Fresh Equity

Paul Isaacs, the founder, drives investment decisions. He draws on over 30 years of private equity and direct-investing experience, including a prior role running a £30 million dedicated fund for a family office, and has personally invested in more than 30 businesses. Roger Birchall and Sharon Jacks support origination, structuring, and portfolio resourcing but the final investment call sits with Isaacs as the principal.

Fresh Equity targets equity investments between £500,000 and £5 million. Isaacs publicly states that he saw a gap in this segment of the market — too small for many institutional funds but large enough to require structured, partnership-oriented capital rather than personal angel cheques.

Fresh Equity is an independent, owner-managed investment business, not a traditional blind-pool fund. It does not publicly disclose a formal fund structure, and its investment posture — including a decade-long hold on Adastra Access before exiting in 2020 — suggests a patient capital model aligned with Isaacs’s personal track record as an active private investor.

The firm targets business services, light industrial and manufacturing, and specialist software — though sector tags are applied loosely and the investment criteria emphasise management and situation over narrow verticals. Its known portfolio includes industrial automation (Mechtech) and access equipment (Adastra), both UK-based businesses.

Fresh Equity describes its approach as ‘equity investment designed to work in harmony with management’s goals,’ signalling flexible structures — ranging from growth capital to buyouts and succession deals — rather than a rigid template. The team includes M&A and corporate finance counsel, which supports negotiated transaction terms.

Roger Birchall is a senior corporate partner at Browne Jacobson LLP and brings over 30 years of transactional M&A and equity-funding experience to Fresh Equity’s deal flow. The firm also maintains a curated group of operating partners — proven entrepreneurs in specific sectors — who are introduced to portfolio companies as needed.

Fresh Equity held Adastra Access for more than ten years before exiting in 2020, suggesting a long-duration, relationship-driven holding period. The firm does not cite time-bound fund mandates, consistent with its principal-capital rather than institutional-fund structure.