investment are just one of the services we have supported which is making a difference. We knew when we launched Co that Manchester held huge potential for a better, lower risk investment platform: the growing businesses like Gelexir are here, the Angels are here and now we have the infrastructure to bring them together to release further potential in the region.”
Discussing the current fund raising process to date, Hans von Celsing, Executive Director Gelexir said: “The team at Co have been instrumental as part of the process to date in giving strong and impartial advice, providing us links to potential investors, and generally supporting us in the fund raising process.
The team have been brilliant in preparing us for investment, supporting angel investors with their due diligence scoping and execution and approaching institutional investors. We are looking forward to continuing our excellent working relationship with the Co Angel team to complete this current round of funding”
For more information on raising investment for your business or investing in businesses with Co Angel Investment please contact 0161 237 4047 or email info@coangel.co.uk
