Technology investor Mercia opens Edinburgh office

Paul Devlin will lead Mercia's new office in Edinburgh

The new office in the city centre will be led by investment manager for Scotland Paul Devlin, who previously ran the student company formation service at the University of Edinburgh.

He will build a team in Scotland to boost Mercia’s deal flow and provide it with “new and exciting investment opportunities”. Devlin said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to help scale up Scotland’s existing start-ups and support the next breakthrough ideas.”

The firm, based in Henley-in-Arden, said its growth north of the Border strengthens its support for early-stage Scottish businesses, with the new office enabling it to “bolster its commitment to finding and investing in disruptive, scalable technology businesses in Scotland, which is largely underserved by later-stage investors despite its impressive variety of start-ups and spinouts”.

It added that its university partnerships provide “a pipeline of new investment opportunities”. Mercia Technologies chief executive Mark Payton said that last year £2.7 billion was invested in venture capital across the south east of England compared to less than £300 million for the whole of Scotland.

“We look forward to working with Scottish entrepreneurs to address this imbalance, with our focused investment activity and expertise, managed by industry-leading investment directors who have built highly successful businesses in each of the sectors we support,” he said.

Mercia also said its wholly-owned subsidiary Mercia Fund Management recently raised its University Growth Fund, to support university spinouts.