Innovative Bristol tech start-up YellowDog has become the first business to gain funding from a recently launched private equity club in the city.
The £425,000 of investment capital from Bristol Private Equity Club (BPEC) came as YellowDog scooped one of the top prizes at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld event in San Francisco.
The Platform Innovation award, part of Oracle’s Excellence Awards, recognises the potential of the firm’s innovative platform that harnesses under-utilised computer power for fast animation rendering services.
BPEC was launched by six influential and successful Bristol entrepreneurs in May to plug a gap in the local funding scene.
It now has 32 members, all wealthy entrepreneurs with substantial business experience and capital available to invest in supporting and funding growing businesses.
Its investment deal with YellowDog includes a non-executive position on its board.
Within 18 months YellowDog has gone from incorporation to having some of the world’s leading architecture and animation companies on its books.
YellowDog founder and managing director Gareth Williams said: “I’m delighted that YellowDog has the support of the Bristol Private Equity Club.
“Not only their investment but their wealth of experience will really help YellowDog accelerate its growth over the coming months and years as we prepare for expansion into new sectors.”
Jerry Barnes, one of the club’s founders, said: “YellowDog are an excellent example of the type of business that we can help. They are at the forefront of their game, have developed technology which is much in demand, need support to get to the next level and importantly they are local to Bristol and Bath.
“Our investment will help YellowDog to deliver their business plan and achieve their ambitious growth plans by extending the usage and finding new market opportunities for the computer processing power they have at their disposal.
“We formed BPEC earlier this year to fill the missing gap that often exists in funding local businesses. The Greater Bristol area is well placed with a number of business angels and start-up support organisations through to the incubators set up by local universities. More established businesses may be able to get access to investment from venture capital funds and possibly banks too, if they can provide security.
“But those who have only a few years’ experience and have not grown large enough to be of interest to venture capitalists are quite likely to need a different type and source of investment and business support.
“We are a club of like-minded individuals with a very broad range of skills. Our members are based locally and aim to support perhaps three or four businesses a year. I was involved in a similar club in London, which was very successful, but there are so many exciting prospects in Bristol that it made sense to start our own club here.”
The club is looking to provide from £100,000 to £500,000 of equity funding for each business opportunity it invests in. Members individually decide on a case-by-case basis and Mr Barnes, who has 35 years’ experience advising some of the UK’s wealthiest people, said it had experts in just about every field ready and willing to help good management teams with a sensible plan and ambition to grow successful businesses.
“We are an excellent alternative to those businesses who otherwise might be looking for support from relatives or friends, which can sometimes be fraught with problems, or through crowdfunding, which comes with the potential disadvantage of having too many interested parties and shareholders,” he said.
Other founders include Allan Rosengren and Julian Telling, who established the finance group Falcon in Bristol and have a wealth of experience as entrepreneurs, innovators and investors in many businesses, including in financial services, investment platforms and networks, consumer finance, technology, food & beverage, restaurants, aviation, student lets and property development.
Serial IT entrepreneur Mark Mason, who founded the highly successful app developer Mubaloo in Bristol, is also a founding member, along with solicitor Charles Cook and accountant Denis Mullan, both highly entrepreneurial professionals, who have been involved with the club since its inception and are instrumental in performing the detailed due diligence on the investment opportunities it considers.
As well as access to investment finance, the club also provides a wealth of experience and decades of business know-how for entrepreneurs, which can be just as valuable as the equity investment offered.
The Oracle awards were presented at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld (#OOW16) held in mid-September in San Francisco. Oracle recognised 31 companies from across the globe for their use of Oracle’s PaaS and IaaS services in new and innovative ways to transform their businesses, drive innovation, and gain a competitive advantage.
As part of its business model, YellowDog has been using the Oracle Bare Metal Cloud Service alongside crowd-sourced spare computer power to offer the 3D animation and architectural visualisation industry peerless rendering services. Animators and 3D artists need high-intensity computer power to render animations and high-res images which is fraught with problems over availability and quality, not to mention price.
Previously, YellowDog used other public cloud providers but with the data transfer volumes and computer performance required, they often had to stretch their operational capabilities. With Oracle Bare Metal Cloud, YellowDog was able to get its product environment running twice as fast as other instances, with one result nearly 10 times faster than current instances.
The annual awards are given to winners based on the uniqueness of their business case, business benefits, level of impact relative to the size of the organisation, complexity and magnitude of implementation and the originality of architecture.
During Oracle OpenWorld 2016, YellowDog’s Gareth Williams chatted with Oracle senior vice president of product development and entrepreneur, Reggie Bradford about their collaboration and how Oracle’s cloud innovation has assisted the start-up.
Speaking about YellowDog’s success, Gareth said: “It’s wonderful to receive this award and it is credit to Oracle to be on the ball with young, innovative start-ups. We’ve been very impressed since we started working with the Oracle Cloud team – their responsiveness, agility, and make-it-happen attitude is brilliant.
“We’re beginning to revolutionise the on-demand computer market for power-hungry rendering applications. Being recognised as an innovator by one of the world’s largest tech firms is a fantastic accolade.”
Vice president of product development Deepak Patil added: “Cloud computing enables rapid innovation, and YellowDog is a great example of an organization that is using it to revolutionize its industry. By utilizing Oracle Bare Metal Cloud Service, YellowDog is changing the way in which 3D animation studios and design artists leverage the cloud to render high-resolution digital assets. We are thrilled to see YellowDog’s creative use of the Oracle Cloud Platform, and pleased to recognize them with Oracle’s Excellence Awards.”
In total YellowDog has raised just over £1.23m in 18 months. The capital will provide investment to develop YellowDog’s platform use by other suitable applications ready for launch in early 2017.
Pictured: YellowDog’s Gareth Williams, centre, with Sidarta Agrawal, left, and Deepak Patil, right, both from Oracle
