Jobs lift as funding flows into IT firm

Fluent Communication has received an investment of £210,000 from Finance Yorkshire’s Equity Linked Fund, which will help to triple the size of its workforce over the next year.

Fluent Communication, which is based at St James’ House in Sheffield city centre, combines telemarketing, social media and digital marketing to generate business opportunities for clients in the IT and technology sector.

Director Jonathan Edgeley said: “I have worked in IT sales for 20 years, and so I decided to use my expertise to set up my own company.

“At the start of 2012, the business moved into offices in St James House in Sheffield city centre. We planned to be there for two years, but we have already outgrown it and so to help with our rapid growth we turned to FinanceYorkshire for assistance.

“We have 20 full-time staff who all understand the IT market and how to generate new business opportunities for our clients.”

Andrew Burton,who heads up the Finance Yorkshire Equity Linked Fund, said yesterday: “Fluent Communication is a young, innovative 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 to meet their funding requirements.

Finance Yorkshire was represented by Walker Morris of Leeds in the deal, while Keeble Hawson advised Fluent Communica- tion.