City gives educational material the thumbs up as Espresso Broadband secures £2.7m investment deal

16th October 2001

ProVen Private Equity leads funding round with £1.6 million investment.

Award-winning Espresso Education Ltd has secured £2.7m in funding, enabling the company to continue delivering high quality bandwidth-hungry curriculum materials to primary schools across the UK. The news is further evidence that Espresso is the undisputed leader in the field of broadband content creation and delivery. Espresso's primary schools service has received rave reviews from both the teaching community and the education press since its launch two years ago and the funding will allow Espresso to continue work on its exciting new service for secondary schools.

The funding is led by ProVen Private Equity, which is investing £1.6m in the Hammersmith-based company. Other participants in the funding round include the private equity group, MeCom, and a number of the company's original shareholders, who are co-ordinated by Babcock & Brown, the structured finance group, who first invested in Espresso in 1999.

Rapid growth in the market for school electronic learning materials is the spur for the new investment. Espresso has already doubled its user base twice this year, and currently has over 400 subscribing schools in 40 Local Education Authorities - that's 100,000 pupils using Espresso's service!

ProVen's financial commitment to Espresso secures it a significant minority stake in the company, investing via three VCT funds (ProVen Media VCT, ProVen VCT and Guinness Flight VCT).

Chris Allner, Director of ProVen Private Equity, said, "Espresso is a young company with a fantastic business concept and has already cornered the market. They not only have a unique delivery system - they offer schools the very best content in an exciting format. The content is loved by pupils and, in providing assistance to teachers, the service comes at a highly pertinent time."

Former Editor of BBC's Blue Peter flagship children's programme, Lewis Bronze, and Tony Bowden, a strategic software consultant, founded Espresso in 1997. In 2000, the company's ingenuity was rewarded with Britain's leading educational technology prize, the BETT Innovation Award.

Lewis Bronze, Espresso's CEO, has been a central figure in the recent debate on how Government funding should be distributed to create educational materials of the highest quality. Commenting on the announcement, Lewis said, "We are delighted to have ProVen as a backer. We have been impressed by ProVen's appreciation of our business, and its strong growth potential in the exciting education market, which is the focus of so much government investment."

Notes to Editors

ProVen Private Equity Limited
ProVen Private Equity Limited originated in 1985 and was reformed in 1998 by way of an MBO of the development capital business of Guinness Mahon Group. Guinness Mahon is now part of Investec Bank (UK) Limited.

ProVen specialises in private equity investments for medium sized companies. The team concentrates on MBOs and development capital investments for established businesses with good growth prospects, typically investing between £1 million and £5 million in any one company. ProVen is a leading manager of VCT funds, and most recently launched ProVen Media VCT plc. ProVen has offices in London, New York, and Los Angeles, with affiliate companies in Michigan and Helsinki.

ProVen Private Equity Limited is a full member of the British Venture Capital Association and IMRO.

Espresso Broadband Ltd
Espresso Broadband Ltd. was founded in February 1997 by Tony Bowden and Lewis Bronze with the aim of merging the boundaries between computing and television to deliver relevant and meaningful video news direct to the classroom. The idea was then expanded to encompass the National Curriculum and bring multimedia education resources supported by an Internet based information source in to classes for use in lessons on a daily basis. Services available through Espresso are:

Espresso for Primary Schools - The service encompasses the National Curriculum and brings multimedia education resources through an internet based information source that is used in lessons on a daily basis. It is designed to stimulate children and teach them skills relevant to their key stage.

Espresso for Teachers - The service is designed to offer support and lesson ideas to primary school teachers to teach children skills and concepts relevant to the National Curriculum. Espresso enables teachers to make planning and researching lessons more enjoyable and stress-free.

Espresso for Secondary Schools - This service was launched in summer 2001 after the success of the primary service. This service has a homework facility that enables students to study at home.

Your Espresso - This service provides information on local history or a regional project through specially filmed video that is integrated in a multimedia web site.

For further press information or paper versions of this release please contact:
Espresso Marketing, Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith, W6 9RL
Tel: +44(0)20 8237 1200
Fax: +44(0)20 8237 1201
Email: info@espresso.co.uk