Finance Yorkshire backed Concepta to launch new manufacturing facility

Alex McWhirter, Chief Executive, Finance Yorkshire

Healthcare company Concepta – which is backed by Finance Yorkshire – is to open a new manufacturing base in Doncaster to support its ambitious growth plans.

The AIM-listed business has signed a 10-year lease on the facility at Bullrush Grove Business Park where it will employ eight full-time staff.

The newly built 6,000 sq. ft. premises will be used to manufacture lateral flow test strips for the company’s MyLotus product for unexplained infertility. The product will be launched in China later this year before being made available in the UK and Europe in 2017.

Prior to Concepta being listed on AIM, it received investment totalling £2.3 million from Finance Yorkshire’s Seedcorn Fund alongside Diagnostic Capital and the Angel Co Fund.

Finance Yorkshire Chief Executive Alex McWhirter said: “Concepta’s strong growth to date demonstrates Finance Yorkshire’s successful track record for investing in early stage innovative technology companies. Our investment has proved pivotal in enabling Concepta to realise the potential of its products to the point now where it is enjoying expansion in the Yorkshire region.”

Finance Yorkshire has provided more than £22 million of seedcorn investment to over 30 technology businesses across the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Erik Henau, CEO of Concepta, said: “We are pleased to have signed the lease on this excellent location for our UK manufacturing operations. Concepta has a commitment to Yorkshire through one of the earliest backers of our business: Finance Yorkshire. The securing of this new facility is essential to our company’s continued growth.”

Founded in 2013, Concepta has pioneered products targeted at the personalised mobile health market with a primary focus on women’s fertility and specifically unexplained infertility.

The new Doncaster facility has office space already fitted and the company is now establishing its manufacturing, warehousing and quality control areas. The premises will be fully operational by early 2017 and has the capacity for further expansion.

Concepta has also recently opened a state of the art research and development hub in the UK which will support new product development in the wider mobile health market.

Since its inception, Finance Yorkshire has invested in more than 460 companies, enabling those businesses to increase their turnover by a collective £377 million and attract a further £273 million from private sector sources. Finance Yorkshire investment has helped those SMEs to create and safeguard more than 12,200 jobs in the region.

Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to meet their funding requirements for growth and development.

The project is supported financially by the European Union. It has attracted investment from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), as part of Europe’s support for the region’s economic development through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme, UK Government and the European Investment Bank. Finance Yorkshire is also supported by the Regional Growth Fund.

For more information about Finance Yorkshire, please visit www.finance-yorkshire.com or call 0300 030 6060.

Note: this news article is from Finance Yorkshire’s previous fund. Read more about Finance Yorkshire