Future Visual, founded by Tim Fleming and Iestyn Lloyd in 2015, is an award-winning VR & AR studio based in Brighton, UK. Their product VISIONxR™ enables immersive training and learning with the added benefit of global collaboration; multiple users  can simultaneously access the platform from using VR, AR, desktop of mobile. Future Visual was set up to build immersive enterprise applications specialising in training, collaboration and behaviour change. Early adopters of Future Visual’s technology include IATA (the International Air Transport Association) and rLoop a hyperloop engineering team. Learn more at  www.futurevisual.com

Welbeck Publishing Group Launch and Acquisition of Carlton Books 

Mark Smith and Marcus Leaver are pleased to announce the formation today of Welbeck Publishing Group (Welbeck) with the acquisition of Carlton Books (Carlton). 

Welbeck will build a new trade publishing business through the acquisition of established companies starting with Carlton and by incubating start-up businesses in scalable areas of the market. The focus will be on illustrated non-fiction and children’s books for the co-edition market as well as commercial fiction and non-fiction. 

Among Welbeck’s investors will be Chairman of Welbeck, Peter Read, former Chairman of Quarto, and its lead investor and non-executive Director, Tilly McAuliffe, co-founder and Director of Think Media Group, which includes Think Membership Publishing, Wanderlust Travel Media and Wanderlust Studio. 

The founder of Carlton, Jonathan Goodman, will stay on in the capacity as Publisher at Large. 

Mark Smith, co-founder and CEO of Quercus Books and founder and CEO of Bonnier Zaffre said: 

“Marcus and I have known each other for a long time and have a unified view on the type of modern publishing business we want to build, playing to our respective strengths to create a broad-based trade publishing business headquartered in the UK but with a global outlook.” 

Marcus Leaver, former President of Sterling Publishing and former CEO of The Quarto Group said: 

“I look forward to working with Mark to build a publishing business where we can focus solely on making and selling books. We have long-term funding that will enable us to build the Group patiently, working with our extensive network of partners, authors, illustrators and photographers around the world; Carlton is an excellent springboard for us, and we are pleased Jonathan is staying with the company in a new guise.” 

Jonathan Goodman, Founder of Carlton, said: 

“I have known both Mark and Marcus for many years. My partner, Michael Zilkha, and I are pleased to be selling our company to them and their investors. They will provide new dimensions to Carlton’s established business and I look forward to even greater successes in the future.” 

Contact Details: 

Mark Smith – Executive Director
Mark.Smith@welbeckpublishing.com
+44 (0)7769 681968

Marcus Leaver –  Executive Director Marcus.Leaver@welbeckpublishing.com
+44 (0)7775 648 419

Registered Address: 25 Walbrook, London EC4N 8AF
Company Number: 11452965

Website:
www.welbeckpublishing.com

Yoti is a digital identity system that provides a simple and secure way of proving identities, online and face to face. Current identity verification methods are cumbersome, costly and inefficient.

Yoti is committed to making identity checking simpler and safer by providing a cost-effective and highly secure solution which can remove fraud, reduce risks and improve the customer experience.

Website
www.yoti.com

Address
Fountain House
130 Fenchurch St
London
EC3M 5DJ

Photocrowd is a site for those with a serious interest in photography. They have 31,000 registered users, growing at over 8% month-on-month, and covering 166 countries.

They combine an engaging photo community, centred around sponsored photo challenges, with the chance for all our users to easily establish a stylish e-commerce platform for their work. Profit from image sales is shared between Photocrowd and the photographer. The site operates on a freemium subscription model – access to the site is free, but subscription tiers unlock higher sales commission rates, as well as other site features.

Website: www.photocrowd.com

Address: Oxford Centre for Innovation, New Road, Oxford, OX1 1BY

Sonoma Partners is a UK asset manager which manages the Sonoma Investment Fund (the “Fund”).

The Fund’s investment objective is to generate high risk adjusted returns with lower volatility and peak-to-trough drawdowns than equity indices and with moderate correlation to equities and other asset classes.

The Fund is not constrained by any particular market benchmark and can be invested across all asset classes, investment strategies and geographies.

Pobble provides teachers with a means to inspire young writers, providing them with peer reviewed teaching resources, a platform to share children’s writing, technology supported assessment tools and on-the-ground support for schools.

https://www.pobble.com/

LIVE IT offers considerable industry knowledge and experience to help clients maximise revenues from event attendees, run effective campaigns and manage attendee data. This experience is backed up by an industry leading technology platform and financial services.

Website
www.liveit.io

Address
1 Nile Street
London
N1 7RF

Ian Kellett bought Hambledon Vineyard in 1999 because of its solid chalk terroir on South East facing slopes and his belief that it has the best brand story board of any English wine business. Throw in the fact that Hambledon Village is known as the Cradle of Cricket and the scope to develop Hambledon into the leading English wine brand seemed clear. Hambledon’s aim is simple – selling Englishness to the world by aiming to build, over time, a company producing 1 million bottles per annum of highest quality English fizz, from England’s oldest commercial vineyard. Management believe that Hambledon has the terroir, the brand tools, and the team to produce the finest brand of English sparkling wine and to become world renowned.

Website

www.hambledonvineyard.co.uk

Address
Hambledon Vineyard
Hambledon
Hampshire
PO7 4RY

Autologyx enables businesses to manage mission critical compliance processes in order to cut risk, cut cost and deliver competitive advantage. At its heart, autologyx is a really smart Robotic Process Automation (RPA) engine that’s able to understand and drive any business process, no matter how complicated.

Website
www.autologyx.com

Address
Cody Technology Park
Old Ively Road
Farnborough
Hampshire
GU14 0LX

Message Base offers telephone answering services, with two main variants – message taking and call forwarding. The company also offers virtual office services, including business address registration and mail forwarding.

Website: http://messagebase.com

Address: MessageBase, F3 Kingsway Business Park, Oldfield Road, Hampton, TW12 2HD