Sandeep Krishan, James Villarreal and Charles Cattaneo are streets ahead after raising £735k of development capital for Glide
Birmingham based Glide, an energy and telecommunications company specialising in supplying tenants, landlords, letting agents and property developers in the UK, has successfully completed raising a further £735,000 of development capital funding from private investors. Glide, based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, currently employs 25 people and has ambitious plans to grow. The new funding is being used to grow Glide’s sales and operations teams in order to accelerate its expansion into major cities across the UK, including London, which up until now, Glide hasn’t specifically targeted.
Glide’s service offering enables landlords to manage utilities such as electricity, water and gas across their property portfolios by providing one bill covering all of their properties. Bills are itemised by service and property, which is particularly beneficial where landlords provide rent inclusive of bills and need to be able to monitor usage across their portfolios. This significantly reduces the administrative burden on landlords, allowing them to concentrate on other, more important, aspects of their business.
In shared accommodation, Glide’s services simplify the process of splitting bills between tenants by providing each tenant with one simple itemised bill. Each tenant is only responsible for their share and this helps to avoid household arguments and chasing friends for money. Services provided include gas, electricity, water, broadband, telephones and TV licences.
Glide was founded in 2006 by Midlands’ entrepreneurs James Villarreal and Sandeep Krishan whilst they were still at the University of Birmingham and in 2007 Glide raised an initial tranche of development capital which enabled the business to develop its back office systems and start the roll out of the concept.
Commenting on the fundraising James Villarreal, CEO of Glide said: “Since raising the initial development capital in 2007 we have been on a steep, and sometimes very challenging, growth curve.
“We have learnt a huge amount and now, having successfully rolled out the business nationally, we are really excited about accelerating Glide’s expansion into more major cities.”
Sandeep Krishan, COO of Glide said: “We have worked with local advisers and investors to secure the development capital funding and look forward to working with our new investors to secure the continued success of Glide.”
Charles Cattaneo said: “Despite the tough current market conditions, investors still have the appetite to invest in good high-growth businesses with quality management teams.”
Glide was advised on the development capital fund raising by a team of Birmingham based advisers Charles Cattaneo and Stephen Bishop of Cattaneo LLP (corporate finance), Rick Smyth, Ateeq Ahmed and Leanne Fryer of Harvey Ingram LLP (legal advice) and Alan Wells of Grant Thornton UK LLP (tax advice).