Award-winning ecommerce and digital marketing agency, Venture Stream, plans to treble in size over the next two years after securing six-figure investment to fund its expansion.
The £300,000 of funding has come from The North East Innovation Fund Supported by the European Regional Development Fund, with Venture Stream one of the first companies to receive investment since the Innovation Fund first welcomed applications from North East businesses in April this year.
Since the agency was founded in 2014 by serial entrepreneur Victor Morgan, Venture Stream has grown to 20 staff and £1 million revenue, and has ambitions to grow to 40 staff and £3 million in turnover by 2020.
Thanks to the funding, Venture Stream plans to make a number of strategic hires to grow its consulting business, invest in new premises in Newcastle to house its growing team, open offices nationally and seek out new digital ventures with major partners.
Vic Morgan, Managing Director at Venture Stream, said: “A key success factor in digital business is the ability to unify technology and marketing to drive business growth. It’s this outlook that has enabled both us as an agency and our clients to achieve great results.
“We’re excited about our position in a competitive market to capitalise on this trend, and the Innovation Fund investment is a welcome recognition of what we’ve accomplished in a short timeframe and will help us accelerate our growth further.”
Richard Charnley, Investment Manager Northstar Northeast Innovation Fund, said: “The new £27 million North East Innovation Fund is focused on backing scalable, innovative start-ups and growing businesses and Venture Stream is a perfect example of the kind of business that can benefit from the fund.
“Northstar Ventures first funded Venture Stream back in 2014 and the business has gone from strength-to-strength ever since. We’re excited to now further invest in such a fantastic local business through the new fund that we believe can become a future leader in transforming the UK ecommerce and digital marketing services market.”