Along with preserving cash, retaining employees and maintaining sales where possible, the question regarding whether investors are still investing in light of the current pandemic is frequently passing the lips of founders.
We’re in touch with investors daily, and whilst it’s reassuring for us to hear that there is still very much an appetite for early-stage investment opportunities in the UK at the moment, we know it’s important for founders to get that insight too.
Last week we shared an open source google document on investor appetite on LinkedIn, asking them to share their status on whether they were investing or not – even from a quick glance, it’s reassuring to see how many say yes! Over 300 investors have shared their status via the online document, many of whom we have close professional relationships with at Raising Partners.
Below we’ve summarised 20 UK investors still investing from this dataset.
Key takeaways from the overall list:
- Almost all of the investors that contributed are still investing. One of the funds states they’re not actively investing, but explains that this is only because they mainly invest in companies taking part in their Accelerator programme. Others admit to concentrating more on their current portfolio, slowing down or being more strategic. The vast majority of funds featured say that they are ‘absolutely’ still investing.
- Be bold – funds mention they want to hear from ‘ambitious’, ‘innovative’ or ‘creative’ founders. Similarly, Beringea, who invest in startups across Europe, say they simply want to meet great founders with good businesses that have good business models.
- Now is a great time for early-stage startups – Episode Ventures 1 share that for them ‘now is a great time to invest in seed stage companies’, as teams can knuckle down and build tech. Whilst selling may be difficult for some over the coming months we’ve seen many buck this trend. Covid has no effect on the ability to build tech.
| Fund | Still investing? | Typical amount invested | Link for sending pitch | Sectors they invest in / additional information |
|
7percent Ventures
|
Yes, actively investing | £200-£400k first check | website http://7pc.co/contact-us/ | Deep/frontier technology, transformative technology – ambitious founders |
| Ada Ventures |
Yes – we’ve just closed a £27m fund. We’re adapting to changing circumstances each day but still actively looking for companies to invest in
|
£250k-£1m | Website form & email – www.adaventures.com | We are actively looking to invest in overlooked founders and markets. Please see details in our thesis blog post (https://medium.com/@checkwarner/ada-ventures-thesis-2beec5cc32ca) |
| Ascension Ventures | Yes | £100k-£250k | www.ascensionventures.com | at the moment, we are investing from 3 funds: a) SEIS Fund; b) https://fairbydesign.com/fair-by-design-fund; c) and our newest fund tackling childhood obesity |
| Cambridge Innovation Capital | Yes | £1-10m | https://www.cic.vc/ | CIC is focused on investment in the Cambridge, UK ecosystem. All our investments have a physical presence in Cambridge and/or a relationship with the University of Cambridge |
| Downing Ventures | Yes. We’ve got funds to deploy and are actively looking for new deals at late seed & series A in the UK | £500k-£5m |
They advise getting in touch via email, but warm intros help but they do also look at (and invest in) cold approaches – https://downing.co.uk/ventures/ |
|
| Edge Investments | Yes | £1-5m | www.edge.uk.com | They invest in anything connected to creativity and any enabling technology |
|
Episode 1 Ventures
|
Yes, though our bar is higher due to the uncertainty | £250k-2m |
They advise emailing any of us firstname@episode1.com / https://www.episode1.com/ |
We focus on b2b software driven companies. Now is a great time to invest in seed stage companies with a lot of tech to build. Making new sales will be hard (but not impossible) for a few months. Covid has no effect on ability to build tech. |
|
Forward Partners |
Yes. We’re still looking for new and exciting startups to invest & working hard to support our current portfolio |
Investing in Seed, early stage |
https://forwardpartners.com/connect/ |
Applied AI, eComm and Marketplaces please |
| IQ Capital |
Yes (our $175m Fund3 is 18 month old and looking to make 10+ new investments)
|
£500k-5M | www.iqcapital.vc | IQ Capital invests in UK early stage ‘deep-tech’ across sectors including machine learning, AI, robotics, and advanced engineering and materials, and data-focused propositions based on disruptive algorithms |
| Longwall Ventures |
Yes, we are investing a £75m fund that is just over two years in. We have a growing portfolio but are looking for a few more companies to fill it out |
up to £2m first investment, typically £5m over several rounds | contact@longwallventures.com / https://www.longwallventures.com/about/ | We invest in innovative start up and early stage businesses in the healthcare, science and engineering sectors. See https://www.longwallventures.com/about/ |
| Martlet Capita | Yes, however, our primary focus is on our existing portfolio so lead times are extended | Upwards of £150K | contactus@martletcap.com / https://martletcap.com/contact/ | We are an early-stage investor based in Cambridge, providing patient capital to deep technology and life science startups with high growth potential. We seek to support entrepreneurs with value beyond capital. We have experience of helping companies scale from first-round through to exit |
| MMC Ventures |
Yes, we are still investing from two funds. In March we completed 3 deals and about to complete 3 more.
|
£50k-£5m | www.mmcventures.com |
We invest out of two funds, starting at the early seed stages and continuing through Series A and beyond. The MMC Greater London Fund, in partnership with the Mayor of London, supports founders as they start their business and develop towards product-market fit. The MMC EIS Fund invests up to £5 million at Series A and has the firepower to back companies over a number of years |
| Pembroke VCT | Yes, we are actively closing a deal and looking for investment opportunities & working hard to support our current portfolio | £1m-£3m | https://www.pembrokevct.com/ | |
| Pentech Ventures |
Yes – it is likely to take longer to get to decisions as building relationships with Founding Teams is key. We are actively investing our £90m Fund III |
£500k-£2.5m in rounds up to £5m | www.pentechvc.com |
We focus on category defining software opportunities – with more affinity for B2B Enterprise type companies. We back smart Teams and everything we invest in has a clear market creation potential/narrative, with strong technical differentiation and usually some elegant Data and/or ML moats
|
| Praetura Ventures | Yes we are always looking to back great founders and scalable companies | £1m-£3m | https://www.praeturaventures.com/ | We invest UK companies that qualify for EIS tax relief |
| QVentures | Yes |
£100k for fund / £100k – £2m for investor network |
Yes! Please send to: https://qventures.typeform.com/to/zZPOWf / www.qventures.co |
QVentures invests in UK Consumer Tech, Enterprise and Marketplace startups |
| RLC Ventures |
Yes we are. Actively closing deals currently, and looking for investment opportunities at the moment.
|
£100k | info@rlc.ventures or through their website | We invest only in Software across AI, Enterprise, Fintech and Gaming |
|
The Angel CoFund
|
Yes, please contact via the website | £250k to £750k (in rounds of £300k to £5M) | info@angelcofund.co.uk | We work alongside sophisticated angel investors to back high growth companies across all sectors. |
|
Venture Founders
|
Yes. Completed 8 funding rounds in the last 8 weeks. | £250k – £2m | info@venturefounders.co.uk / https://venturefounders.co.uk | Focus on post Series A FinTech and B2B SaaS |
| Venturian Investments |
Yes – having to give focus to existing portfolio but want to support new investments which perhaps need help quickly. Expect sensible conversation on valuation and level of assistance both of which should take account of the impact of Covid-19 |
£50k-£500k | email info@venturian.uk or first name@venturian.uk and direct to the contact named here | here to support businesses in most sectors. Here to help those that a few weeks ago had solid businesses and perhaps funding lined up but have since been affected by Covid. As well as cash we are hands on day to day and our in-house team of lawyers and accountants will get involved and help with all aspects of getting through this difficult time |
If you’re looking to raise investment in the coming months, why not join us for our online Funding Summit on the 28th of April? You’ll have the opportunity to meet and learn from some of the UK’s top investors, funding experts and entrepreneurs and significantly increase your chances of raising investment.
Find out more here.
