Mercia (AIM: MERC), which is focused on the creation, funding and scaling of innovative technology businesses with high growth potential from the UK regions, is pleased to announce that it has agreed the Group’s second direct investment from the portfolio of investments managed by Enterprise Ventures Group (“EVG”) following its acquisition by Mercia on 9 March 2016. The syndicate investment into sureCore Limited (“sureCore”), a low power electronic memory design specialist, provides further confirmation of the strategic benefit EVG brings to Mercia, expanding Mercia’s direct investment pipeline sourced via its third party funds significantly. This follows the investment in Concepta Diagnostics completed in May, the first by the Group in an EVG portfolio company.

Mercia led the Series B seven figure investment round alongside existing investors Finance Yorkshire Seedcorn Fund and Capital-E. EVG had previously invested £1,020,000 seed and early stage finance via its Finance Yorkshire Seedcorn Fund.

Based in Sheffield and led by a team of industry experts with over 30 years of experience, sureCore develops and licenses low power embedded memory designs for the semiconductor industry. It has successfully exploited growing market demand for more memory and lower power consumption in leading edge devices, such as those serving the Internet of Thing (“IoT”) and networking spaces.

Memory designs developed by sureCore have shown an up to 80% saving in dynamic power consumption and up to 75% reduction in static power, compared to industry standard embedded memory. The Mercia Board believes sureCore’s technology has the potential to disrupt many high-worth technology markets, including wearables, networking infrastructure and the IoT.

Dr Mark Volanthen, Investment Director and Head of Electronics, Materials & Manufacturing / Engineering at Mercia said:

“The investment into sureCore further reinforces the strategic rationale behind Mercia’s acquisition of EVG. Mercia now has access to an increased pipeline of potential emerging stars, and sureCore is testament to the high calibre of businesses that EVG has supported via its third party funds. We believe sureCore is an exciting company that has the ability to help Mercia deliver shareholder value as its technology is adopted across high-worth markets.”

Investment Director Ashwin Kumaraswamy, who managed the investment via EVG’s Finance Yorkshire Seedcorn Fund, said:

“We are delighted to have this opportunity to further support sureCore. As an early stage investor, we have seen the company grow to the stage where it is now delivering on its vision of redefining ultra-low power memory and solving existing industry challenges, thus lowering costs for manufacturers and increasing performance for end-users.”

Paul Wells, CEO of sureCore, said:

“This is a tremendous vote of confidence in our technology and our ability to deliver ultra low power memory designs for the next generation of smart and IoT devices whose power consumption must be minimal.”