Kirsty Macdonald

"Funding Collapse sends investment in start-ups to six year low" The Times today covering the shocking stats that VenturePath uncovered, with our partner Beauhurst. Great quotes from supporters Michael Moore CEO, BVCA and Julian David CEO, techUK. * UK VC funding at Series A is -44% from last year, and worsening * Q3 24 is down a staggering 57% from Q2, itself down from Q1 * 9 in 10 seed funded startups cannot access Series A VC funding, the next 'rung on the funding ladder' * Just 32 future scaleup companies across the whole of the UK were able to access their first VC funding round in Q3...a 6 year low * Half a billion less capital is going in to UK scaleups at Series A, than just 2 years ago! As the UK scaleup funding gap widens, we are losing ground against other countries, at both startup stage (a position the UK worked hard to achieve, since 2011), and for scaleup support. OECD data: 13th in the world for scaleup support, and that's before Series A funding access dried up. I get that its confusing. Another report (BBB, Nations & Regions) released this week spoke of positive trends in private investment, stating "The data for Q2 2024 shows that investment value has continued to grow". Great, I love to see optimistic data. But under analysis that bundles venture with private equity (later stage), where a few megadeals skew the numbers. Otherwise the exact opposite is true. Our independent research here, for the UK ScaleUp Investment Mission, is laser beam focussed on Series A. The funding round where companies move from the c.1m startups launched each year, through the 2,179 that access seed funding, into the rarefied category of being recognised as future scaleups, attracting Series A funding (£2-10m). The UK venture landscape is currently funding just 248 pa of these companies, and declining. We've been sharing this urgent call for support with the new Government since the day after the election. I've personally met with several Ministers, and spoke to all the relevant Government departments. I will shamelessly repeat loudly what is at stake. UK scaleup funding at Series A has nearly halved in a year, and continues to decline steeply, more than halving in the last quarter. VenturePath developed The UK ScaleUp Investment Mission to convene the scaleup support ecosystem and £7bn of funders to help address this problem, to improve nationwide access to VC investment, and create more venture-backed successes. We have clear support, clear recommendations to reverse this decline in UK scaleup investment, and have made a clear ask of Government for participation in this, to ensure immediate action is taken to create the conditions for success for UK scaleups, ensuring the focus on growth isn't undermined by lack of capital, or equitable access to it. Government decision makers, we'd love your interest, to progress to action. HM Treasury: Rt Hon Rachel Reeves Spencer Livermore James Murray & CC Poppy Gustafsson (welcome to the debate).

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Taavet Hinrikus and I made the Financial Times Due Diligence email. https://lnkd.in/ez2AuGQx One 'unintended consequence' is that if there is a 45% tax on carry and CGT (raising £40m per year, remember) it for all intents and purposes closes the door on new VCs in the UK. Especially started by teams from non-traditional backgrounds. To meet the GP commit, you need to be already part of the 'wealthy' as you cannot rely on the value you create - nearly half of it will disappear - to fund it. We have both had extremely successful startups which are few and far between. The smaller number of new VCs will therefore more likely increasingly be for people who have inherited the capital or can draw it from their already rich family. Probably not want they have in mind with this policy.

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I couldn’t be prouder to be a Venture Partner at Isomer Capital (aka the best European FoF - at least for me) as we just announced the launch of our pioneering £100m secondaries fund. This fund is dedicated to acquiring stakes from LPs in various VC funds, tapping into a massive and largely unexplored market. 🌟 Key Highlights: - Focused Investment: Primarily targeting stakes in VC funds, with selective investments in private companies. - Robust Funding: Already over 20% funded, thanks to strong support from Nordic family offices and a German foundation. - Market Potential: With a growing number of private tech companies and a VC liquidity crunch, Europe's VC secondaries market is poised for rapid growth. - Track Record: This isn’t Isomer’s first foray into the secondaries market. As a firm we’ve done several secondaries deals with portfolio companies and VC firms, including early-stage VC Seedcamp (in 2021) and mobility giant Bolt (in 2023). - Expert Team: Welcoming the amazing Omolade (Rachel) A., formerly of Coller Capital, as a principal to lead this initiative. 💡 Investment Strategy: - 65-75% of the fund will buy "LP interest" stakes in VC funds. - 15-25% will be directed towards stakes in companies. - Up to 15% reserved for flexible investment opportunities. 📈 Looking Ahead: We're targeting returns of 2-3x, with significant distributions expected in the next 4-7 years. As one of the few players in this space, we're not just participating in the market—we're driving it forward. Read all about it here: https://lnkd.in/dc7sbC3G #VentureCapital #SecondariesFund #EuropeanVC

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TLDR: EIS should be scrapped as a fund structure but retained for Angel investments by individuals. Alex Chalmers has done all the work which in 10 years I've never got around to doing: why 95% of EIS/VCT funds are bad for our tech ecosystem, rip #startups off, and why as a Founder you should push back against their stupid fees or not take their money. https://lnkd.in/dnq9ZScS

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Very proud to see the WVC:E dream team - Anisah Osman Britton MBE & Rachel Drapper - alongside long time friend and rockstar Ekaterina Gianelli on stage at TechBBQ discussing "Fixing the Talent Exodus in VC". Key Takeaways: 💰Impact of Consolidation on Culture and Talent: The ongoing consolidation in the VC industry is reshaping company culture, affecting morale, and influencing talent. 🚀Emerging Managers Aren’t Diversifying VC: Despite the rise of emerging managers, the industry remains largely homogenous, with many new managers still coming from the same traditional, non-diverse backgrounds. ⚠️Perceptions of Diversity as High Risk: Many in the VC industry continue to view diverse hires, investments, and business models as "high risk," "too time-consuming," or "too costly," perpetuating a cycle of exclusion. 🚼 Parental Leave Inequality: Inequities in parental leave policies are disproportionately affecting women in venture, creating additional barriers to progression. But there are funds, investors, LPs and organisations (like us!) that are trying to change this!

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I'm speaking at SuperVenture 2024 on the 5th of June in Berlin. The topic of the panel is emerging VC managers: time to shine or out of their depth? Are LPs fleeing to established names and those that cut their teeth during previous cycles? Or is now the time for emerging managers to bring something different to the table? Is volatility leading to true innovation and disruption? We’re on track to see approximately 44% of the total LP capital committed to US VC funds since the start of the year go to just two large established VC platforms, according to PitchBook data. While many established VCs maintain their allure, there is a subset of LPs who are making a deliberate choice to increase their allocations to specialist emerging VC managers - managers who have spun out from established funds and have an attributable track record, founders with deep operational experience turned funders or academics with deep domain expertise. There is non-trivial added complexity when it comes to emerging VC selection – given the large number of funds needed to be screened and the more complicated referencing and DD process. Data highlights how important it is for GPs to identify & back ‘big winners’ early on to drive fund returns. Typically, ~5% of invested capital in a few winners drives most of the return (>50%). The VC model is built around investing in early-stage companies each with the potential to more than return the whole fund. Who has the right to win? Who will the best founders (and LPs) decide to partner with? #SuperVenture #VC SuperReturn

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As a Partner at Antler, one of the most active early-stage investors in the world, I’m thrilled to announce our latest round of investments—£840k across seven exciting new British startups! The eleventh UK residency brought together over 2,400 applicants from across the globe, with 78 founders making the cut. This group reflects incredible diversity, representing 24 nationalities and 18% female founders. After a rigorous selection process that included over 200 hours of due diligence per company, we’re backing just under 1% of applicants, confident in the impact they’ll have. Here are the seven ventures joining the Antler family: 🔎 Vente AI: Changing the recruitment game by automating how agencies discover roles and optimize their candidate pipelines. 💡Distillery: Unlocking rapid insights for businesses, providing crucial product and marketing data 25x faster than traditional methods. (Vasil Yakov, Edward Louth) 🏦 Banqora: Uses AI to automate document processing and streamline post-trade operations, saving financial institutions significant time and money. 🏠 AskVinny: Simplifying property management with AI, making tenant-landlord interactions effortless and improving service delivery. 🪲 Omma: Supporting sustainable farming with AI-driven insect incubation, reducing the need for pesticides in large-scale horticulture. 🧑‍🏭️ Tradestack: Helping trades businesses quote quicker and win more jobs with an AI-backed productivity tool. 🏨 Inntelo AI: Transforming hotel operations with AI that automates guest services, making every stay smoother and more personalized. With some of them already speaking to follow-on investors and closing investment rounds, I’m personally excited about what lies ahead for them all. If you’d like to connect with any of the founders or learn more, drop me a message! 🚀 🦄 #VentureCapital #Investments #Founders #TechStartups

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Welcome to the club! At Antler, we are proud to announce that we have just invested over £1m into nine new British tech startups. Our tenth residency in the UK attracted more than 1,100 ambitious founders, with 66 founders taking part. Representing 27 different nationalities, with women comprising 24% of the cohort, it was truly a diverse group of amazing people. Spending 10 weeks with us allowed us to undertake over 200+ hours of due diligence, helping us make high-conviction investment decisions, in which we end up investing in 1% of all applicants. We are delighted to welcome the following eight startups to Antler’s portfolio, and we’re excited to be on this journey with you! ⚙️ AlphaLoops - Automating investment management operations using AI ⚠️ BankBridge - Bridging the due diligence gap between financial institutions 🔎 Capsa AI - AI Operating System For Private Equity 📝 Falco - powered platform that empowers financial firms to identify and translate regulatory changes into actionable insights 🚚 Fleevo - The AI-driven Operating System for Modern Commercial Fleets. Driving Efficiency, Uptime, and Sustainability 🛍️ frnt - Optimising retail operations with digital workers 🎯 Intriq - Transforming businesses with the power of AI through the use of private equity playbook strategies 🦾 RoboMinder - Elevating industrial robot uptime with AI-powered computer vision In addition, Antler has made one seed investment in the first quarter of 2024, into a tech startup that is currently in stealth mode. Check out the press release in the comments section! #VentureCapital #Investments #Founders #TechStartups

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Great to see SIS Ventures make this list by TechRound https://lnkd.in/eDtRbggM A bit more about what we look for below. If you're a founder and these hit the mark 👇 then please get in touch Investment targets SIS Ventures is focused on high-impact, high-growth potential businesses our investee companies are innovation-led, often spun out of Scotland’s leading university innovation programmes. Portfolio companies are also carefully selected for their commitment to developing their environmental, equality and diversity, social impact and governance practices. SIS Ventures seeks to provide equity investment to: ✔ High growth potential with a global scale and intent to provide significant impact ✔ Focus on social and/or environmental impact, aligning with impact themes / at least one of the UN SDGs ✔ Product or service backed by defensible technology or proprietary know-how ✔ EIS or SEIS qualifying ✔ Low capital-intensive businesses ✔ Sector agnostic, but historically invested across Life Sciences, MedTech, Climate Tech, Circular Economy, Biotech ✔ Pre-seed – Series A ✔ Headquartered in Scotland

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We recently sat down with Jennifer Sieg from City AM to discuss Belong, our vision for the platform, and how we are rallying a new generation of long-term investors. TL;DR Money x Time = Wealth. And we will never have more time ahead of us than we do today; but many of us struggle to get going, whether that’s due to a lack of confidence around investing, a sense of inertia, or feeling like we don’t have enough upfront cash available to make it worthwhile. Enter: the Belong Boost loan. Ps. When Avion and I were younger, one of us wanted to be a litigation attorney, and the other wanted to be a Power Ranger. Read to the end of the article to find out who’s who 😂 https://lnkd.in/dJq9ufYe -- Please note, as with all investing, your capital is at risk, and adding a Boost loan to your investment increases both the risk of loss, as well as the opportunity for higher returns.

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A few weeks ago, Openseed VC, in partnership with Dentons and PKF Littlejohn, hosted a webinar on Launching a First-Time Fund for first time managers - if you missed it 👇🏾 The recording is now available: See link in comments 🔗 I often get lots of messages from people looking to set up their first fund, and there’s been interest not only from first-time fund managers but also principals from potential corporates and family offices. With this in mind, I’ve decided to create a small, intimate community of up to ten people to support in their journey to launching a #FirstFund in 2025. Together, we’ll work out how I can best support your process to a first fund in a way that’s valuable to you—while respecting my bandwidth. If this sounds interesting, share more about yourself - link in comments 👇🏾: You should hear back in the new year. Let’s see where this takes us 🌍 #VentureCapital #FirstTimeFund #Entrepreneurship #FundManagers #Innovation #VC

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When the first alphabet in these conversations changes from 'M" to 'B', you know the funding winter is transforming into spring 🌱 #VC #VentureCapital #Earlystagefunding Read more about the latest monthly funding report for VC funding in July 2024 here: ttps://https://lnkd.in/dhdWF8fP

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HNY! Hope everyone had a great break. Quiet on here as head down. Such a lot of exciting things coming up: - More Tools for all scaleups to improve their growth trajectory - More Founders using VenturePath to secure their Series A-B investment rounds - More VCs joining VenturePath's VC Network - More Events (including a VC dinner for 50 on the 22nd and SuperScalers female founders event on the 30th) - More Partners joining our scaleup support ecosystem - More Data to publish on 2024 VC trends for the UK ScaleUp Investment Mission Busy January! We'll share more on these when we have a minute... If you can play a part, as a founder, VC, investor, partner, sponsor, data provider etc., there's still room for a conversation or coffee with you though 😉

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Extremely worrying data about VC funding in the UK. While we all understand that taxes must go up to pay for the mismanagement of the Covid crisis by the then administration - allied to economic headwinds caused by Brexit - surely we must also protect the parts of our economy that can stimulate jobs and growth...ie - early-stage business?! In my opinion the most impactful and simple way to do this would be to increase the SEIS allowance to £1m from £250k and make it applicable to companies upto 5 years from their initial trading date from the current 3 year limit. This will bring a huge amount of fresh capital into the early-stage investment market...especially if the govt increases CGT overall. If we don't protect early-stage innovation we will never get out of economic trouble. #earlystageinvestment #venturecapital #SEIS #funding

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Not all venture firms are created equal - at Playfair Associates & Principals write cheques and lead deals 💰 Why? Because they have the ability, drive and passion to do so And what we care about most is building optimal partnerships with founders that deliver results This means matching them with the right investor who then continually leverages the diverse experiences of our entire team I spend a lot of my time nowdays supporting these investments as well as leading my own I love doing both Founders: don't assume only partners lead deals and don't be afraid to ask how decision making works during your pitch call #venturecapital #startups #fundraising #founder #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #technology #innovation #business #ceo

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The UK investment market allocates less than 1% to impact ventures. ...Let that figure sink in. So many of the brands we read about on LinkedIn are purpose-driven, and while they are rightly celebrated on the platform, the investment market is yet to catch up. Wondering why? Many institutions still believe that purpose and profit can't coexist. ❌ But the data shows that this is a myth. Our goal is to close this perception gap and fast-track impact founders towards investment. At Unrest, we've connected with 700+ purpose-led businesses, and supported 60 companies through four cohort programmes, we know what impact founders are capable of. That's why I'm so excited that we've launched the first round of Impact <> Investor Office Hours, an opportunity for 60 impact founders to pitch their businesses to an investor from Speedinvest, Seedcamp, Octopus Ventures Molten Ventures and many more in a 30-minute virtual session. Applications close this Friday 18th October – and it takes less than 10 minutes to apply. Get your application in now! (link in comments)

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🎉 Exciting time with the incredible team at Isomer Capital 🎉 Super thrilled about the news we shared with the world last week. It has us all buzzing with excitement. At Isomer, we've long been dedicated to providing liquidity in the European VC space. And now, we're taking it to the next level with the launch of our dedicated fund. What is it, you ask? A fund that will invest in secondaries at all levels within the European VC ecosystem—LPs, GPs, companies, founders, angels, and even employees. And because there is limited liquidity solutions to LPs that have invested in European VCs, around 70% of our fund will go towards LP stakes. With the support of our Cornerstone investors, we've reached this significant milestone in our journey. But the work has only just begun, which myself and my incredible team have already started smashing through ... first 2 deals closing in a matter of weeks. Watch this space! 😉 #Isomer #VentureCapital #Secondaries #EuropeanVC #Investing #Liquidity #ImpactInvesting #Teamwork #Milestone

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Great interview with one of the best VCs out there. Lot's of good stuff in this article. One point worth highlighting on the eternal debate whether there is enough growth capital in Europe: great companies will always manage to raise money, no matter where they are based.

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What an honor to be part of VC Include's annual #IncludeImpactConference last week and to represent the Heading for Change team in kicking off the launch of the #FundFundamentals program! 🎉 We’re incredibly proud to sponsor and support this important initiative. The day was packed with so many highlights (huge shoutout to Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson, Milton Speid, and the entire VC Include team for pulling off a truly incredible gathering!), but a few personal favorites stood out: ✨ Speaking on a panel with the brilliant La Keisha Landrum Pierre, Charlotte N., and Nina Sharma about shifting paradigms in investor identity—a conversation that felt both deeply personal and universally resonant, highlighting the immense opportunity and urgency of transforming today's investor landscape. ✨ Listening to fellow LPs share their insights on investing in emerging, diverse managers, and learning from friends and co-investors like Stardust about rethinking diligence processes and developing creative ways to help GPs access critical operating capital. ✨ Exploring innovative ways to unlock the 𝗵𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 sitting in DAFs to de-risk investments, back diverse managers, and support innovative financing models. ✨ Meeting one-on-one with passionate, first-time GPs tackling everything from climate change to maternal health—leaders betting on underestimated founders who are closest to the issues they’re solving. Lastly, if you or someone you know is considering launching a fund, apply to Fund Fundamentals today! This program offers tangible tools and resources for women #FutureFundManagers who want to start their own funds, and we couldn’t be more excited to be part of their journey! 🙌 https://lnkd.in/g2rfscWS #IIC24 #emergingmanagers #diversityinVC #womeninVC #VCI

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