Lancashire business plans national rollout of tech that is ‘fundamental evolution’ of its work
River Capital has backed Infinium Group in Preston. Picture shows L-R: Andrew Peters, Ben Gregory (River Capital) Peter Mills, Mark Borzomato (River Capital) & Mark Evans(Image: Jon Super/UNP)
A wifi and IT provider to holiday parks and leisure venues has won a “seven-figure” investment to continue its UK expansion. Preston-based Infinium Group will use the backing from North West fund manager River Capital to scale up its EDGE platform and to “accelerate nationwide growth”.
Infinium was founded in 2002 by CEO Peter Miles and CTO Dan Massey and today designs, installs and operates wifi networks for holiday home and lodge parks. The River Capital investment will support the national rollout of Infinium EDGE, which Infinium says is a “fundamental evolution” of its business model.
EDGE lets park operators take wifi services to individual lodges and cabins. It says the systems allows small and mid–size operators to offer “robust, future proof connectivity to access enterprise grade wifi infrastructure without the burden of capital intensive installations”.
The Lancashire firm says there is a “substantial opportunity” for its to win new business at more of the UK’s 5,000 holiday and lodge parks, which encompass 438,000 pitches.
River Capital’s investment is a combined package of equity funding from River Capital’s North West Equity Fund, alongside mezzanine debt from the new River Capital Mezzanine Fund. The investment will see Andrew Peters, former chief executive of Telefonica UK, join the board as chair, while leisure sector finance specialist Mark Evans will also join the board.
Mark Borzomato, CEO of River Capital, said: “Infinium is exactly the type of established, sector-specialist business we seek to support. Under the direction of Peter and Dan, the company has built a solid reputation over more than two decades, demonstrating deep technical expertise and strong customer relationships in a niche market – customer feedback as part of our commercial due diligence was exceptional. The EDGE solution addresses a clear market opportunity and positions Infinium to capture growth across a broader segment of holiday park operators. We are excited and look forward to working with Peter, Dan and the team.”
John Gray, investment director for the River Capital Mezzanine Fund, said: “This investment demonstrates the complementary nature of River Capital’s debt and equity suite of products. We view the core business as a solid foundation, with the EDGE opportunity representing a highly attractive growth driver—an outlook supported by due diligence confirming strong market appetite and a highly capable management team.”
Paul Billingham and Greg Rawsthorne of Knight Corporate Finance advised Infinium management on the transaction and also provided commercial due diligence support. Mike Murphy (Weightmans) provided legal support for River Capital Private Equity and Denise Walker and Joanna Sproson (Glenville Walker) for River Capital Mezzanine.
Financial and tax due diligence was led by Rowan Porter and Michael Spencer (MHA), and management due diligence was led by Paul Quinn (Quinn Partnership). Legal support for management was provided by Richard Robertson of Napthens.