3rd March 2009
CAT.177a

BIRMINGHAM–BASED COMPLY SERVE ATTRACTS FUNDING TO DEVELOP HIGHLY LUCRATIVE MARKET

Catapult Venture Managers has taken part in a £0.8m funding round alongside Midven and private investors - into Birmingham-based Comply Serve Limited, developers of a unique web-based project compliance management system geared to large engineering and construction projects.

Catapult also introduced Richard George who becomes a Non-Executive director of the business.

Comply Serve is exploiting a significant, largely untapped opportunity in the Enterprise Project Compliance market. Through its unique web-based ‘Software as a Service’ capability it provides large capital projects, for the first time, with a way of visualising and managing project compliance to contractual specifications and requirements throughout the supply chain.

For most companies today, project compliance is typically a paper or spreadsheet based, error prone and costly exercise often resulting in impaired project delivery and a high rate of project failures. The company is now delivering their service to the transportation infrastructure sector, where it has been taken up by a number of blue chip companies to manage their overall project compliance across significant supply chain organisations.

The opportunity for project compliance extends to all regulated markets and the company believes it has at least a 3 year lead on its nearest rivals, as this is not an area served by conventional project management tools.

Comply Serve founder and CEO Chris Rolison commenting on the company’s future prospects said: “We are at an exciting stage in the progression of our company as we continue to demonstrate the compelling value of our unique solutions to the Transport Infrastructure market. This funding round, achieved in a particularly difficult economic climate, supports our growth ambitions in the UK as we pursue our market strategy to establish ourselves as the leaders in the Enterprise Project Compliance market.

“We have a growing portfolio of blue chip customers endorsing our approach and our ComplyPro compliance solutions are being used on some of the largest projects in Europe including the £15Bn Crossrail programme, the London Underground upgrade programme, the Manchester Metro programme and the East London Line upgrade - the cornerstone of the 2012 Olympics infrastructure programme.

“The future potential for Comply Serve’s solutions is considerable - as the need for improved visibility and efficiency of project compliance to engineering and regulatory specifications – as well as demonstrating stakeholder value for money is relevant to all regulated industries.

According to Catapult Director Graham Mold, the funding comes at a crucial time in Comply Serve’s development. “The business is well-placed with a number of high profile rail infrastructure customers and the funding will be used to develop both the customer base and to help take it to the next stage of development.

“Comply Serve has, to date, focused on the UK transport infrastructure – a massive market with £36bn of identifiable projects currently underway in the UK. The business is already involved in a number of significant projects such as Crossrail and the East London Line.

“Managing major construction projects can be complex and extremely demanding with major changes being made to initial specifications as the project moves forward. With a paper based system such changes are time consuming, and prone to error almost inevitably resulting in both budget and timetable overruns.

“Comply Serve has a strong management team and is well placed to take advantage of this huge market place for its unique compliance management system.”

The Comply Serve solution provides a single real time view of the project specification throughout the supply chain. This means that Comply Serve customers can demonstrate compliance and adherence to all project specifications and contractual obligations including compliance to technical, safety, health, environmental and industry standards, with complete auditability.

Roger Wood, Director of Midven, who originally invested in Comply Serve in July 2007 through the Advantage Growth Fund [and introduced Neil Sutcliffe, now Non-Executive Chairman], added: “The company has made significant progress since our initial investment; through the release of Version 2 of its software and achieving significant further customer traction.

“We are delighted to participate in this further funding round which having been raised in the current economic environment is a testament to the strength of Comply Serve’s management and market opportunity”

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About Midven

Midven Limited is a privately-owned company with a successful track record of investing in small and medium-sized enterprises in the Midlands. It manages a variety of funds and has invested in a wide variety of sectors, including software, biotechnology, healthcare, engineering, manufacturing and distribution.

The £20 million Advantage Growth Fund was launched in February 2003 by Advantage West Midlands to invest venture capital in small and medium-sized companies in the West Midlands. Managed by Midven Limited, its investors include Barclays Bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, the European Investment Fund, local universities and the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

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For further information contact Graham Mold at Catapult Venture Managers on 0121 616 0180 or 07768 148187 or Paul Shrimpton at PSPR Ltd on 0121 354 7311 or 07979 505322.

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