The company which owns franchising property chain Century 21 UK has received a £10m funding boost from a nnew investor.

Shepherd Direct, based in Nottingham, manages over 150,000 property valuations a year for mortgage lenders, and provides surveying, lettings and estate agency services across the UK.

As well as holding the UK master franchise of American giant Century 21, Shepherd Direct runs Direct Lettings, Central Lettings Solutions, Shepherd Chartered Surveyors and Direct Valuations.

The £10m being pumped in by the Business Growth Fund will be used to support organic growth and to acquire a minority stake in a mortgage broking firm, Stonebridge Mortgage Solutions.

Shepherd Direct CEO Paul Gratton, former chief executive at Egg and a founding director of First Direct, set up Shepherd Direct in the late 1980s as the UK’s first provider of property valuations to mortgage lenders via independent firms of surveyors.

Together with Shepherd Direct’s now commercial director Rob Clifford, the pair also set up, grew and successfully sold franchising business Mortgageforce, which was acquired by West Brom in a multi-million pound deal in 2005.

Shepherd Direct’s non-executive chairman is Jonathan Bloomer, former chief executive at Prudential.

The Business Growth Fund, said to be the UK’s most active provider of growth capital in small and mid-sized businesses, will become a long-term minority equity partner in the company. It is the first time that it has invested in a property services company. Ian Downing, an investor at BGF, takes a seat on the board.

A spokesperson for Shepherd Direct told Eye: “Century 21 currently has 49 offices in the UK, with at least a dozen in the pipeline to open in the next three months.”

Shepherd Direct acquired the licence to operate Century 21 UK just over two years ago, as part of a seven-figure growth strategy.

Last November, Shepherd Direct announced a £700m joint venture with Sigma, a residential and urban regeneration firm, to build thousands of new private rental homes, with Century 21 franchisees being able to handle the ensuing lettings business.