Helveta is a cleantech company with a pioneering supply chain intelligence software product, CI World™. Helveta focuses on the timber sector and enables organisations to provide full traceability for timber goods throughout the supply chain.  It is already used to monitor more than 2.7m hectares of forest across the Congo and Amazon basins and in South East Asia.

FirstCapital was exclusive financial advisor to Helveta for its £3m Series B round in 2008, and the relationship continued into the Series C. Helveta sought further investment to enable the company to further expand into new geographies and extend its presence in the food industry, where its technology enables fair-trade suppliers and buyers to validate the source of produce.

As Helveta’s success grew, winning more national contracts to operate the software solution for the timber chain of custody, it was key that FirstCapital were able to run the financing process, allowing the company to focus on execution of the business plan.  FirstCapital sought investors which recognised the potential of the opportunity and were sensitive to the importance of new European carbon reduction legislation.  The roadshow drew international interest and the result was a close of £5m Series C in May 2010 from BeCapital, a Luxembourg-based private equity company dedicated to capital expansion investments in companies that have developed proprietary, proven and disruptive clean technologies, and the Carbon Trust, a UK company with the mission to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy. Existing investors reinvested.

www.helveta.com

Testimonials

"FirstCapital has once again proved its ability to source international investors and deliver a successful transaction in spite of an extremely tough economic climate.  The experience and skills of FirstCapital’s people, and their commitment to this deal, exceeded my already high expectations."
Patrick Newton, CEO of Helveta