Centre of Excellence is set to celebrated its 7th Birthday on the 27 February at Stanneylands, Wilmslow. Established in 2013, Centre of Excellence offers over 1000 courses to over 160 different countries.

During the celebration Sara Lou-Ann Jones, founder of Centre of Excellence, will be presenting a generous cheque of £2,000, on the company’s behalf, to East Cheshire Hospice. April Green, Key Relationships Manager for East Cheshire Hospice, will be collecting the cheque on behalf of the charity.

“Centre of Excellence are thrilled to be presenting a donation to the East Cheshire Hospice to help them with all the amazing work that they do. The East Cheshire Hospice is close to our hearts and we’re happy to support such a great cause,” said Sara Lou-Ann Jones, founder of Centre of Excellence.

The Greater Manchester Export Loan Fund has supported Rochdale based IBB Media Limited (IBB) with a £100,000 loan to fund the growth of its digital platform for brass bands, players, educators and enthusiasts across the world.

The Fund is delivered by GC Business Finance, who have also introduced IBB to the Department for International Trade (DIT), part of The Growth Company.  DIT provides access to a wide range of International trade support for both new and existing exporters to secure and grow export contracts all over the world.

Incorporated in 2018, IBB developed digital platform BrassPass TV to connect brass bands and enthusiasts. It currently has over 1200 subscribers and draws 75% of its audience from overseas.  The site features live streams of major concerts including this year’s Band of the Year contest, innovative and unique content from contributors, profiles of major musical figures, a video magazine to focus on community and youth bands and is in the process of building the brass world’s biggest content archive.

The business will use the £100k loan to buy cameras and recording equipment, to develop and generate more unique content for the website and to start production of a virtual reality project designed to connect brass band enthusiasts in having an “on stage experience” which will change the way music performance is viewed.  The loan will also create full time jobs alongside IBB’s prestigious freelance talent pool which includes BAFTA winning producer Simon Powell and former Listen to the Band BBC presenters and producers Frank Renton and Terry Carter.

IBB owner Martin Gernon has a lifetime of experience within the brass band sector himself, having performed as a percussionist with bands including The Fairey Band and the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band.  He is also Managing Director of The Centre Stage Group Ltd, a company specialising in the sale of uniforms and percussion instruments to the brass and military band sector in the UK and across the world.

Martin said: “The audience for brass band music is growing every year, with musicians and enthusiasts alike keen to come together to share events and expertise. We developed BrassPass as a platform to bring all of these interests together and are committed to making the very best in the business, both at home and overseas.

“This investment from the Export Fund means that we are now able to deliver a really exciting programme of new content and collaborations, designed to keep our global audience entertained, engaged and expanding.”

Andrew Nichols, Senior Loans Manager at GC Business Finance, said: “IBB is powered by some of the UK’s foremost figures in music and broadcasting, all of whom are passionate about building a truly connected brass band community. The GM Export Loan Fund was developed to support exactly this type of innovative and ambitious business and we’re proud to be working closely with Martin and his collaborators to develop this unique platform and to reach new territories across the globe.”

Planixs, a high-growth FinTech company, has secured an initial £3.5m minority equity investment from BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor in growing businesses. The company will take advantage of a fast-growing market by using the funding to expand its global customer base, accelerate product development and support recruitment across the business.

Founded in 2011, Manchester-based Planixs works with global financial institutions such as Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Zenith Bank, in providing its market-leading product suite Realiti®, a cloud-based and on premise technology solution suite delivering real-time intraday cash, collateral and liquidity management capabilities to the financial services industry.

Realiti® helps firms to comply with global BCBS248 regulatory requirements including stress modelling (incorporating UK PRA, FED and European Banking Authority regulations), using Planixs’ highly scalable business intelligence, optimisation and analytics technology platform Graphite which can work with any legacy systems. Realiti also drives operational savings and improves risk management for banks, financial institutions and large corporates including reducing expensive liquidity buffers.

Led by CEO and Founder Neville Roberts, the business recently moved its head office to Union House on Albert Square in the centre of Manchester. In 2018, Planixs ranked 22nd overall in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 and is the UK’s number one Enterprise Fintech and leading North West technology company. The Tech Track awards are published every year by the Sunday Times and represent some of the fastest growing, profitable and most admired technology companies in the UK.

The investment comes after BGF experienced a record year of investing in the North West in 2018, providing £80m in long-term funding across 16 deals. New investments in 2018 included web hosting company Miss Group, digital solutions manufacturer Evoke Creative and image mapping business Gaist.

Neville Roberts, CEO of Planixs, commented: “Planixs has experienced significant growth in a relatively short period due to the team’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technology, simplifying regulatory compliance, driving liquidity cost benefit and delivering against the complexities of legacy systems that continue to permeate the financial system.

“I am hugely proud of what the business and the team has achieved to date and delighted to drive our growth agenda forward with the backing of BGF and its network. There is much more we want to achieve, particularly in terms of innovation and international expansion, and the move from angel investment to the support of a long-term investor in BGF is an important vote of confidence and enabler in those plans.”

Pinesh Mehta, an investor at BGF, said: “Planixs has built the market-leading FinTech solution for its rapidly-growing client base, delivering big data at scale and taking advantage of opportunities opening up due to important regulatory drivers.

“We’re delighted to be partnering with a strong, experienced management team, supporting them to deliver their world-class solutions and technology to a global market.”

Andy Gregory, BGF’s Head of Investments in the North, Scotland & Ireland, said: “Manchester is quickly becoming a global FinTech hub in the North West, with some great investments in infrastructure to date. Many of the UK’s leading financial services businesses have their back-office payment processing teams based here and we’re therefore seeing high levels of innovation to help them streamline their processes and manage their systems in a more efficient way. We’re delighted to be part of the UK’s FinTech growth story with our investment in Planixs. BGF invested in one business per week in 2018, and we’re ready to support more ambitious businesses in this industry and in Manchester in 2019.”