Adverts firm wins start-up financing

A group of computer experts who became friends after meeting at a series of IT events have formed their own online advertising business, thanks to a Finance Yorkshire Seedcorn investment.
By The Newsroom
Published 3rd Jul 2012, 10:30 BST

Young entrepreneur Dom Hodgson, along with Rahoul Baruah, Caius Durling, Melinda Seckington and Cristiano Betta, took part in marathon programming competitions, where teams had to solve a problem, write the code and pitch a solution to a panel of experts.

The group excelled at the challenges and have come together to establish EmberAds, which is based in Leeds.

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Mr Hodgson said: “The five of us got involved in the competitions where we were given 24 hours to come up with a solution and hack it together. This would involve us working together as a team for long hours and surviving on pizza at 4am – this is when we realised that if we can work well together at ridiculous hours in the morning then we made a good team.”

A few months later, Mr Hodgson met Graham Davies, a Finance Yorkshire Investment manager, at a networking event.

Mr Hodgson said: “We were invited to the offices to present our concept to the seedcorn team and showcase a prototype. We also talked about the details of each person’s role in the company and started to discuss the terms.

“We worked closely with Graham during the investment process and he has since joined the board of the company.”

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.