Michael Dickens

Career History

Prior to joining Clive Owen, I was an Investment Manager at Maven Capital Partners, a UK wide venture capital and private equity business for 9 years completing £125k to £3m investments via equity, convertible debt, loan and mezzanine deal structures into businesses in different sectors and at all stages. I was responsible for investment sourcing, appraisal and completion in addition to portfolio monitoring, client reporting, payment collection and project administration for 3 North East regional funds.

I previously worked at Rivers Capital Partners for 6 years initially as a trainee working up to Fund Manager for a £12m early-stage NE regional seed fund completing venture transactions mainly via equity and quasi-equity deals but also via debt and mezzanine investments into SMEs across multiple sectors. Whist at Rivers, I also held secondments with an angel crowd-sourcing platform, analysing funding applications, and at Finance Tree where I acted as an introducer to a specialist equity loan provider in addition to aiding 3 companies attract investment from syndicates of international private investors.

Qualifications

I hold the Investment Management Certificate, a PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Nottingham and a Masters in Chemistry from the University of Leicester.

Experience and expertise

I’ve spent over 15 years as an investment professional providing seed to growth funding and MBO finance to businesses in the North East of England having been directly involved in more than 200 corporate transactions worth over £100m.

Career highlights

• Playing a critical role in setting up and launching of new North East offices that allowed Maven that previously had no presence in the area to grow regional funds under management from £20m to £100m.
• Successfully completed the seed, Series A and bridging rounds into, actively monitored performance and managed the profitable trade sale of a rapidly growing security threat intelligence platform.
• Completed loans into and managed the full early repayments from a pharmaceutical manufacturer, biomass electricity plant, logistics fulfilment provider, chocolate producer, boutique hotel and polish manufacturer.
• Successfully completed a MBO investment into and was influential in the trade sale of a tier 1 automotive parts supplier to a private equity backed purchaser that provided substantial returns in over a year.
• Played a critical role in supporting and led on several multi-million-pound investment rounds into a designer, and manufacturer of lithium battery systems that was subsequently successfully acquired.
• Participated in the separate high profile £100m and £200m Series C and D investment rounds into a new ultra-low cost, thin and flexible microchip manufacturer to set up full scale production in County Durham.
• Completed a seed investment into a Newcastle University life science spin out and financially supported a Durham University biotech service provider spin out alongside other early-stage specialist investors.

Hobbies and interests

Rugby union as a very amateur player, referee and keen watcher of the sport.

Enjoy cooking in particular curries and anything meat related on my smoker BBQ. Like being outside walking the dog particularly in Northumberland, Lake District and Yorkshire countryside.

However, most my time is spent with my young family as a father of 2 boys which certainly keeps me busy!