Lintbells

The PwC UK Retail, Consumer and Leisure Corporate Finance team is pleased to announce the completion of Project Mussel, the sale of a minority equity stake in Lintbells Limited ("Lintbells") to Inflexion Private Equity ("Inflexion").

Lintbells was established in 2006 by John Howie and John Davies and has rapidly grown into the UK’s leading nutritional supplements for pets business by targeting a growing market of pet owners with innovative products that have scientific validation and deliver visible health benefits.

The pets sector is an area of significant growth and investment due to its large addressable market, resilient consumer spending patterns and continuation of the trend of “humanisation of pets”.

PwC acted as lead financial advisor to Lintbells and this transaction follows on a number of successful deals led by PwC in the UK pet sector, including the sale of MPM Petfood to ECI Partners and Armitage Pet Care to Rutland Partners.

The PwC team was led by John Lane, Amit Aggarwal and Oliver Connolly, with oversight and guidance provided by Neil Sutton. Olivia Lonsdale and Charlotte Astleford provided support and deal management assistance.

We are excited to partner with Inflexion as we look to accelerate the expansion of Lintbells in multiple areas. I would like to also thank PwC for their support and hard work on achieving this important milestone on our journey. Throughout the process, PwC’s team consistently delivered sound advice and demonstrated their knowledge of the sector. It was clear that they really understood our business and growth objectives. Finally, not only were they focused on ensuring that we found the right partner, they were also fun to work with.

John Howie CEO of Lintbells

Monica Healthcare

Monica Healthcare becomes part of GE Healthcare

Monitoring expectant mothers and their babies before and during childbirth is a vital and at times a complicated task. GE Healthcare is investing in innovations to make it easier. Today, GE Healthcare announced that it is expanding its Maternal-Infant Care business with the acquisition of Monica Healthcare, a monitoring technology company based in the United Kingdom. This acquisition (price not disclosed) enhances GE Healthcare’s mobile and digital offerings by providing clinicians and patients around the world with more innovative solutions for labor, delivery, and home care.  

Monica Healthcare is a 12-year-old private company dedicated to improving the birth experience and enhancing obstetric care through wearable wireless fetal monitoring devices. Monica Healthcare’s advanced fetal monitors already empower midwives, labor and delivery nurses, and expectant women at approximately 1,000 sites across Europe, Asia and North America – with more than 100,000 patients impacted just last year.  

“At GE Healthcare, we are committed to improving the health care experience across care areas, including childbirth,” says Tammy Noll, General Manager of GE Healthcare’s Maternal-Infant Care division. “Through this acquisition, we will combine the incredible expertise and mobile-digital innovation from the Monica team with GE Healthcare’s longstanding industry leadership and customer focus – all with the goal of bettering maternal and infant care for patients worldwide.”  

Since 2015, GE Healthcare has been Monica’s North American distribution partner for the Novii™ Wireless Patch System – a singlepatient use patch that effectively monitors maternal heart rate, fetal heart rate, and uterine activity, even on many of the most difficult to monitor patients. The Novii patch communicates through Bluetooth wirelessly to the fetal monitor, providing patients with greater mobility in labor. To learn more about the Novii patch, watch the video here.  

“Joining GE Healthcare provides a fantastic opportunity to bring together Monica’s digital offerings with GE Healthcare’s global infrastructure to provide even stronger capabilities and solutions to customers around the world,” said Carl Barratt, CEO of Monica Healthcare.   

GE Healthcare Maternal Infant Care offers neuro-developmental and family-centered solutions across maternal/fetal monitors, infant warmers, infant resuscitation systems, phototherapy, incubators and combination beds – helping to send moms and babies home healthy. GE Healthcare is also the global industry leader for prenatal ultrasound, with more than 230 million expectant mothers using GE Healthcare ultrasound every year.  

Oval Medical Technologies

HealthTech firm Oval Medical Technologies has been acquired by global pharmaceutical device manufacturer SMC Ltd.

Founded in Cambridge in 2009, Oval is a medical technology company that designs and produces auto-injectors to enhance medical safety and help those who have a fear of needles.

Its acquisition by US-based SMC comes two years after it raised £1.1m via the SyndicateRoom platform in 2014.

This is the first exit of a Syndicate Room-funded company, and will see 40 SyndicateRoom investors enjoy a return.

Barbara Lead, CEO at Oval Medical Technologies, said: “As part of SMC, Oval will be well placed to provide customers with devices that meet their needs and those of their patients.

“The combination of Oval’s design and development capability and SMC’s capabilities in global manufacturing, will ensure a high level of reliability in product performance and a fast route to market,” she added.

One of Oval’s products is an Epinephrine auto-injector – a small device for treating patients for anaphylactic shock. Another is the Sumatriptan, which is being developed to treat patients with migraines and cluster headaches.

Chetan Patel, president and founder at SMC Ltd, said he was “excited” about his firm’s acquisition of Oval Medical Technologies.

“In addition to autoinjectors, the Oval team brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the design, development and manufacturing of inhalation products,” he added.

Alert Me

British Gas have acquired AlertMe to create the UK’s leading connected homes provider. This exciting move brings together British Gas’ ability to innovate for customers with AlertMe’s next generation Internet of Things technology and expertise. The acquisition has created a highly experienced and fully integrated team which will now accelerate the development of new connected home services in the UK and worldwide.

Neul

Neul sold to Huawei for $25 million

Chinese technology heavyweight Huawei has bought Cambridge UK based IoT business Neul for $25 million.

Huawei recently told Business Secretary Vince Cable that it was investing £1.3 billion in the UK but at the time declined to say whether this would be at its current Ipswich facility or in expansion into Cambridge.

The Neul deal would appear to have answered part of the question.

CEO Stan Boland was brought in to maximise value for VC investors, one of whom told me they thought it was a good deal but another source close to the business said they thought Neul been sold too cheaply given its potential.

Neul positioned itself at the heart of the whole Internet of Things acceleration process and this has undoubtedly been the attraction for Huawei, which is a world-leading ICT provider.

I understand that the Cambridge company was seeking a major strategic investor – without success – and one source told me the alternative to not raising funds could even have been going into administration. The urgency of the situation seems to have accelerated the Huawei deal.

Boland was not available to comment.

Another undercurrent has been a difference between co-founder James Collier and Boland over the direction the company should take. It began targeting deals involving the new TV white space spectrum but has morphed into a pure IoT/smart city play.

Collier is said to have been unavailable even to close contacts while the Huawei sale has been unfolding. There are also reports locally that Collier – also co-founder of CSR – has been seeking an exit to explore fresh opportunities.Update: Huawei investing tens of millions to build Cambridge IoT powerhouse