Alexander de Carvalho

A great insight for those interested in learning more about our secondaries activities and venture secondaries in Europe generally.

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Corporate Venture Capital is becoming a vital tool for large company innovation - but it needs encouragement from the C Suite. Investors interested in seeing their large company investees innovate more effectively should make this a key topic for senior management discussions. Global Corporate Venturing's June 2024 Symposium in London included many important, encouraging insights: “Corporate venturing units are increasingly focused on helping their portfolio companies work with business units at the parent company …” “But you do need a push from the C-suite to make this happen, investors told us in more informal talks over drinks. Without business units being given specific performance targets by the leadership to work with startups, it is hard to get the startups any meetings in the first place.” James Mawson, Maija Palmer and the team at Global Corporate Venturing’s summary of their symposium and the posted videos are a fantastic resource for anyone wanting to understand CVC's fundamental transformation of innovation investment and venture capital.

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You will never retain great companies when your stock market is perceived as unattractive. LSE has a chronic lack of liquidity. Of the $11.9 billion raised via IPOs in Europe this year, just over 2% was in the UK—the lowest in decades, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. This compares to an average share of 31% between 2012 and 2023, the data shows.

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Along with my L.E.K. Consulting colleagues, Geoff McQueen and Anna Ondik, and Preetam Talukdar of Houlihan Lokey, we have just published our thoughts on why we are seeing the active nutrition market as an attractive investment opportunity that many of our clients are considering. #lekconsulting #houlihanlokey #supplysidewest #activenutrition https://lnkd.in/ggSxDG6V

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I have a new blog out today for Third Nature Investments exploring how behind the sweet treat we love so much - chocolate - lies a quietly destructive industry ripe for disruption. Read it here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eK_En9y8   While the lion’s share of cocoa hails from West Africa, chocolate bars are largely produced in Europe and beyond. Due to a crowded and expansive supply chain, the local cacao farmers typically walk away with only measly sums, far from providing enough to support themselves and their families. Adding insult to injury, the industry inflicts immense environmental harm, including deforestation and biodiversity loss.    Beyond Good -- a portfolio company of Desert Bloom Foods, a Third Nature Partners investment and strategic fund partner -- is proving that with vision and business model innovation, an industry can be transformed. By manufacturing chocolate at the source in Madagascar and investing in local communities, they are not just making better chocolate—they are setting a new standard for ethical and sustainable business, uplifting farmers and the environment.    Julia P. Hans Taparia Alexandra Peterson Tim McCollum

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Interesting to see how the Corporate VC world of Saleforce Ventures has ended up feeding acquisitions through to the main Salesforce. The notable exception in this chart is Slack, where SV did not invest in Slack (but probably wished they did), but adopted a partnership over a period of 5 years. #corporatevc #MandA #strategy

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🌍 Launching Bramble Intelligence: an advisory business, committed to transforming the global food system. While working on the National Food Strategy, one thing became clear - no one had a full grasp of the entire food system. From innovative startups to governments, NGOs, academia, and business - the system is complex, and yet, understanding this complexity is crucial if we’re serious about creating real change. That’s exactly what Bramble Intelligence is here to do - help governments, NGOs, and businesses navigate and accelerate the shift we desperately need in our food systems. I’m incredibly fortunate to have two brilliant minds leading this mission with me. Chris Mitchell, who founded BCG’s food system practice in Africa, joins us as Managing Partner in November. Alongside him is Archie Mason, former Head of Business Development and Strategy at Waitrose, whose experience in food strategy is unparalleled. As Donella Meadows said, “We can't control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!” Our hope is that Bramble Partners (with both Intelligence and Investments) can dance the food system to a healthier, more sustainable future. If you want to be part of this journey, reach out at [email protected]. Let’s reshape the food system for the better. 🌱

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Misalignment on exit expectations can lead to value-destroying friction between CEOs, boards, and investors. Regular exit talks - at least once a year -help to: •  clarify strategic objectives and align exit timing •  assess the business’s real value and define a compromise timeline •  review investment agreements and explore alternative exit strategies Regular and proactive exit talks foster trust, prevent wrong decisions, and maximize value for all stakeholders. Practical considerations for such exit talks are included in this article.  #ExitStrategy #ExitReadiness #BoardLeadership #CorporateGovernance https://lnkd.in/e-jsaJA7

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📚 Holiday weekend reading: “Plurality.” This philosophical approach applies open technologies to foster diverse collaboration and coordination and solve our societal challenges. Technology can and will bring diverse viewpoints together with the transparent debates needed to come to coordinated solutions. These open technologies today encompass the powerful capabilities in our innovation systems today: open source #AI models, permissionless #blockchain, community #web3tokens, interoperable #metaverses, among the many public goods enabled by emerging technologies. Our social relationships provide the universal values and effective direction for such innovations to impact our world towards positive sum growth. “Plurality” is the central subject of a new book by Microsoft’s internal economist Glen Weyl and Taiwan’s former Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang. That book collects ideas in a donation supported ebook.

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"Funding Collapse sends investment in start-ups to six year low" The Times today covering the shocking stats that VenturePath uncovered, with our partner Beauhurst. Great quotes from supporters Michael Moore CEO, BVCA and Julian David CEO, techUK. * UK VC funding at Series A is -44% from last year, and worsening * Q3 24 is down a staggering 57% from Q2, itself down from Q1 * 9 in 10 seed funded startups cannot access Series A VC funding, the next 'rung on the funding ladder' * Just 32 future scaleup companies across the whole of the UK were able to access their first VC funding round in Q3...a 6 year low * Half a billion less capital is going in to UK scaleups at Series A, than just 2 years ago! As the UK scaleup funding gap widens, we are losing ground against other countries, at both startup stage (a position the UK worked hard to achieve, since 2011), and for scaleup support. OECD data: 13th in the world for scaleup support, and that's before Series A funding access dried up. I get that its confusing. Another report (BBB, Nations & Regions) released this week spoke of positive trends in private investment, stating "The data for Q2 2024 shows that investment value has continued to grow". Great, I love to see optimistic data. But under analysis that bundles venture with private equity (later stage), where a few megadeals skew the numbers. Otherwise the exact opposite is true. Our independent research here, for the UK ScaleUp Investment Mission, is laser beam focussed on Series A. The funding round where companies move from the c.1m startups launched each year, through the 2,179 that access seed funding, into the rarefied category of being recognised as future scaleups, attracting Series A funding (£2-10m). The UK venture landscape is currently funding just 248 pa of these companies, and declining. We've been sharing this urgent call for support with the new Government since the day after the election. I've personally met with several Ministers, and spoke to all the relevant Government departments. I will shamelessly repeat loudly what is at stake. UK scaleup funding at Series A has nearly halved in a year, and continues to decline steeply, more than halving in the last quarter. VenturePath developed The UK ScaleUp Investment Mission to convene the scaleup support ecosystem and £7bn of funders to help address this problem, to improve nationwide access to VC investment, and create more venture-backed successes. We have clear support, clear recommendations to reverse this decline in UK scaleup investment, and have made a clear ask of Government for participation in this, to ensure immediate action is taken to create the conditions for success for UK scaleups, ensuring the focus on growth isn't undermined by lack of capital, or equitable access to it. Government decision makers, we'd love your interest, to progress to action. HM Treasury: Rt Hon Rachel Reeves Spencer Livermore James Murray & CC Poppy Gustafsson (welcome to the debate).

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I really enjoyed spending a day last week with Hayley Hand, Douglas Sloan, Philipp Essl and the other participants discussing the big picture and nuance of impact investing. I'm still mulling over this question: According to the power law, two(ish) investments will have generated most of your impact returns at the end of your fund cycle. If that's the case, why spend lots of effort aggregating impact metrics across your portfolio in the meantime? 💡 Thank you ImpactVC & British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) for putting this together.

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🌍 Decarbonization in Fashion – The Next Five Years 🌍 At Apparel Impact Institute (Aii), we’ve just released our Sustainable Finance Playbook to help brands/ retailers navigate the complexities of financing their decarbonization journey. With an urgent focus on reducing CO2 emissions in the next five years, we recognize that different companies will need different approaches to participating in the necessary funding. And each supplier will have their own unique needs. Our playbook includes 12 unique examples where suppliers can successfully finance their decarbonization efforts. The key takeaway? There’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution. Whether through corporate treasury, philanthropy, or supply chain improvement budgets, we’re encouraging the industry to think beyond ‘traditional’ debt financing. This journey requires catalytic capital and bold partnerships. That’s why we’re collaborating with organizations like Guidehouse, The Fashion Pact, IFC - International Finance Corporation, Asian Development Bank (ADB), HSBC and many more. Together, we’ll link development banks, commercial banks, brand finance and philanthropic funds to the projects that can make a tangible impact. The role of brands/ retailers is critical. If there isn’t an investment strategy for decarbonization coming from the C-suite, then you don’t have a decarbonization strategy. 👉 Read our Sustainable Finance Playbook for Brands and share your insights. Let’s work together to accelerate decarbonization across the industry! #SustainableFinance #Decarbonization #ClimateAction #FashionIndustry #Aii https://lnkd.in/gPyiD_FD

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Accelerating technology translation to help researchers commercialise their work is key to creating the innovative start-ups that will address some of the key challenges facing society. More financing to support research through the proof-of-concept stage is needed to create a sustainable pipeline of investible opportunities. Karin Immergluck at Stanford also sees this as the number one challenge in the US. It's not just about funding but also about building an ecosystem that identifies and develops the talent and opportunities within universities. Industry needs to be more involved. Collaboration to pull through research into industry should be encouraged and funded. Initiatives like #MatcelerateZero bring together world-leading materials research universities, global corporations, and international investors together in a unique partnership to help address these gaps and support the transition to #NetZero. The question is not whether the opportunity exists. Public data shows there were 3600 invention disclosures to universities across the UK in 2022-2023 alone. The challenge is how the UK, and its world leading universities, can combine their offering to leverage the UK’s position as the centre of international capital to deliver a commercially innovative economy driven by scientific research. You can learn more about what #MatCelerateZero is doing to accelerate climate solutions in advanced materials here: https://lnkd.in/ezygvxn2 #DeepTech #Innovation #Investment #TranslationalFunding #VentureCapital #TechTransfer #Startups #Spinouts

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🛍️ Retailers: you can say goodbye to excess inventory headaches! Ganas Ventures is proud to invest in LiquiDonate, the tech that makes it happen, in community. Disney Petit, MBA, and the LiquiDonate team are transforming how retailers manage returns and inventory sustainably. Get in touch with Disney to learn more. #circulareconomy

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I recently came across an interesting whitepaper from Ivey Centre for Building Sustainable Value on household food waste (Good to the last bite), which sheds light on the staggering levels of waste we generate and its far-reaching implications. While the enormity of the problem is often well-known (with billion of pounds of food wasted annually), it's often overlooked that a staggering 65% of this waste happens in our homes, restaurants, and grocery stores. This makes food waste a "me and you" issue rather than a problem at the farm or with food manufacturers. Read the work and reach out. We're deep in food waste at Power Sustainable Lios…we can't get enough of it!  #sustainablefood #foodwaste https://lnkd.in/gVhr3fwF

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A few reflections on last week's Budget, from me, and a bunch of our fabulous FieldHouse Associates' clients. https://lnkd.in/exrefrpt #tech #innovation #investment #venturecapital #startups #scaleups #regulation #government #PR #publicaffairs #consultancy

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While there is extensive analysis available on how boards of established companies should operate, especially those in the public interest or publicly traded shares, there is very little guidance on how to make venture boards work effectively. Based on our experience across board roles, board advisory work and mentoring chairs and NEDs, we outline in this article five considerations for venture businesses to make their boards more effective https://lnkd.in/eXDHTwpg #boardeffectiveness #neds #boardsofdirectors

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Did you know that a number of private equity firms request their incoming non-executive or chair to commit some capital as a show of commitment, often referred to as having "skin in the game"? At Virtualnonexecs.com, we make sure to understand the appetite and ability of our chairs and non-executives to co-invest, should the need arise. 📈 To date, over 4,700 of our members have indicated they can and will invest, with the aggregate total reaching an astonishing £400,000,000! In June alone, this figure increased by £12,000,000. 💼 This collective firepower and the vast sums of indicated funds highlight the strength and commitment of our network. 👼 💸 Are we the largest Angel Network in the UK by accident? #Virtualnonexecs #AngelInvestors #PrivateEquity #Investment #NonExecutiveDirectors #Leadership #SkinInTheGame #BusinessGrowth

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Healthy founders = healthy startups, and there is a lot investors can do to support, eg: - providing access to third-party resources and peer support - raising conversations about financial pressure - offering structured support for leadership development Read more from our latest survey and set of initiatives 👇

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