Sure Valley's new VC fund holds first close on GBP 85m

British Business Bank, the UK government's economic development bank, has committed GBP 50m through its Enterprise Capital Funds program and is the fund's cornerstone investor.

Cian Hughes, partner at Sure Valley said the fund has a mix of undisclosed private investors and institutional investors based in the UK, Ireland, Europe, and California. The vehicle is expected to close in 6 months.

Hughes added that the VC typically invests at seed stage, with around GBP 1m-1.5m for 15—25% stakes, while total investments in companies can be of up to GBP 5m.

The VC, a seed capital investor, targets high-growth software companies operating in sectors including cybersecurity, metaverse and artificial intelligence. It will aim to invest the new fund across 25 software companies in the UK, with 5-6 deals per year for the first five years, and then will make follow-on investments.

The fund's first investment is expected to be in a Belfast-based company. According to Hughes, the deal will be announced this month. "We see a lot of deals in the disruptive innovation space," he said.

According to a statement, the VC typically initially invests around GBP 750,000-GBP 1.5m and will often bring in co-investors to complete total investment packages of GBP 1m- GBP 3m in new companies.

Sure Valley claims to have established a strong track record in the aforementioned sectors, having invested in them through investee companies such as Getvisibility, a unified data platform; Artomatix, an AI company for immersive 3D experiences; and War Ducks, a Metaverse company.

The firm has exited Engages XR, a corporate metaverse company, via an IPO, while Smarttech, an AI enable cybersecurity company, intends to float in Q2 2022.

Sure Valley has offices in London, Dublin and Cambridge and will also be opening an office in Manchester to help access deals in the North of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland particularly deals in the metaverse and AI spaces.

According to Unquote Data, the firms' debut fund, Sure Valley Ventures Fund I, is a EUR 30M ventures capital fund that focuses on Metaverse, Cybersecurity and Ai companies demonstrating disruptive innovation in the software sector. The vehicle invested in startups in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Hughes told Unquote that the fund is at the end of its investment period and has 16 companies in the portfolio. It closed at around EUR 30m in 2018.

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Sure Valley Ventures - Cian Hughes (partner).

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