Manchester-based fintech AccessPay made headlines last week after securing a majority investment from global private equity firm Accel-KKR. Patrick Gorton, Investment Associate at Beringea (pictured above), goes beyond the headlines and looks ahead to what this could mean for the Northern tech ecosystem.
Last week we marked the end of our journey with AccessPay, one of Manchester’s enduring scale-up success stories. Following seven years of partnership, Beringea sold its stake in the business as part of a majority investment by Accel-KKR, the global private equity firm.
While this is clearly the end of a rewarding chapter of our work together, I firmly believe that the bigger story is what comes next for the Northern tech ecosystem.
From where I sit, speaking with founders, investors and advisers across Manchester and the North West, the AccessPay exit feels like part of a broader shift that’s been building for some time.
For years, the region hasn’t lacked ambition or talent. There have always been strong founders, good ideas, and businesses with real potential. The challenge has often been what comes after those early stages – scaling companies to meaningful outcomes, keeping that experience and capital within the region, spinning the flywheel.
AccessPay is already an example of that flywheel effect in action. When we first backed the business in 2019, a particular selling point was the track record of Anish Kapoor, AccessPay’s CEO and a prolific entrepreneur.
Anish had previously co-founded TeleCity, Europe’s largest data centre operator, and led the business to its listing on the London Stock Exchange at a valuation of $700 million in 2000. He had also scaled Yuuguu, an early online meeting service, through multiple rounds of venture funding through to its exit to Powwownow.
Just as Beringea had seen the potential in a platform solving a clear operational challenge for finance and treasury teams, Anish had seen an opportunity to dive back into entrepreneurship and scale the business.
Fast forward to 2026, and we’ve been able to work with Anish to deliver a significant outcome for AccessPay, its investors, employees, and stakeholders. Our experience clearly shows that this recycling of talent, experience, and capital is critical to building great companies – and, crucially, it’s what truly builds a successful ecosystem.
We’ve already started to see more of this across the North. Early employees from regional success stories such as THG, Matillion, and Peak are leading the next generation of breakthrough businesses, while the likes of Manchester Angels are providing a conduit for founders and operators to channel money back into the ecosystem. None of this happens overnight, but it does start to build momentum.
That momentum is also beginning to be recognised more widely. The recent announcement of £1.7bn in government funding for Northern tech reflects a growing confidence in the region – not as something that needs to be kickstarted, but as an ecosystem that is already moving in the right direction.
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What has been especially encouraging is seeing how this is playing out on the ground. At a recent event In Manchester, Beringea, alongside our partners at HSBC Innovation Banking, Cowgills and DWF, brought together around 50 founders from across the region.
This was not a room full of early ideas or hypothetical plans; these were founders already building, hiring and thinking seriously about scale. The mood in the room was one of genuine ambition and momentum.
But one theme came through clearly: there remains a significant funding gap between the early and growth stages of a start-up’s journey. Access to capital is still uneven, particularly for growth companies, and in certain sectors the pull of London remains strong.
There is, then, still a long way to go. But AKKR’s investment in AccessPay is an important signal that perceptions are beginning to shift, and we believe it will help pave the way for more growth-stage investment across the region.
The ecosystem is flourishing, but sustaining that momentum will require a collective effort. Investors, policymakers, advisers and founders all have a role to play in continuing to champion the depth of opportunity that exists in the North West.
At Beringea, we are committed to building on our experience with AccessPay, as well as with other Manchester-based businesses such as Arctic Shores and Social Value Portal, to support the next generation of growth companies as they scale into international success stories. The foundations are firmly in place. Now the task is to turn that momentum into lasting outcomes.
