Harbottle & Lewis advise mydeco on Ł7.35m investment

Media and entertainment lawyers, Harbottle & Lewis, have advised mydeco, the online intermediary for the home design market, on its £7.35m financing. Sofinnova Partners, one of Europe's leading venture capital firms, led the round in which other participants included SRPE, Amadeus Capital Partners and Burda Cross Media. This investment follows a seed round last year led by SPARK Ventures (who remain a major shareholder) and takes total funding to date to over £12.5M.

Mark Phillips, Head of the firm's New Media Group and Tony Littner, Senior Associate from the firm's Growth Capital Group, advised on all legal aspects of the deal.

mydeco was conceived and founded in 2007 by Brent Hoberman and the management team behind lastminute.com, one of Europe's most successful ever online businesses. mydeco's highly functional website, beta-launched in the UK in February 2008, has won huge public acclaim for its blend of search aggregation, interactive planning and visualisation tools and social networking capability. The business has signed partnerships with top retailers such as Heal's, John Lewis and Lombok, while leading figures in the design world including Sir Terence Conran and Philippe Starck have joined the company's Design Board. mydeco aims to become the leading marketplace for consumers and suppliers of home design and furnishing. The company's innovative technology revolutionises the shopping experience for consumers, allowing them to browse, compare and buy products from hundreds of top quality and specialist retailers. Since its beta launch in the UK in February 2008, the site has attracted over 1.5m visitors.

Brent Hoberman, mydeco's Executive Chairman, commented: "We are delighted to have attracted a top quality investor group in which each individual firm brings real strategic value to the business and whose mix of nationalities reflects our own international ambitions. The closure of this latest financing round validates our achievements to date and will support the full commercial launch of the business later this year."

David Hickson, mydeco's Head of Corporate Development, commented: "We were extremely happy with Mark and Tony at Harbottle & Lewis. They delivered consistently high quality advice on a relatively complex deal with a tight timetable."

For further information, please contact Mark Phillips on 020 7667 5000.

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26/09/08

Note for Editors

Harbottle & Lewis LLP
Harbottle & Lewis provides specialist advice to the media and entertainment industries. It is consistently recognised as a leading firm in these areas by independent sources.

Firm overview: The firm's work encompasses all areas of media and entertainment, including film, television, broadcasting, sport, music, publishing, advertising fashion and theatre and remains unique in having expertise right across these sectors.

We provide a complete range of commercial advice to our clients, including: buying and selling businesses and companies, joint ventures, finance, capital markets, commercial disputes, property, employment, immigration and tax. Other specialist legal areas include, sponsorship, intellectual property, legal issues relating to media, including defamation, advertising, brand protection, data protection, privacy, art and gaming and gambling as well as private client and matrimonial work. The firm's expertise in other areas such as aviation and charities is also widely recognised. Our media, entertainment and IP experience puts us in an ideal position to act for charities with strong brands, entering into commercial fundraising agreements and putting on major fundraising events.

Much of our work involves the technology, new media and telecoms industries and we have done ground-breaking work in connection with the digital exploitation of content and e-commerce generally. Specialist knowledge and understanding of the entertainment industry and related IP issues enables the firm to identify and deal with the key issues at an early stage, and then negotiate and provide commercially sound legal advice from a position of strength.

Issued by:
Caroline Renton
Head of Marketing
Tel: 020 7667 5231
Email: caroline.renton@harbottle.com