Invests in
Locations:
Min Investment:
$100,000.00Max Investment:
$5,000,000.00Target Investment:
$1,500,000.00
Skills
Education
- Harold Hill Grammar School
(1964 - 1971)
- Crowlands
(1958 - 1964)
Lists including Stephen
Investments
Work Experience
2011
Founder and CEO
2011
SFC Capital (formerly Startup Funding Club) provides pre seed and seed funding for early stage startups. As well as funding SFC also provides the needed support and services for the startup including incubation, mentoring, monitoring, branding and prototyping. We have a co-investment model, investing from our SEIS/EIS funds alongside our angels from our network.This ensures the startups have a level of expertise and mentoring post investment. We also manage the Crocodile Lair investors club at Home Grown.The new funds are now taking in investment ready for deployment . SFC have received a number of awards over the last 3 years including SEIS fund manager of the year 2021, Most active investor in the regions 2021, Angel Syndicate of the year awards 2016 and 2018, winner of the most innovative fund and the 2019 runner up for fund of the year.We are also a partner of the British Business Investment's Regional fund (Part of the British Business Bank) With almost 300 investments SFC is the most active SEIS investor in the UK. Companies including Onfido, Cognism, Transcend, Vortex and Humanising Autonomy.
CEO
2016
SFC Capital Partners is an FCA regulated Fund Manager. We provide a full regulated service to our sister company, SFC Capital, as well as providing Appointed Rep service to other funds looking for regulation.
Founder Freeman
2015
I am delighted to have been accepted as a founder freeman for the new Guild of Entrepreneurs. It is an exciting new Guild formed to promote the cause of Entrepreneurship.
Partner
2015
SSLP is a Sri Lankan investment business specialising in property and tourism as well as a real estate operation. We will help investors find and buy land and properties in the growing Sri Lankan market. We also operate a beautiful boutique hotel called Five on the beach in the Tangalle area. fivetangalle.com
1980 - 2020
Chief Executive
1980 - 2020
Sapphire Group provides software and services for a wide variety of businesses ,large and small. Primarily in DataEase but also in the Microsoft technology set. During the last 30 years Stephen as CEO of Sapphire Group has : Key successes: • Published DataEase, a widely successful database software with over 3 million copies sold worldwide. • Publishing and distributing Sun Accounts, now a major accounting software leader, and selling it to more than 1,000 companies in the 80’s as a market maker. • Publishing Enterprise Developer, a client server RAD software tool developed in the early 90’s and sold to Symantec Corporation in 1995. Then bought it back in 1998 and renamed it NetPlus. • Acquiring more than 10 software and services companies in the 1988-2000 period, including graphics software, accounting software, vertical applications software, 1 training and three consulting companies. • Opening and managing offices in 15 countries. • Raising millions of pounds in various rounds of funding from VC’s • Opening and managing offshore development offices in Russia (since 2000) and Egypt (since 2006). • Winning various awards over the years including the prestigious NOA Project of the Year for the successful development and implementation of a .Net project (Betbrokers) in 2007 Sold Sapphire International Inc (USA)to ICRA of India in 2009.
2013 - 2015
Director/Investor
2013 - 2015
Onfido is a very exciting startup company specialising in online background checking. Primarily for recruitment but also other disciplines where it is important to be sure about potential employees, suppliers or partners.I am very proud to have helped the company through to their Series A round in Jan 15 and came off as a director whilst remaining an investor.
1992 - 2014
Chairman
1992 - 2014
DataEase is now over 30 years old having been through many versions since its launch in 1982.I have been involved since the beginning and I sold the business to its current owner in mid 2014.
2008 - 2014
Chairman
2008 - 2014
Ortegra is a team of passionate people who has an outstanding interest in online and social media marketing, Ortegra also invested in startups and has shareholdings in Emoov , OOlag , Miss High Street, Idlovetodothat and Upad.
2000 - 2008
CEO
2000 - 2008
Ru-Soft opened up a programming and development centre in St Petersburg,Russia in 1999. At its peak we had over 50 staff working in major languages such as .net and java.
1992 - 2008
President
1992 - 2008
I lived and worked in USA from 1993-1997 as CEO of DataEase after the merger with UK company,Sapphire.