Dog lover Andy Murray has announced a new business investment in a device that allows pet owners to track their animals and keep them safe.
The tennis ace has put some of his estimated £48 million fortune into Dog Tracker Nano, a live tracking device which allows owners to monitor their dog's activity, fitness and location.
The business is one of a number of British start-up firms to receive a boost from the Scot, who has two terriers, Maggie May and Rusty, and has often spoken about his love for dogs.
Read more: 'I'm pumped . . . ' Andy Murray reveals delight at reunion with Ivan Lendl
Murray has also invested in a London-based mobile 'beauty on demand' service and a navigation device for cyclists.
The investments have been made through equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs, where he already has investments in 12 other new businesses.
Murray said: "Giving recognition and support to British entrepreneurs is really important to me, especially those who are the driving force behind growth-focused businesses.
"Every one of these entrepreneurs is passionate and dedicated to succeeding and I’m excited to have invested in their future growth."
The move sees the tennis champion, who has his sights set on a fifth victory at Queens this month, expand his growing business empire, adding to his management company 77 and luxury Scottish hotel Cromlix near his hometown of Dunblane, acquired by the 28-year-old in 2013 for around £2m.
The navigation device for cyclists, Beeline, allows cyclists to navigate by informing them of the direction and distance to their destination. The firm successfully raised over £500,000 in under a week from over 350 investors on Seedrs, quickly exceeding its fundraising target of £400,000.
Read more: Andy Murray and Ivan Lendl reunite
While Blow LTD, the mobile beauty service, has raised more than £1.1m from over 210 investors, including Unilever Ventures and the founder of online retailer ASOS.
Jeff Lynn, CEO and co-founder of Seedrs, said: "It’s great to see Andy supporting entrepreneurs so actively on Seedrs by investing in another three businesses today. "Andy is a great example of an investor who understands early stage investment and the importance of building a diverse investment portfolio aligned with a wider investment strategy.
"Seedrs was named the most active investor in private companies in the UK last month, and our continued growth and leading position in the market are testament to our reputation and the support from people like Andy."
Murray is one of Britain's wealthiest sportspeople and was last year named as fourth richest sportsperson in the UK.
He has numerous sponsorship deals worth tens of millions of pounds, including a four-year agreement with sportswear manufacturer Under Armour and endorsements with Standard Life and Rado Watches.
However, he is known to be careful with his winnings, and returned a £200,000 Ferrari within a year after saying he "felt like an idiot" driving such a flashy car.
Eagle-eyed photographers also spotted that the luxury watch he donned shortly before lifting the Wimbledon trophy in 2013 displayed the wrong time, indicating that it was worn for publicity purposes and wasn't his day-to-day choice of timepiece.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel