Equity Finance for Technology

Cambridge Capital Group is a leading business angel group of forty investors who have been investing in hi-tech businesses for more than a decade. We formed in Autumn 2000 and have been backing technology start-ups in the region since then. Members have invested several millions of pounds into more than 30 live portfolio companies in the Cambridge technology cluster. Membership is an application process, normally following introductions by existing members.

We are a growing private syndicate and have been active since our first investment in early 2001, although the founders have been successful private investors in technology start-ups since the mid 1990's. Successes include Bookham Technology and nCipher, AIM listings of ITM Power and Bango, and DanioLabs, sold to Summit Plc. More recently, portfolio company Phonetic Arts was acquired by Google in December 2010, and Ubisense listed on AIM in June 2011, giving attractive returns to our members.

Cambridge Connection - Singapore May 2013
Connecting the Cambridge and Singapore Technology Clusters
In association with Taylor Vinters and UKTI this May we will be taking some portfolio companies to Singapore, the major hub for SE Asian markets. This will comprise a presentation event and reception at the High Commissioner's residence with an audience of investors, partners and advisors. This will be followed by a programme of visits and one-to-one meetings with interested parties. For further information please contact us.

News

March 2013

Our 2013 programme of events for investors includes a Spring reception, May convention and promotional trip to Singapore, as the "Cambridge Connection" in order to break into the world's fastest growing regional market. A golf day and summer social event will be followed by our Autumn presentation day in October.

Feb 2013

The CCG Winter Investment Event took place at Emmanuel College in early February and showcased several new hi-tech investment opportunities. Commercial updates were also provided by some portfolio companies.

2012

CCG visited Singapore with our legal sponsors, Taylor Vinters, in November 2012, to learn about angel investing in Asia and expand our international network.A formal delegation is being planned with a presentation event in Singapore in May 2013, to showcase the best from the Cambridge hi-tech cluster.

2012

The CCG Autumn Presentation Day took place in Cambridge in October; several investment opportunities are now being followed - in bioinformatics, next generation diving systems, online therapy, low friction materials, solar energy for emerging markets and pattern based encrypted password systems.

2012

The Cambridge Capital Group 2012 annual convention at Jesus College was a great success - with high quality presentations and a full-house of members, including several new members attending. Several investments are being finalised in some of the recent deal flow.

2012

CCG Trust news: our 2012 Investors in Wildlife Appeal is launched. See the CCG Trust page for details and links. £20,000 has been raised to date in 2012 in support of two excellent conservation projects in Zambia. We have 20 new donors to the trust.

2012

New investments in 2011-12:

ORP. Summer 2012, robotic camera holder for laparoscopic surgery, in syndicate with the London Business Angels.

Definigen. Summer 2012, a Cambridge University spinout operating in the stem cell industry.

iSotera. LED lighting controls and power supply system, funded by a syndicate led by Qi3 with the Low Carbon Innovation Fund et al.

Cambridge Communication Systems, December 2011: a broad consortium of private investors has backed the experienced founding team of this mobile network small cell backhaul business.

Arachnys, December 2011: CCG participated in a consortium of investors in this emerging markets data mining company launched from the ideaSpace at the Cambridge University Entrepreneurship Centre.

Phase Vision, December 2011: a broad syndicate of London and Cambridge based business angels funded the development round of this white light metrology business, supplying measurement systems to British manufacturing.

E-Go Aeroplanes, September 2011: CCG members joined an investment syndicate led by Marshalls Aerospace of Cambridge, which will support the building and first flight of an award winning new light aircraft design in 2012.

Controllis, July 2011: a private syndicate of investors provided second round funding for this regionally based remote genset management system business for mobile telecoms, known by the brand name Telgenco.

2012

A very successful CCG Presentation Day was held on October 20th, for members and sponsors, at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. Six companies have been selected for follow-up work and are being considered for investment; prospects include specialist technology companies in the following sectors: manufacturing inspection, leisure industry software, mobile networks infrastructure, lab products for cell cultures, emerging markets corporate search and e-learning publishing platform. All companies have early revenues. Other autumn events 2011: NRP Angel Investment Day (AiD), in conjunction with NRP Innovation Centre, November 16th, Norwich Research Park.

2012

Portfolio company, Ubisense, listed on AIM in late June 2011. At the placing price the renamed company, Ubisense Group plc, was valued at £38.6m. Specialists in asset tracking and network mapping systems for large companies, Ubisense has been growing fast with many blue chip and international customers. Since then Ubisense has announced its first acquisition and H1 results, showing a large increase in sales.

2011

Our 2011 Golf Day took place on the links of the Royal West Norfolk Golf Club in June. Generously sponsored by leading patent attorneys, Gill Jennings & Every, members also enjoyed dinner at a suitable hostelry on the coast.

2011

CCG's 2011 Convention took place in May at Jesus College once again. A number of new opportunities and portfolio companies made presentations to a full capacity audience of members; several ventures are being followed-up with a view to investment. The Chief Investment Strategist from Merrill Lynch Bank of America gave the key note speech, covering macro investment trends from a global perspective.

2011

Expansion of the CCG investor group: several new members have signed up in 2011 with commercial experience ranging from Low carbon technology, Intellectual Property, Healthcare, Agricultural trading and the Media industry. CCG now comprises 40 investors and associates.

2011

The CCG 2011 Spring Investor Meeting took place in February, in the august surroundings of Kings College: eight opportunities screened from the software and medtech sectors were presented. Three are being considered for investment.

2011

Exit for portfolio company, Phonetic Arts, a world leader in automatic voice production for video games: announces in December 2010 that it is being acquired by Google. Angel investors achieve a significant multiple of capital invested...

2010

Two exciting, post-revenue software businesses attracted investment from CCG in late 2010: Touch Type, which has launched a market leading predictive text engine for Android smartphones; and Featurespace, the fraud detection and customer profiling analytics business that counts Betfair plc as a customer and shareholder. The lead investors were Octopus Ventures and NESTA, respectively.