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Venture Capital - Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Sir Jackie Stewart: Motoring Legend/Tech Angel Investor

Silverstone Investment Network, an angel network for Northamptonshire in Englad that has a unique focus on motorsport companies, has been launched with fanfare thanks to the help of racing great Jackie Stewart.

Motoring Legend Sir Jackie Stewart

The angel fund is currently looking to fund the following companies:
Company A: £1m
Company A creates and sells additional media value in motor racing and other fast-moving sports through the use of patented, robot-controlled TV camera-pointing technology ("Navicam").

The system allows close-ups of racing vehicles at speed to be sustained over several seconds. This provides a better show for TV viewers and significantly increases the brand visibility, and thus the media value, for on-car sponsors.

The company's revenue model is primarily based on capturing a portion of the additional media value that its Navicam technology delivers.

Company B: £550K
Company B works with the major business TV channels, such as CNBC, Bloomberg, Sky News and n-tv (Germany) to provide reprint licences and video services to a variety of content buyers. As the channels' official "aftercare service provider", it claims access to around 150K interviews per year, which we sells to the channels' guests, financial institutions and PR agencies.

The company claims more than 600 clients, including Cisco, Mittal Steel, Saab, WPP, Novartis, ARM and Weber Shandwick.

Its main service is to place interviews onto a guest interviewee's website, for which it charges approximately £2,000.

The company says it has been invited by CNBC and Bloomberg to extend its service from Europe to the US and Asia. Company B says it is cash-positive and has been operating since late 2003.

Company C: c £385K
Company C develops a 3-seater sportscar using methodologies and materials from the motorsport and aerospace industry.

Management includes senior F1 designers. it claims that production ramp-up to 30 cars will generate £10m turnover and £3.6m PBIT in year 5.

View - Silverstone Investment Network