Aero Commerce accelerates growth strategy with latest round of investment led by Maven Capital Partners

Aero Commerce, the North East ecommerce platform specialist, is accelerating its growth strategy to support the rapidly expanding online retail sector after securing its latest round of investment.

In less than a year the company has secured £1.4m of investment.  The latest round of fundraising includes investment from Aero Commerce founder Richard Bendelow, the North East Development Capital Fund supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Maven and from The Future Fund, a government scheme backed by the British Business Bank.

With more than 20 years’ experience in retail, ecommerce and software development, Richard and his fellow director, and founder, Matt Burton, have quickly established Aero Commerce as one of the fastest growing ecommerce platform providers in the UK.

Having already handled approaching £100m worth of online retail transactions through its platform, Aero, in its first 12 months, the company is predicting achieving over quarter of a billion pounds worth of ecommerce activity in 2021.

The latest investment will support increasing Aero Commerce’s market presence as it expands its network of 60 UK partner agencies, which integrate the Aero platform into ecommerce sites they build for retailers.

The company anticipates doubling its workforce in the next 12 months to provide more support to its network of partner agencies, as well as financial transaction providers, such as PayPal and Klarna.

Richard Bendelow, CEO and founder of Aero Commerce said:

“Ecommerce is fundamental to the future of retail and has been brought into sharp focus by the events of the past 12 months.  As a result, we are experiencing strong demand for our ecommerce platform and a growing pipeline of partner agencies looking to build Aero into online retail operations for national and international brands.

“Our combined experience of the booming ecommerce market, both prior to establishing Aero Commerce and during this truly unprecedented period, has built a reputation for the business across the web developer and retail sectors.  This has enabled us to expand our partner network of agencies on a national basis, which we will develop further as a result of our latest investment.”  

David Nixon, Investment Manager from Maven’s North East office, said:

“We are delighted to continue our support for Richard and the team at Aero by leading the latest funding round which will enable the business to execute a number of exciting growth plans. Existing online retailers are looking for more effective and secure ecommerce solutions while the number of businesses establishing sales platforms is growing exponentially, which is creating significant opportunities for Aero’s innovative technology.”

Maven originally invested in Aero back in 2019 to fuel its sales and marketing activities and open an office in Newcastle.

Legal advice to Maven was Paul Wigham and Nick Gray from Weightmans.

Legal advice to Aero Commerce and its directors was John Hammill, Corporate Partner from North East law firm Square One Law.

John said:

“Aero Commerce is part of the North East’s burgeoning digital sector and its niche ecommerce cluster and is playing a key role in the success of online retail.  This latest round of fundraising demonstrates both the directors’ confidence in Aero Commerce, and that of Maven, which is a highly active and well-respected private equity firm with a strong track record of backing scalable businesses.”

ENDS 

Editors’ Notes:

Aero Commerce is an ecommerce platform developer, which provides online retail sales solutions for retailers through a network of agency partners.

Its platform, Aero, has, to date, supported approaching £100m worth of ecommerce transactions.

Founded by Richard Bendelow and Matt Burton who both have more than 20 years’ experience in ecommerce, retail and software development.

www.aerocommerce.com

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.

For media enquiries or any questions about the investment, please contact:

Maven Capital Partners 0191 731 8590
[email protected]

Sapience Communications (PR to Maven) 020 3195 3240
[email protected]  

About 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.

About the 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.

 About the 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