Image credits: Concept Ventures
London-based Concept Ventures (previously RLC Ventures), a venture capital firm, announced on Wednesday that it has launched an oversubscribed £50M (approximately €59M) pre-seed fund, the largest and dedicated pre-seed fund in the UK .
The fund includes a £30M (approximately €35M) commitment from the British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF) programme, the UK government’s economic development bank.
The VC says it will sign cheques from £100K up to £600K to back over 60 startups in the pre-seed stages within the next four years. The new companies will join the portfolio companies, including corporate gifting platform Reachdesk, live-streaming video pioneers Condense, and female financial education platform, Your Juno.
Concept Ventures: What you need to know
Founded in 2018, Concept Ventures has backed over 100 founders at the pre-seed stage, with Concept backed-founders seeing a 71 per cent graduation rate from pre-seed onward.
The VS says that prior funds displayed strong returns with two exits within the last two years (including Cliff.ai, which Gtmhub acquired in June).
Concept Ventures says its team centres its decision-making around the founder’s personality, deploying a data-led approach to identify the traits and characteristics key to entrepreneurial success.
The Fund’s LP (Limited Partnership) base consists of 80 per cent ethnic minorities and 18 per cent women, and over 70 per cent of the Fund’s LPs are current or exited founders, collectively responsible for a combined £2B in enterprise value. It includes Ahluwalia Family Office, Y-Combinator-backed founders such as Henry De Zoete, and senior global technology executives.
Reece Chowdhry, founder and General Partner of Concept Ventures, says, “There is a major gap in the pre-seed ecosystem, with too few funds offering dedicated pre-seed expertise. We are focused on this critical stage of a company’s life cycle and can provide the funding, expertise, and network they need to succeed. We’re deeply committed to setting our portfolio up for future success. We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved to date and to have that recognised by the British Business Bank is a humbling and exciting milestone.”
“We are looking forward to making more personality-led investments in companies transforming how we work, play, and learn, and doing so under our new name – Concept Ventures,” Reece adds.
Investor
The British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds programme, established in 2006, aims to increase the supply of equity capital to high-potential, early-stage UK companies by supporting new and emerging VC fund managers who target the early-stage equity gap.
Ken Cooper, Managing Director, Venture Solutions at the British Business Bank, says, “The British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds programme is key in helping to develop and maintain effective venture capital provision in the UK, lowering the barriers to entry for emerging fund managers and those targeting under-served areas of the market. Our cornerstone commitment to Concept Ventures will help them to provide finance and support to young and diverse, high-potential businesses at the pre-seed stage, helping to close the early stage equity funding gap.”
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