Nemesis Now receives investment from Alcuin Capital Partners

CWI-admin 19min read
Posted in: Raising finance

Case Study

Nemesis Now receives investment from Alcuin Capital Partners.

The deal.

We were approached by the shareholders of Nemesis Now to help find a partner to support the highly capable management team through the next stage of growth.

Founded in 2003, Nemesis Now is a leading creator of original pop culture merchandise, giftware and collectibles. The business has a growing portfolio of licensed products as well as a wide range of in-house designs and sells into the UK and international markets. It offers a curated range of approximately 2,500 products to over 2,000 customers across 46 countries worldwide, working in collaboration with iconic entertainment and pop culture brands, including Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, HALO, Magic The Gathering and Terminator 2.

Following an extensive period of consecutive growth, Nemesis Now has established itself as one of the major players in the UK market, with the impressive expansion in licences and product range matched by a strong financial performance.

The investment from Alcuin will support the next stage of the business’s expansion plans, including international growth alongside the continued refinement of the product and licence range.

We are thrilled to be working with a dynamic team who are as passionate about our products and licences as we are. With our combined vision we see very exciting times ahead!

Nick Chadwick and Andrew Norman-Smith, Co-founders

Our role.

With almost two years between the first meeting to formal deal completion, this was one of our more interesting processes – encompassing the business end of Brexit, a General Election and the start of the Covid pandemic.

We approached buyers in January 2020, with a longer than typical preparation phase due to the impending October Brexit deadline and December General Election. Receiving strong interest from both trade and financial investors, we received initial offers in February 2020 amidst reports of a new virus, with the UK entering the first national lockdown a number of weeks afterwards.

With the pandemic halting the process in April 2020, we remained in contact with the bidders throughout summer, with regular communication of the business’s strong recovery from the initial downturn key to maintaining buyer interest in the process.

Having spent the down period working with the shareholders to further understand their key aims and objectives from the transaction, we negotiated with a short list of financial investors to work together a deal structure that was attractive for both the shareholders and the incoming investor.

A short period of confirmatory due diligence followed and the transaction completed in January 2021.