Fresh off the back of launching an early-stage deep tech fund, Silicon Roundabout Ventures has partnered with equity crowdfunding company Seedrs to syndicate investments into a “super angel” fund to focus on European and UK startups.
Shared exclusively with UKTN, Seedrs will syndicate investments through Seedrs Nominee, which will invest as a limited partner (LP) into the fund. Seedrs Nominee itself is not a limited partnership.
The partnership with Seedrs will see capital go into the same “underlying fund” as the Silicon Roundabout Ventures fund announced at the start of the month.
In addition to crowdfunding, Seedrs offers LP products such as Private Deal Room, which lets high-net-worth individuals invest in certain VC deals – as is the case with the Silicon Roundabout Ventures partnership.
The new investment vehicle is aimed at encouraging smaller angel investors to join in fundraises for deep tech and big data businesses.
Francesco Perticarari, manager of the fund and one of the founders of UK tech meetup Silicon Roundabout, told UKTN that existing deep tech angel investment options are run using a “Facebook infrastructure”.
This results in a “syndicate of just a bunch of people, which is fine if you just have a few friends,” Perticarari said.
Silicon Roundabout Ventures is aiming to do things differently by drawing on its existing technology community of over 15,000 people from its tech meetups.
The “not a generalist fund” wants to improve the capital available to deep tech startups, based on the idea that venture capital firms have preferred “quick returns from SaaS businesses”, according to Nick Dashfield, investment manager of VC funds at Seedrs.
To encourage more investors, the Silicon Roundabout Ventures and Seedrs partnership will not have minimum ticket requirements. Seedrs is also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Founded in 2009, Seedrs is a private investment platform that lets large groups of investors, including everyday members of the public, to invest small amounts into early-stage startups. It was acquired by US private investment firm Republic last year.
Deep tech expertise
So far the syndicate has invested in Oxford-based satellite company Archangel Lightworks, which raised £4m in a funding round this month. Silicon Roundabout Ventures’ investment into the Bristol battery startup Anaphite will be moved into the fund at cost price.
Dashfield said: “I think by supporting emerging managers like Francesco, we see that as a really important part of our business going forward because we’re indirectly playing a part in being able to improve flows of private capital into areas that perhaps have been slightly overlooked.”
Seedrs has previously worked with the likes of Passion Capital, Jam Jar and Hambro Perks to raise capital from angel investors.
“What’s nice about working with the deep tech fund, and this is the first that we’ve offered is giving investors the ability to access those types of sectors by going through professional managers who have the deep expertise to deploy into those sectors,” said Adam Reeve, investor manager, Seedrs.
Last month Silicon Roundabout Ventures revealed it had received an undisclosed amount in its first funding effort but is aiming for £10m, with contributions coming from the likes of Molten Ventures, Philip Green the ex-CFO of Deliveroo, Michele Attisani and Namik Abasov.
The fund is looking to make between 20 to 24 investments ranging from £100,000 to £400,000 and taking a stake of 1-3%.
“We have an ambition to be the most active VC LP in Europe and we’re not going to be able to achieve that just by going with with big brand funds,’ added Dashfield.
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