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former - stage European venture capital ( VC ) firmEpisode 1has close its third investment trust at £ 76 million ( $ 95 million ) , as the London - based investor turns to in - house “ information - driven deal sourcing tools ” to find the next with child thing .
ground in 2013 , Episode 1 has a handful of way out to its name from the 70 or so company it ’s invested in over the retiring decade — these let in 3D mapping platform FatMap , which wasacquired by Strava last twelvemonth , andrecipe - kit startup SimplyCook , whichNestlé crack up in 2021 .
installment 1 has two previous funds , a £ 37.5 million first potfollowed by a£60 million tranche in 2017 , both of which had thebacking of a U.K. government schemeknown as theEnterprise Capital Fund(via theBritish Business Bank ) , which pool public and individual funds to adorn in “ gamey - ontogenesis ” businesses .
This time around , Episode 1 has again taken government capital , but via a different vehicle known as the National Security Strategic Investment Fund ( NSSIF ) , a joint initiative between the British Business Bank and the U.K. administration targeted at “ sophisticated technology ” house . British Patient Capital , a subsidiary of the British Business Bank , is also listed as a modified partner ( LP ) , as isMolten Ventures — the artistformerly known as Draper Esprit — which return after laying down capital for Episode 1 ’s 2nd investment company .
The deal flow factor
Episode 1 also exact around one - third of the stock ’s L-P are former or current founders , admit Zoopla and Cazoo founder Alex Chesterman , Wayflyer ’s Aidan Corbett , and Bloom & Wild ’s Aron Gelbard . Moreover , 21 of the founder LPs were antecedently backed by Episode 1 itself .
General partnerHector Masonsays one of the benefits of having VC funds and angels as LPs is the interchange of info around deal flow .
“ If you have a later - stage VC as an investor in our fund , they will often see stuff at pre - seed that is n’t in focal point for them , and they ’ll pass us that deal flow — and it ’s the same with backer investor , ” Mason assure TechCrunch . “ The other benefit is when our companies need to go out to raise — we have very close ties with these fund , plus we can talk to them about what they ’re see at different stage in the mart and that variety of stuff . So it is helpful . ”
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As with its previous funds , Episode 1 is targeting investments of between £ 250,000 and £ 3 million at pre - seed and cum - level startups place substantively in the U.K. , while retaining a “ signifiant amount ” to empower in follow - on rounds . Its core focusing will be on software companies in the AI , infrastructure , wellness , open source , “ techbio , ” and market place place . It will also consider investments in U.S. and European startups where they have a significant U.K. bearing .
One of the notable changes in how Episode 1 operates between the premature and latest fund is that it has takena cue fromotherVC firmsby ramp up its own interior software system to identify founder talent as too soon in the cognitive process as possible . This includes collate data from all the usual repositories , such as LinkedIn , Product Hunt , GitHub , and so on , then filtering out not only the most promising inauguration , but also identifying those that might be looking to kick upstairs money base on signal it detects from the information .
Episode 1 has made around 15 investments so far since opening its new fund last class , include an$11 million Series A roundfor London - basedclinical research tech caller Sano Genetics . And about a quarter of these fresh investment , Mason say , have been sourced using its new data - driven tooling .
“ Everything that we ’re building is focused on pay back us in front of founding father originally than anyone else — and we ’re very often the first fund to speak to a founder now because we ’re identifying founders who are starting businesses when they have very piffling online step , ” he said .
