Kevin wins US support for digital venture
Jan 14 2010 by Jez Davison, Evening Gazette
A DIGITAL venture launched by Middlesbrough graduate Kevin Mann has secured nearly £75,000 of funding to kick-start a State-side expansion.
Middlesbrough-based Graphic.ly (formerly Take Comics) received the backing from North-east venture capital firm Northstar Equity Investors (NSEI) and several US funds in return for a combined equity stake in the business.
US investors include venture capital firm DFJ Mercury, US production firm Starz Media, GC&H Investments and Chris Sacca, an early investor in Twitter.
The funding will be used for product development and marketing and to forge partnerships with content providers.
The Teesside firm has already secured deals with three US publishers - Marvel Comics, Devils Due and Top Cow - and is in negotiations with others to convert their printed material into digital content that can be displayed on a mobile phone or computing device.
Graphic.ly, which will receive 30% of sales from digital downloads of the material, said its business concept was similar to the popular iTunes model.
Mr Mann, a computer science graduate from Teesside University, said: "Instead of downloading music, you can download and read comics.
"The average comic book reader is a 25-35 year-old male, but we’re aiming to make the comic book market accessible to everyone."
The breakthrough came after Mr Mann secured a place on the TechStars programme, a mentorship-driven seed stage investment fund in Boulder, Colorado.
One of only 10 firms chosen from 650 applications, Graphic.ly received mentoring support from IT heavyweight Microsoft and successfully pitched its business idea to angel investors and venture capitalists.
Graphic.ly has now appointed a US-based CEO, Micah Baldwin, and is looking to recruit three staff in Middlesbrough as part of plans to grow the Teesside team to more than 20 by the year end. The company currently employs eight in Middlesbrough and four in Colorado.
Mr Mann said there were no plans to uproot the company from its Teesside base, despite the recent funding win.
"We’re keeping the commercial operation in the US but the research and development will happen on Teesside," he said.
Mr Mann, who officially launched the company in July 2008, secured £60,000 of funding from NSEI to get the venture off the ground. He has also received a £20,000 grant from development agency One North East as well as support from Business Link, Teesside University and DigitalCity, the sector organisation helping to drive a £1.17bn creative and digital industry in the North-east.
Mark Elliott, CEO of DigitalCity Business - the commercial arm of the DigitalCity project - urged local entrepreneurs to follow in Mr Mann’s footsteps.
He said: "Kevin is part of the system that we’ve built carefully over the last few years.
"If we can do it with Kevin, we can do it with others."
Creative firms in Tees Valley are predicted to generate more than 9,000 jobs in the next five years.
