Maven completes £7.4 million series A investment in Oak Engage

Pioneering employee engagement platform secures further funding to scale rapidly following impressive growth

Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”), one of the UK’s most active private equity houses, has led the £2.6 million investment in cloud-based internal communication and employee engagement platform Oak Engage Limited (“Oak”). A total of £1.825 million has been provided by Maven’s Investor Partners network alongside a further £775,000 from the Maven managed North East Development Capital Fund and the North East Innovation Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures, as well as existing and new private investors. Today’s transaction has now completed the series A round, in which Maven has invested a total of £6.025m to date, alongside a further £1.375m from private investors and regional funding.

Despite the pandemic, Oak Engage has continued to grow strongly, and today’s transaction will enable the business to scale further to support the lucrative customer contracts it has secured over the last 12 months, as well as create 26 new jobs across its sales and marketing divisions

Oak is a globally scalable cloud-based platform with flexible software that makes it suitable for businesses of all sizes, used by hundreds of thousands of people every day across a multitude of sectors. Oak Engage allows businesses to engage and connect their people through its mobile app and SaaS (Software as a Service) platform. The cloud-based, next-generation software provides a range of internal communications tools that integrate seamlessly with office applications, helping improve productivity with feeds, collaboration hubs and advanced search.

The product has a very broad set of additional proprietary functionality, including rota management, instant messenger, surveys, opinion polls, employee recognition, trending content and push notifications. Oak works with some of the world’s biggest brands including Aldi, Five Guys, Halfords and ITV to name a few, and have become intranet software experts and thought leaders within the employee engagement industry.

Maven originally invested back in 2018 via the Maven Investor Partners network and the Finance Durham Fund to strengthen the company’s sales and marketing, expand the roll-out of its software, and develop its team. Since the initial investment, the business has experienced strong growth, and now supports a number of enterprise-sized corporates with an impressive customer base of FTSE 100 and multinational clients who join the list of house-hold brands the company already works with, such as Aldi, Five guys, ITV, BooHoo and NEP Inc, Group.

Led by a seasoned former Silicon Valley executive, Will Murray, who has a successful track record of scaling technology businesses and was a key member of the management team of Turnitin, a US software company which recently sold to a private equity buyer for $1.75bn. 

Michael Vassallo, Investment Director at Maven, said:

“Oak is a proven, fast growing technology business led by strong, experienced management team. The platform is globally scalable and as employee engagement is becoming increasingly recognised as pivotal in the overall success of a business, Oak continues to secure a number of impressive customer contacts. We look forward to working with Will and the team as the company scales further and continues to expand.”

Will Murray, CEO of Oak, said 

“With the work we have done so far we are just beginning to see how transformational our new approach to the company intranet can be. This further injection of capital further secures our place as industry leaders within the intranet software and internal comms industry. We will continue to invest in growth, our technology and in our product as we continue to push forward with the support of investors.

“Products like our intranet software can help businesses connect their people, boost employee engagement, and promote wellbeing, giving everyone a voice at a time when they need it most. This will be key now that the majority of people will want some sort of flexible working situation going forwards. There is so much more to come from Oak Engage in the coming months and years.”

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Further information

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

Maven Capital Partners
Emma Neal	0191 731 8590	[email protected]
Sapience Communications (PR to Maven)		[email protected]
Richard Morgan Evans	020 3195 3240	[email protected]

Notes to Editors

About Maven Capital Partners UK LLP      

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 ten 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 more information about Maven visit: www.mavencp.com @maven_cp

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