Revolut backing venture capital firm Draper Espirit portfolio value jumps to £1.3bn November 4, 2021 UK venture capital firm Draper Esprit, which backed fintech star Revolut, expects its gross portfolio value to exceed £1.3bn. The results, predicted for its interim results for the period ended 30 September, would mark a jump of over half a billion pounds compared to the same period last year when the venture capital firm recorded [...]
Form Ventures closes £30m new fund to support startups navigating regulated sectors October 21, 2021 Venture capital firm Form Ventures, which aims to help startups navigate regulatory and policy issues as they scale, has today closed its second fund at its target size of £30m. British Business Bank was the fund’s cornerstone investor and was joined by several notable backers including Isomer Capital and Draper Espirit. Form plans to invest [...]
Venture capital firms circle London tech scale-ups as financial injections hit record £20bn October 21, 2021 A record high of over £6.5bn was invested by venture capital firms in UK scaleups over the summer, taking the total amount to £20bn so far this year, according to new research shared with City A.M. this morning. After two extraordinarily high quarters in 2021, UK scaleups continued to attract funding from across the globe [...]
Forward Partners’ portfolio value swells in maiden results September 29, 2021 Early stage venture capital firm Forward Partners today reported a jump in its portfolio value in the first half of the year, in the first results since its listing on London’s Aim market in July. Ventures portfolio value increased by £22m to £108m in the six months to 30 June, including £3.5m new investments during [...]
Startup city: Square Mile investors make London the top place after Silicon Valley for tech firms September 22, 2021 London is second only to Silicon Valley for the best place for startups to thrive, according to a definitive ranking of the world’s major tech and business hubs. The capital tied with New York in second place to the Californian area synonymous with billion-dollar valuations and tech bros – and far ahead of the next [...]
Gresham House targets Mobeus’ venture capital arm in £36m deal September 10, 2021 Gresham House has acquired Mobeus Equity Partners’ top-performing venture capital trust (VCT) business in a £36m deal, three months after purchasing Ireland’s Appian Asset Management. As part of its latest deal, the alternative asset manager will take on £369m assets under management that run across Mobeus’ four VCT funds. Expected to complete in the next [...]
Exclusive: City’s venture capital guru on Brexit, ESG fundraising and impact investing August 31, 2021 With Brexit just behind us, and the pandemic gradually being brought under control, it seemed like a good time to measure the temperature of London’s venture capital investment space. City A.M. sat down with David Hall, for his first major interview as chairman of the Venture Capital Trust Association, since succeeding Stuart Veale in January [...]
Exclusive: Cult Beauty founder Jessica DeLuca on selling to THG and what happens next August 6, 2021 In the thirteen years since launching online cosmetics retailer Cult Beauty, Jessica DeLuca and Alexia Inge grew the business from £72,000 to £275m – the amount it sold to The Hut Group (THG) for this week. Jessica DeLuca, a former IT analyst, worked in the spare bedroom of her basement flat through 2007 building the [...]
SoftBank injects $100m into former partner’s new consumer tech fund August 5, 2021 SoftBank Vision Fund II plans to invest $100m in a new consumer tech fund launched by one of its former managing partners Jeff Housenbold, the latest in a string of tech investments in the past few weeks. SoftBank’s second Vision Fund’s $100m investment will form up to a fifth of the $500m to $600m that [...]
Michael Spencer-backed fund raises $130m for B2B fintech push August 2, 2021 Fintech-focused venture capital firm Element Ventures has announced a $130m (£93.5m) fund to invest in b2b financial enterprise technology businesses. Michael Spencer, City grandee and founder of interdealer broker Icap, was the fund’s cornerstone investor. It comes after Spencer contributed at least £25m to the fund upon launching last year, via his investment vehicle IPGL. [...]