Birmingham based Glide, an energy and telecommunications company specialising in supplying tenants, landlords, letting agents and property developers in the UK, has successfully completed raising a further £735,000 of development capital funding from private investors. Glide, based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, currently employs 25 people and has ambitious plans to grow. The new funding is being used to grow Glide’s sales and operations teams in order to accelerate its expansion into major cities across the UK, including London which, up until now, Glide hasn’t specifically targeted.
Glide’s service offering enables landlords to manage utilities such as electricity, water and gas across their property portfolios by providing one bill covering all of their properties. Bills are itemised by service and property which is particularly beneficial where landlords provide rent inclusive of bills and need to be able to monitor usage across their portfolios. This significantly reduces the administrative burden on landlords, allowing them to concentrate on other, more important, aspects of their business.
In shared accommodation, Glide’s services simplify the process of splitting bills between tenants by providing each tenant with one simple itemised bill. Each tenant is only responsible for their share and this helps to avoid household arguments and chasing friends for money. Services provided include gas, electricity, water, broadband, telephones and TV licences.
Glide was founded in 2006 by Midlands’ entrepreneurs James Villarreal and Sandeep Krishan whilst they were still at the University of Birmingham and in 2007 Glide raised an initial tranche of development capital which enabled the business to develop its back office systems and start the roll out of the concept.
Glide originally engaged Cattaneo LLP to provide corporate finance advice on its initial development capital fundraising and subsequently engaged Cattaneo LLP again to advise on this further round of fundraising.
The founders of Glide had a great business idea and their energy, enthusiasm and drive as young entrepreneurs was impressive. With support from local investors they have secured the funding that they need to move to the next phase of development and roll the business out nationally. James Villarreal, CEO said:
“We have been working with Cattaneo LLP since 2006 and have developed an excellent working relationship with them. The team there are really accessible and extremely responsive, commercial and helpful. They introduced us to a number of potential investors who would brought very different qualities to the table and helped us to choose those who would be most beneficial to the business going forward. When we needed additional help pulling together a financial model in support of the business plan they were able to provide the necessary expertise and we now have a really useful tool. The ongoing relationship that we will have is further demonstrated by the fact that we have asked Charles to join our board as Chairman.”