BYBOX founder Stuart Miller has pulled off a spectacular £105m management buyout.

Mr Miller co-launched the Harwell-based "smart boxes" firm 16 years ago.

Following a £37.5 million investment from the private equity arm of Lloyds Bank, his management team have repaid angel investors, family and friends who backed them when ByBox was in its infancy.

The risk paid off – generating a 14-times return.

Some 21 shareholders netted more than £1m, while another 28 received more than £500,000.

Mr Miller, chief executive and co-founder of ByBox, said: "It was settling and satisfying to have done that and delivered a good return to angel investors, friends and family.

He added: "Seeing them use it for life-changing things, such as getting out of negative equity, or being able to afford to have a career change has been incredible".

The business owns and operates a network of unmanned, technology-enabled lockers in 900 locations around the UK.

These are used by energy, technology and telecoms businesses including Npower, Vodafone and BT, to deliver essential parts to engineers in the field carrying out maintenance and installations.

ByBox has no plans to move its head offices from Cherry Barns in Harwell village, where it signed a five-year lease in November 2014.

But it plans to open a new technology hub in Oxford later this year.

The firm will begin recruiting around 20 software, sales and management staff shortly.

Mr Miller said: "This is the next chapter in the ByBox story.

"We now have ByBox technology software and lockers installed in 10 countries.

"The opportunities are tremendous".

Mr Miller and co-founder and chief operating officer Steve Huxter launched the firm in Silicon Valley before relocating to Oxfordshire.

After Mr Miller pitched to a London Business School investment club in 2002, Oxfordshire-based entrepreneur Stephen Bullock set up an angel investment syndicate to fund the firm’s growth.

He later joined the ByBox board as investor director and went on to become chairman.

Mr Bullock, other investors, friends and family invested £1.5m over the first two years of the company’s life.

At the time, ByBox had a turnover of £100,000 and three staff.

Now, its turnover is £73m and it employs 500.

Mr Miller joked: “My mum has only just stopped telling me to get a proper job.”

And he confessed the management buyout, completed last month, "wasn’t a masterplan".

He added: "It was characteristically chaotic in true entrepreneurial tradition".

Mr Miller was also recently appointed chairman of government initiative Small Business Charter, having joined the founding board three years ago.

It is aimed at helping business schools and entrepreneurs around the UK to network and share skills.

Mr Miller is also expert in residence for entrepreneurship at the Said Business School.