Manuel Lopo de Carvalho

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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"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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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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Introducing Cambrai Partners and our Investment Thesis    Who We Are:    At Cambrai Partners, we are a boutique UK buyout fund dedicated to investing in businesses that strengthen national resilience. Our mission is simple: to acquire, grow, and hold companies that are essential to the security and prosperity of the UK and Europe.    Our Backgrounds:    Our backgrounds blend military leadership, operational experience, entrepreneurship, and financial acumen, enabling us to partner with businesses and management teams to unlock growth and deliver enduring value.    What Is National Resilience?    National resilience is a country’s ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from shocks such as geopolitical disruptions, economic crises, or technological threats. It’s about ensuring the strength of critical sectors like energy, data, financial services, and defence to safeguard our way of life.    Why Is It Important—and Why Now?    Recent geopolitical events like Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and global conflicts have exposed vulnerabilities in our supply chains, infrastructure, and cybersecurity. The need to protect and strengthen critical sectors has never been more urgent, as the UK must adapt to an increasingly uncertain world.    Our Focus Segments:    We are starting with three pivotal sectors:    Cybersecurity – Ensuring digital resilience against evolving threats.  Industrial Services – Supporting the backbone of the UK economy.  Defence – Investing in technologies and capabilities vital to national security.    Our Value:    We go beyond capital, acting as partners to help companies scale sustainably through:    Servant Leadership inspired by our military ethos.  Strategic expertise, operational support, and network-building.  Long-term investment horizons focused on growth and stability.    Call to Action:    If you’re a business leader or founder in one of our focus sectors and looking for a trusted partner to take your business to the next level, we’d love to hear from you.    📩 Contact us: [email protected]    Together, let’s build a stronger, more resilient future for the UK.  

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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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#SHEIN Global fashion online retailer SHEIN announced the launch of a new Circularity Fund, with the company providing an initial investment of €200 million, aimed at supporting startups in Europe and the UK focused on textile-to-textile circularity solutions. The new fund comes as the fashion industry, and the fast-fashion sector in particular, face increasing pressure to address the climate impact of their businesses. The European Commission, for example, has proposed rules aimed at supporting the sustainable management of textile waste, and placing responsibility for the full lifecycle of textile products in the hands of producers, noting that only 22% of post-consumer textile waste is collected for re-use or recycling, with the remainder often landfilled or incinerated, and that consumption of textiles has the fourth highest impact on climate change and the environment, and is one of the top factors impacting water and land use as well as greenhouse gas emissions. https://lnkd.in/d2zBPmpF

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We are very delighted to announce the launch of The Mills Fabrica's 2023 Impact Report ! Outlining our innovation framework, the Impact Report is a vital gateway that gives access to the public and audiences a thorough guide on how we structure our impact and innovation landscape across our diverse business streams, ranging from our VC investment fund, startups incubation program, global innovation challenge program and partnerships, all the while embedding sustainability metrics for impact evaluation. As we strive towards creating a more sustainable future spanning across both #Techstyle and #Agrifood tracks, we are leveraging our resources and network to cultivate a more sustainable and promising future on all fronts, with our best efforts. Download the Impact Report here: https://bit.ly/3XzmbB0 #TheMillsFabrica #NanFungGroup #Techstyle #Agrifood #Innovations

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#Longevity has become a growing buzzword and we've been following this space with interest here at Felix Capital as we're passionate about solutions that help people live better (and longer). Thererfore, it was a real pleasure this week to be invited by the fantastic team at Beauty Independent Dealmaker Summit in London to delve into this topic 💫 A few takeaways from our discussion with fellow panelists Federico Luna, Sarah Power, Dr. Tunç Tiryaki and Jane Carlson: 1️⃣ Holistic, Science-Backed Innovations The landscape includes everything from topicals and ingestibles to clinic services and tests. But do they work? Consumers want clinically-backed solutions over trendy claims. Credibility matters. 📊🔍 2️⃣ Prevention > Reaction Consumers are now thinking beyond traditional "anti-aging" products, looking instead to preventive health solutions that target root causes like inflammation – not just surface-level fixes. 🌱💪 3️⃣ Luxury vs. Mass-Market While many longveity solutions are currently higher priced (particularly due supply-side constraints and new ingredients), we believe that within 5-10 years, many prices will drop and tech-enabled platforms will continue to flourish, making these products and services more accessible. 💸💡 4️⃣ TikTok as an Educational Tool? Surprisingly, TikTok is becoming a strong platform for educational content (in addition to Youtube and podcasts), with an increasing 40+ audience. We're excited by the potential to continue to engage a broader audience on longevity through social platforms. 📱🎓 A huge thank you to Nader Naeymi-Rad Jane Carlson Paris Farsad-Roche Claire McCormack Rachel Brown for inviting us to this great event! cc Angela Chou Alexandra Thornton Antoine Nussenbaum Frederic Court Farrah Hamid Francesco Frontani Fabian Burnett Small Julien Codorniou Tessa Jaspers

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Its's a deal flow time! We are about to share the details of 637 start-ups who joined Rare Founders London's largest #demoday 2 weeks ago with all the investors (only verified ones) in our community. If you are a #founder who is #fundraising and want to get more exposure to investors (IT'S FREE) - submit your details following the link in comments. If you are an #investor interested in pre-seed to series A start-ups join our community (link in comments) to get access access to the monthly deal flow. Please tag #investors and #founders who this might be applicable for.

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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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It’s a pleasure to introduce you with Trinity ESG Consulting Ltd, a global team of sustainability consultant’s, empowering businesses with a comprehensive approach, navigating complexity through data governance and strategic foresight. With our Headquarter in London, UK we are delivering services globally in collaboration with our technology partners and a team of consultants in the US, Europe, ME, India, Africa and Far East.  We, at Trinity ESG Consulting, are committed to helping businesses manage and build their environmental, health, safety, and sustainability effectively. Our mission is dedicated to actively contributing to the improvement of our global community by striving to build a better, more sustainable, safer, and inclusive world. We redefine excellence as industry pioneers, pointing businesses in the direction of a sustainable and resilient future, envision a future in which businesses flourish in harmony with the environment, sets the standard for corporate responsibility by integrating state-of-the-art technologies. With our cloud-based AI tools, we also provide our customers carbon footprint/ GHG monitoring and reduction strategy enabling them to run and maintain these systems with accurate Data for meeting regulatory requirements. For more details about our services and expertise please visit https://lnkd.in/dYtxMqF4 #ESG #Sustainability #CarbonFootprint #GHGProtocol #ESGAudit #ClimateChange #ClimateRiskAssessment #ESGConsulting #ESGAdvisory #ESGMonitoring #ESGCompliance #ESGReporting #BRSR #ESGUK

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On Thursday the stock market declined, led by tech and consumer services. Disappointing earnings from Salesforce and others dragged the market down. GDP growth came in lower than expected, raising talks about interest rate cuts again. On world markets, business confidence in the Eurozone edged up. BTC and ETH are holding their week's levels, with the rest of the crypto market hanging out. #crypto #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #exchange #assets #investing #cryptonews #market #trading #blockchain #ethereum #token #analytics #Markets #Finance #Economy #Business #Evernomics #Svetrating Read the full text: https://lnkd.in/gViNcj9Z

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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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Thank you Marcin Lewandowski and EU-Startups for the great conversation about Seaya Andromeda and European Climate Tech! Links to the Podcast episode in the comments. #sustainability #climatechange #climatetech

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A HUGE thank you to everyone involved in publishing the latest report from ESG_VC and the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) today! The report is packed full of useful insights into how start-ups are actually performing across their work on environmental, social, and governance issues. There's also a brand new roadmap for ESG in start-ups with specific guidance on the initiatives to implement from Pre-Seed through to Series C and beyond. A particular shout out to everyone involved in the production including Suzi Gillespie and Ewa Skornas at the BVCA, David Strong and Dianne Skurray at Marriott Harrison, and Susannah Philipson and Nadeem Muzaffar at Seven Hills, who designed this beautiful report. I'm also massively grateful for all of the hard work that our VC contributors put into compiling data from 587 portfolio companies across the UK, Europe, and around the world - a few names to mention include Ashleigh, Shanice, Lauren, Laure, Michelle, Jason, Hessel, Emily, Beth, Joe, James, Eugenia, Alex, Grace, Emma, Emily, Lucy, Cordelia, Nina, Raj, and Rob. Thank you to you all! And thanks as ever to the remaining members of our steering group for their ongoing support of ESG_VC - Antonia at Seedcamp, Leslie at Astanor Ventures, Natalie at Lakestar, Andrew at Par Equity, and of course Karen McCormick for all of your support at Beringea! Check out the full report via the link in the comments! And let us know what you think about it! #ESG_VC #sustainability #venturecapital

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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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Could Chinese-Style Venture Debt Blacklisting happen in the UK? Recent reports have highlighted a concerning trend in China where venture capital investors are forcing failed founders onto a national debtor blacklist. This practice, facilitated by redemption rights clauses, has raised questions about whether such a scenario could unfold in the UK. In China, VC investors are increasingly pursuing personal assets of failed entrepreneurs and adding them to a national debtor blacklist if they fail to repay investments. This aggressive approach is largely driven by redemption rights clauses, which require companies and often their founders to buy back investors' shares plus interest if certain targets are not met. This practice has created significant challenges for the start-up ecosystem in China, as blacklisted individuals face severe restrictions, such as being barred from starting or running a business, flying or taking high-speed trains, staying in hotels, visiting nightclubs or golf clubs, buying property, taking holidays, or leaving China. Additionally, they may face potential criminal liability.

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The impact of Airbnb on housing markets has long been debated, especially as cities worldwide crackdown on short-term rentals. EY’s recent study, however, reveals that Airbnb has limited influence on housing prices. The study points out that the real challenge lies in the UK's shortage of 5 million homes, while also highlighting Airbnb’s £5.7 billion economic contribution and the 75,000 jobs it supports. From reading the report, it seems clear that governing bodies have underestimated the economic benefits of Airbnb, and overstated its role in housing challenges. You can read the full report here 👉 https://lnkd.in/epXX28dt I’m interested to know others' take on this. Do you agree that this is a distraction from the real issue of housing supply?

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The world is for those who dare. When Ander Michelena reached out to us to brainstorm and execute All Iron’s rebranding, the premise was clear: the name had to reflect Basque heritage. They say that knowing your roots makes it easier to navigate the future. With this in mind, we decided to delve into history and uncovered the story of Magellan's voyage. The second captain, Elcano, hailing from Getaria, assembled a crew of Basque sailors. Tragically, Elcano returned with only a handful of sailors alive from the hundreds who set sail, and the sole surviving Basque was Juan de Acurio. And btw, Getaria also gave us another genius: Cristóbal Balenciaga. History and creativity run deep here. Echoing what Acurio Ventures has explained since its launching, this rebranding is built on three core pillars: 1) Becoming truly international 2) Emphasizing resilience, determination, and teamwork 3)Daring to play I want to share a couple of extra details that haven’t come up before: the graphic system is all about the sea and navigation maps. So, we naturally leaned toward shades of blue, but we also played around with some complementary tones that really capture that innovative spirit of Acurio. For more context, check out this piece from Sifted https://lnkd.in/dizZbZkU

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