The London Co-investment Fund expands its co-investment partner network

The London Co-investment Fund welcomes new co-investment partners into the fold. Craigie Capital, Downing Ventures, Forward Partners and Seedcamp have joined forces with the London Co-investment Fund to help bridge the funding gap for London based tech start-ups. The Fund will now have 10 partners including the original network comprising Angel Lab, Crowdcube, Firestartr, London Business Angels Network and Playfair Capital. The announcement of an additional new partner will follow soon on completion of certain legal formalities.

The augmented partner network provides broader coverage and consists of some of the most active investors in the early stage technology space in London. For start-ups, this opens up additional approach routes to access the London Co-investment Fund and provides them with an opportunity to choose the investor that is best suited for them.

Within a short duration of its launch in December 2014, the London Co-investment Fund has been recognized as one of the busiest investors in the UK*. So far, the fund has invested £3.5m in 25 start-ups and helped create over 70 high value jobs in the capital. The fund has been successful in attracting co-investments of over £15m, achieving a co-investment multiple of £4.2 for each £1 invested by the fund.

The CEO of Funding London, a founding partner of the fund, Maggie Rodriguez-Piza said ‘’We are delighted to have received significant interest from the early stage investment community; and we are excited to work with the new partners, selected after a comprehensive evaluation process.’’ The London Co-investment Fund manager, Puneet Bhatia added ‘’Each partner brings a unique investment focus and we hope to complement their specialist investment activities with additional value-added funding, to help deliver investments in 150+ strong technology businesses in London, thereby creating strong economic value in the ecosystem.’’

‘’With these new partners, the London Co-investment Fund will cement its position as one of the leading seed stage investors in tech start-ups in the UK" said John Spindler, Co-founder of the fund and CEO of Capital Enterprise. "We hope this announcement will be a big call out to tech start-ups seeking funding or angels and funds seeking to syndicate deals to get in touch. We are open for business, have great co-investment partners and together we are proving that London is the best place for tech start-ups to acquire seed investment in Europe."

The London Co-investment Fund is looking forward to accelerating its investment activity in the next quarter with a stronger panel of co-investors. Start-ups can learn more and apply for the London Co-investment Fund at http://lcif.co.

The new partners are equally enthusiastic to work with us in enabling the London based tech start-ups to grow sustainably and scale-up to great heights.

Alasdair McPherson, one of the founders of the Craigie Capital investment syndicate said “We are delighted to have the London Co-investment Fund as a co-investment partner. The fund’s strong support for the London start-up ecosystem has helped provide a robust framework for early stage investors and start-ups to work together to develop and build great new companies in London”.

Matt Penneycard, Head of Downing Ventures said ‘‘We are delighted to have been selected as one of the new funding partners of the London Co-investment Fund to continue to fund exciting and dynamic start-ups in London. We look forward to working with them to fund the next generation of London tech businesses.’’

Pradeep Raman from Forward Partners said ‘’We are delighted to join the London Co-investment Fund and its partners. We look forward to working together to build a better start-up ecosystem in London.’’

Reshma Sohoni, Partner at Seedcamp said "Being selected as a London Co-investment Fund partner provides the start-ups we invest in with the potential to unlock additional capital for their funding rounds. This is a real game changer for the start-ups we invest in and we're already seeing an excellent pipeline of potential deals. In particular, we feel that the London Co-investment Fund can act as a further catalyst alongside Seedcamp's investment to help founders close out their first round and ensure they are in the best possible position to scale. We're delighted to be joining a great list of investors partnering with the London Co-investment Fund."

Useful Links:-

http://fundinglondon.co.uk I http://capitalenterprise.org

*Source: Ascendant Corporate Finance report- http://ascendant.co.uk/q2-2015-pageone-report


About Capital Enterprise

Capital Enterprise's prime mission is to enable its members to individually and collectively support London's entrepreneurs