Mark Tughan

Background

About Mark Tughan

I started in Corporate Finance back in 1990 (Brown Shipley, then JO Hambro Magan) but founded Comic Enterprises in 1994 to pursue what was then a labour of love - to open the first purpose built comedy club outside London. We are now a 4 strong group of venues offering Live Comedy, Music and a variety of other shows. I believe live comedy to be a fantastic experience - a highly sociable, hugely communal and usually memorable night out. I bought out my original backers in leaving me as sole shareholder. We are now one of the few venue groups to operate as both comedy & music venues under one trademarked brand - glee. It took 25 years but we are now the market leader! We are now (IMO) highly scaleable. In January 2014 the UK High Court found in our favour in a trademark infringement case we brought against 20th Century Fox, in connection with the glee club trademark we registered in and the 2009-2015 screening of the TV show glee. Fox appealed and in Feb 2016, the appeal court upheld the earlier judgement. The case was settled in Nov 2017. We then got back on a growth path with Glasgow opening in Feb 2019. We are currently seeking new leasehold or freehold sites for further expansion - specifically Nottingham, Leeds & Bristol. I am an active angel investor & have invested in a range of businesses, inc. Select Technology, Connection Capital, Teamsports, Mode Print Solutions, Therium, NextUP Comedy, Chip, Nix & Kix, Essential Pharma, LUPE, Clays, People Value, Mr Pickfords, MacRebur, Savvy Navvy, Mootral, Covatic, Caldera, Made of Dough, Expend, Cytecom, Animal Dynamics & Aptap. Previous investments have included Keronite, Tempcover, Gymbox, Datalase, Sprue Aegis plc, Original Travel, Prevx (now Webroot Inc) & Virgin Wines (pre-float). I recently served 3 years as a member of an Independent Monitoring Board for a large prison, & I have also recently served two 3 year terms on the Board of the Edgbaston Priory Club, a member sports club in Birmingham. Personal: I am a married Father of 2, a squash player, and also enjoy skiing, sailing, clay pigeon shooting, and watching rugby.