Cinesite secures £3m funding from Barclays to support growth ambitions
Barclays has provided a £3m innovation finance loan to Cinesite to support the London-based visual effects business with further growth opportunities.
Cinesite, established in London in 1993, is one of the leading providers of highly sophisticated digital effects in the global feature film and television industry. The group offers a holistic visual effects service, including character animation, compositing, technical effects, environments and visual effects supervision. Cinesite has worked on several high profile productions, including the Revenant in 2016 which was nominated for a visual effects academy award. The business will use the additional funds to support organic growth in 2016/17.
Cinesite is the latest business to benefit from Barclays’ ‘Innovation Finance’ product which is targeted towards high-growth and innovative businesses. The fund provides innovators with additional financing at more favourable rates as part of the bank’s commitment to supporting high growth businesses in the UK. The loan will be backed by a guarantee of the European Investment Fund (EIF), enabled by the InnovFin initiative with financial backing from the Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme. The agreement with the EIF allows Barclays to provide €140m finance to innovative companies in the UK over the next two years.
Antony Hunt, Cinesite Group CEO, said:
“Barclays understands the continuous evolution and rapid growth that businesses in the creative industries need in order to maintain a world-leading position. Over several years they have been an invaluable partner to Cinesite, sharing and supporting our vision for the future development of the company.”
Richard Green, relationship director at Barclays, said:
“Cinesite has established a good name in this competitive market and we have developed a very strong working relationship with them. With Barclays’ proven track record in supporting the technology, media and telecoms sector, we saw this latest funding agreement with Cinesite as a natural fit, as well as a strong example of the innovative products we can offer to help UK companies to innovate and grow.”
