Maven leads £2.1 million seed funding in Oak to accelerate adoption of its Employee Engagement and Digital Workplace solution.

Oak Intranet today announced a £2.1 million additional seed funding round led by existing investors Maven Capital Partners. The funding follows a restructure of the company’s leadership team led by the new CEO, Will Murray and the appointment of a new non-executive chairman, Mark Quartermaine which will enable the business to expand adoption across the UK. 

Created in 2016 Oak Intranet is aimed at enterprise and medium sized businesses, it organises departments, news, teams, projects and internal communication through its mobile app and SaaS platform. This makes it perfect for large organisations that may have multiple locations and deskless workers. Users of Oak see employee engagement levels of 90% or higher when adopting the company’s deployment methodology.

The funding coincides with several other exciting developments including a move to a new Newcastle City Centre office at Generator Studios. 

Since its launch, Oak has been adopted by a range of industry leading organisations, such as Aldi, Halfords, ITV, REISS and River Island. Oak is a secure, cloud-based, digital workplace for internal communication and employee engagement. Oak’s Software as a Service solution is used by hundreds of thousands of people every day across multiple sectors.

The transaction comprises £950,000 from the North East Development Capital Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and £600,000 from the Finance Durham Fund, established by Durham County Council, both regional funds are managed by Maven. £450,000 was invested by the Innovation Fund, managed by NorthStar Ventures and a further £100,000 was invested by a private investor.

Will Murray, CEO at Oak, added: 

“Oak is an amazing product with tremendous potential. It enables organisations to engage their employees including deskless workers and provides a range of internal communications tools that integrate seamlessly with office applications. We are thankful for the great funding partners we have in Maven, NorthStar Ventures and Finance Durham and look forward to working with them as Oak scales”

Michael Vassallo, Investment Director at Maven, said:

“Oak are pioneers in developing and selling intranet solutions, the platform addresses a large and growing market focused on the digital workplace. We are delighted to lead the latest funding round to continue to support the roll-out of its innovative cloud-based software and enable the business to execute a number of exciting new developments.”

Oak Intranet Ltd, Generator Studios, Trafalgar St, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2LA

Phone: +44 (0) 191 460 11 22

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.oak.com

Created in 2016 Oak Intranet is aimed at enterprise and medium sized businesses, it organises departments, news, teams, projects and internal communication through its mobile app and SaaS platform. This makes it perfect for large organisations that may have multiple locations and deskless workers. Users of Oak see employee engagement levels of 90% or higher when adopting the company’s deployment methodology.

Will Murray

Will has over 30 years of experience in Tech and EdTech Industries, with 15 years of broad SaaS executive experience in multiple roles including sales, customer success and product management. Will was formerly CPO at Turnitin LLC, having led the rapid scaling of Turnitin’s international business, resulting in its sale for £750M in 2014. Since leaving Turnitin in 2017, Will consulted on SaaS business strategy before taking the CEO role at Oak Intranet in July 2019.

Mark Quartermaine

Mark has over 30 years’ experience in the Tech Industry in a variety of executive, sales and marketing roles. Having started his career at IBM including executive positions both in the UK and abroad, Mark has subsequently worked at BT Global Services as UK President and more recently as the CEO at both Azzurri and Alternative Networks. With Alternative sold to Daisy in Dec 2016, Mark left the group in May 2017 to pursue a portfolio career. 

Mark is currently the senior independent non-executive at Table Tennis England, a non-executive director at SysGroup plc, and as non-executive Chairman at Oak Intranet, Natterbox and Footdown.

Maven Capital

About Maven Capital Partners UK LLP       www.mavencp.com

Maven Capital Partners UK LLP (Maven) is a lower-mid cap private equity house focused on the provision of growth capital and mezzanine finance to SMEs across the UK. It is one of the most active private equity fund managers in the country, managing over £415 million of assets for a variety of client funds, including Venture Capital Trusts, UK regional debt and equity funds, and Maven Investor Partners – a syndicate of institutional, family office and experienced investors.

Headquartered in Glasgow, and with nine other offices throughout the UK, Maven has nationwide coverage of the market for SME finance and is introduced to around 400 deals per year through 40 regionally based investment executives. With over 70 staff and partners, Maven executes a range of private company transactions, offers hands-on proactive portfolio management to investee companies and provides a fully integrated back-office support function to client and third party fund managers. Since 2009 Maven has invested over £347 million in SMEs across the UK.

The North East Fund

The North East Fund is a suite of five venture capital and loan funds which was established in April 2018, to invest £120m in around 600 North East businesses in the period to March 2023.  The fund managers provide business development advice and investment finance to small and medium sized enterprises based in the seven Local Authority areas of North East England: Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle, South Tyneside, Gateshead Sunderland and County Durham.  The programme encourages investment in and the commercialisation of new technologies, including low carbon technologies, as well as stimulating new business creation, private investment and entrepreneurialism in the North East, with a view to creating over 2,500 new jobs.  The North East Fund has overall responsibility for the programme, which is delivered through five separate funds, each managed by independent, FCA regulated fund managers.  Details of these, and up to date information on the progress of the programme, is available on The North East Fund’s website: www.northeastfund.org

The North East Fund has been established with funding from the North East of England European Regional Development Fund programme, the European Investment Bank and from returns on previous North East based, publicly supported investment funds.  It is jointly owned by the seven North East local authorities.

European Regional Development Fund

The North East Fund will receive up to £58,500,000 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.  The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund.  Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.

European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) will lend up to £60,000,000 to the North East Fund programme.  The European Investment Bank is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals.  For more information, visit: http://www.eib.org