Venture capital boost for student referral site
An improvement in venture-capital fund raising conditions has helped the founders of studentgems.com to raise finance to develop an operation that enables students to access temporary work on offer from companies.
Studentgems, founded by Sue Harrison and Joanna Ward, has raised in excess of £100,000 from eight wealthy investors, with the help of UK government-sponsored organisation Business Link. Lord Mandleson, business secretary, is keen to boost venture capital opportunities.
The investors include Eddie Price, a frequent business angel, following his involved with industrial group Charles Baynes, later sold to private equity group Alchemy. Another backer is Peter Fergusson, a former commercial law partner with Norton Rose.
Fergusson said: "Students are desperate for part-time work to fund their costs of college. And smaller companies are desperate to find people to work on an assignment, or on a short term basis. Studentgems is skilfully designed to bring the two together."
Analysts say that the stock market recovery has helped to encourage money into the venture capital sector. But they add that it will not be able to make a full recovery until companies start achieving more exits at high prices. The success of studentgems in developing a client base illustrates that businesses with the best prospects are restricting the number of people employed on a full time basis.
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