The Synergis team
Andrew Hegarty
Director
Andrew began his career as a corporate financier in 1994 with HSBC Investment Bank, involved in numerous public market transactions including IPOs, capital raisings, and M&A. He left in 1999 to join Hanson Capital, a privately-owned investment and advisory firm, based in London and Los Angeles, which specialised in early-stage situations and principal investing. In 2001, he joined Touchstone Securities, an independent advisory boutique, based in London, which provided high-level corporate finance advice to large corporates, private families and institutions.
Since 2003, he has been a principal with P&P Partners, a private family office with £150m under management, engaged in private equity and direct investment. Andrew studied Management Administration at Aston University.
In 2006 Andrew was appointed a Director of Synergis Technologies, the UK arm of venture investment firm Porton Capital. He now represents Porton Capital as an investor director on five of their UK portfolio companies: Alaska Food Diagnostics, Cellcrypt, Hydroventuri, P2i and Smart Holograms.
Terry Swainbank
Investment Director
Terry until recently managed the Rainbow Seed Fund and has significant experience with seed investments especially with PSREs. Previously he was Finance Director and Investment Manager of West Midlands Enterprise Ltd. Terry has a degree in minerals engineering and an MBA. He has over 20 years experience in the venture capital industry, having started his career in the industry with 3i in Manchester. He was a director of a Birmingham based SME angel investor matching service.
In addition to investing in seed stage proposals and managing STL’s investment portfolio, he will help to source technology-based proposals from business incubators, universities and research institutions.
Harvey Boulter
Non-executive Director
Harvey is the Chief Executive Officer of Porton Capital which has been established to manage the private equity funds that he initially created around a military commercialisation theme. The first of these private equity funds was launched in June 2000 and the range has now expanded to include four funds. Harvey has been instrumental in forming a number of strong relationships, in particular with Dstl (the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory - an agency of the UK Ministry of Defence) who together have partnered a number of commercialisation ventures based on technology created at Dstl's headquarters at Porton Down. More recently, Harvey has managed to expand these relationships, which are key to the investment funds, to include the likes of Rutherford Appleton Laboratories and the University of Cambridge.
Aside from the last five years involved directly in the fund management industry, Harvey has many years' experience in corporate finance, primarily with UBS Warburg in London, where he headed the investment banking team that focused on Aerospace and Defence. This role covered a number of clients and government defence departments in Europe and North America. He was also an advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence in relation to the spin out of part of the then DERA, which became QinetiQ and Dstl.
He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Accountants, having qualified with the specialist valuations group within Deloitte and Touche London Corporate Finance in 1994, and is also a Fellow of the Securities Institute. He is a graduate of the University of Bristol, in the UK, having read Economics and Accountancy.
Sheryl Young
Non-executive Director
Sheryl Young has over 25 years experience in finance and business with a special emphasis on private equity and venture capital. She was CEO of Synergis Technologies from January 2008 to August 2009. Prior to that, she established and raised funds for a Dubai based private equity company. Ms Young was CEO of BTS Holdings, a property/leisure investment company. She is a former general partner and Managing Director of Cross Atlantic Capital Partners (UK), a UK/US venture capital fund with $300 million under management which focused on seed and Series A investments in the TMT sector. She is a former Vice President of JP Morgan Securities on Wall Street focusing on Technology Equity Research, where she successfully took a number of companies public. She has an MBA from the Stern School of Business in New York University.
Dinali de Silva
Investment Executive
Dinali assists the Investment Director in originating and executing venture investments and has a background in technology transfer. She began her career as a Research Physicist at Sharp Laboratories, before becoming an editor with Elsevier Science. In 2001 she joined Evolution Capital as an investment analyst, before becoming a technology consultant with Oxford Innovation. Prior to joining Synergis, Dinali was the Technology Commercialisation Manager at Brunel Enterprise Centre, part of Brunel University. Dinali studied Chemistry at the University of Durham, before completing her PhD in Physical Chemistry.
Anne Taylor
Office Manager
Anne is a highly experienced office manager and personal assistant with an extensive background in investment banking, venture capital and Government. Prior to joining Synergis, Anne spent 12 years with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and five years with HM Treasury. Anne is skilled in all aspects of office management and IT administration. Anne is responsible for the the IT infrastructure, day-to-day accounting, the web and the office administration.