Juliet Kerr

I couldn’t be prouder to be a Venture Partner at Isomer Capital (aka the best European FoF - at least for me) as we just announced the launch of our pioneering £100m secondaries fund. This fund is dedicated to acquiring stakes from LPs in various VC funds, tapping into a massive and largely unexplored market. 🌟 Key Highlights: - Focused Investment: Primarily targeting stakes in VC funds, with selective investments in private companies. - Robust Funding: Already over 20% funded, thanks to strong support from Nordic family offices and a German foundation. - Market Potential: With a growing number of private tech companies and a VC liquidity crunch, Europe's VC secondaries market is poised for rapid growth. - Track Record: This isn’t Isomer’s first foray into the secondaries market. As a firm we’ve done several secondaries deals with portfolio companies and VC firms, including early-stage VC Seedcamp (in 2021) and mobility giant Bolt (in 2023). - Expert Team: Welcoming the amazing Omolade (Rachel) A., formerly of Coller Capital, as a principal to lead this initiative. 💡 Investment Strategy: - 65-75% of the fund will buy "LP interest" stakes in VC funds. - 15-25% will be directed towards stakes in companies. - Up to 15% reserved for flexible investment opportunities. 📈 Looking Ahead: We're targeting returns of 2-3x, with significant distributions expected in the next 4-7 years. As one of the few players in this space, we're not just participating in the market—we're driving it forward. Read all about it here: https://lnkd.in/dc7sbC3G #VentureCapital #SecondariesFund #EuropeanVC

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Taavet Hinrikus and I made the Financial Times Due Diligence email. https://lnkd.in/ez2AuGQx One 'unintended consequence' is that if there is a 45% tax on carry and CGT (raising £40m per year, remember) it for all intents and purposes closes the door on new VCs in the UK. Especially started by teams from non-traditional backgrounds. To meet the GP commit, you need to be already part of the 'wealthy' as you cannot rely on the value you create - nearly half of it will disappear - to fund it. We have both had extremely successful startups which are few and far between. The smaller number of new VCs will therefore more likely increasingly be for people who have inherited the capital or can draw it from their already rich family. Probably not want they have in mind with this policy.

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A HUGE thank you to everyone involved in publishing the latest report from ESG_VC and the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) today! The report is packed full of useful insights into how start-ups are actually performing across their work on environmental, social, and governance issues. There's also a brand new roadmap for ESG in start-ups with specific guidance on the initiatives to implement from Pre-Seed through to Series C and beyond. A particular shout out to everyone involved in the production including Suzi Gillespie and Ewa Skornas at the BVCA, David Strong and Dianne Skurray at Marriott Harrison, and Susannah Philipson and Nadeem Muzaffar at Seven Hills, who designed this beautiful report. I'm also massively grateful for all of the hard work that our VC contributors put into compiling data from 587 portfolio companies across the UK, Europe, and around the world - a few names to mention include Ashleigh, Shanice, Lauren, Laure, Michelle, Jason, Hessel, Emily, Beth, Joe, James, Eugenia, Alex, Grace, Emma, Emily, Lucy, Cordelia, Nina, Raj, and Rob. Thank you to you all! And thanks as ever to the remaining members of our steering group for their ongoing support of ESG_VC - Antonia at Seedcamp, Leslie at Astanor Ventures, Natalie at Lakestar, Andrew at Par Equity, and of course Karen McCormick for all of your support at Beringea! Check out the full report via the link in the comments! And let us know what you think about it! #ESG_VC #sustainability #venturecapital

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Incredible to see Mosaic in the Financial Times this morning in this excellent piece by Sujeet Indap on tech innovation in private equity. Sujeet's research into the historical evolution of Wall Street's analytical horsepower was particularly fascinating. Though I wasn't around for the shift from pen-and-paper to VisiCalc, I can only imagine the step-function productivity increase it unlocked. Anders' assertion that the advent of the spreadsheet in part drove the LBO boom of the late '80s is also intriguing (although I'm sure the <10% min. equity helped, too). Though the spreadsheet was a great advancement in the '80s, it always baffled me that ~30 years later (when I began my PE career) we were still underwriting billion-dollar buyouts using a generic productivity tool and not an industry-focused application. That's precisely why I started Mosaic. With dedicated platforms like Mosaic and Blackstone's Atlas now powering new deal underwriting - could the industry benefit from a similar step-function productivity increase? Also - an open question to anyone who was working as an investment professional in the 1980s/1990s: was the spreadsheet initially met with hesitation / skepticism by a subset of old-school investors who thought there was value in grinding it out until 3am with only pencil and abacus in hand? We're fortunate at Mosaic to work with some of the world's most forward-thinking investors who readily embrace change - but this sentiment does comes up once in a while. What happens to the holdouts? And curious how the innovators - whose shoulders we stand on - navigated it before us. Read the full story here: https://on.ft.com/4dXEvth

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🔔Great to be on the panel with The Economist discussing ''A Year of Change'' Thanks to The Economist for having me on the panel with Ana Nicholls (Economist Intelligence: EIU), Simon Bashorun (Investec Wealth & Investment UK) & Anthony Wells (YouGov) where we delved into how potential government shifts could impact growth, taxes, and investment opportunities.  🗒Discussion points included;  - What challenges investors face in Britain’s tax environment. - How would a change in government be likely to affect the economic landscape for individuals, from growth to taxes?  - What tax-saving opportunities should individual #investors look out for? etc. 🔗Link to the panel discussion https://lnkd.in/dZTZm9Rc #Economy #TaxPolicy #Investment #Britain2024

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🚀 From Garage Startup to Financial Powerhouse: The Full Journey of Mattioli Woods plc 🚀 Join me as I explore Ian Mattioli's journey from a garage startup to the financial giant Mattioli Woods plc. Ian shares insights on work-life balance, structuring a startup, and evolving from pensions to wealth management. Discover how his vision shaped Mattioli Woods plc and our health tech ventures, Care Hires and Kanabo. Ian helped Care Hires grow to a platform connecting 19,000 care workers with care homes across the UK. At Kanabo, he's supported our growth as a telemedicine startup listed on the LSE, connecting 4,200+ pharmacies and launching medical cannabis clinics. A must-watch for entrepreneurs and startup founders seeking inspiration to turn their vision into reality. Learn how these lessons drive innovation and growth in Care Hires and Kanabo Full Version linked below 👇 #Entrepreneurship #StartupSuccess #WealthManagement #BusinessGrowth #LeadershipLessons #Inspiration #HealthTech #MedicalCannabis Leicester Startups, Loughborough University, University of Leicester De Montfort University, Avihu Tamir, Nizam Bata ACCA, Tharaka De Alwis.

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💡 Looking forward to hosting an insightful VC panel at British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA)'s ESG conference... 💡 I'll be moderating a panel of experienced ESG leads in venture, thinking about the unique challenges and opportunities of integrating sustainability and ESG into venture capital. I'll certainly be looking to learn a lot from our speakers on the panel: Michelle Lamprecht of Cambridge Innovation Capital, Emily Matthews of Oxford Science Enterprises, Sasha Kaletsky of Creator Ventures, and Bhrigu Bali of A/O. Do sign up to join us on the day - link to the event in the comments below... #ESG_VC #sustainability #venturecapital

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No insights, overview, round-up, just a big shout out to an incredible team that brought Startup Discovery School Climate Fest to life at Impact Hub London in London. So much discussion concerning climate (tech), often feels abstract. We talk of the problem without reference to those currently facing the impact of climate change...right..now. Tech demo days are great, but we needed something more. Something that brings people together who view the challenge from different angles—entrepreneurs, investors, activists, curious folk, and anyone else interested. Climate Fest was the first attempt at convening this diverse group of people and long may it continue. A Shout Out 📣 A big shout out to Farrah Rainfly, who highlighted the great work Lifeafterhummus Community Benefit Society has done mobilising resources to retrofit community housing in Somerstown, London. Thanks to Kieron Boyle CEO of the Impact Investing Institute, who gave insights on *how* money can work better in supporting what is called 'the only transition' to net zero. Reuben Christian for leading us in 'Dream Rehab' session alongside our own Taz Latif. Another thanks goes to Radhika Srinivasan, who led us in a conversation around driving equitable transitions to net zero. And finally Margarita Skarkou, Nikki Gaddo FRSA and Ann Stevenson who joined me as we discussed convenience, consumerism and the circular economy. Onwards ⏩ #climatechange #climatetech #justtransition #team

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2024 LAVCA Trends in Tech - LAVCA https://buff.ly/4dfL6Qf by @LAVCA sector and country-specific breakdowns, average round sizes across investment stages and the current role of global investors co-investing alongside local fund managers! #rafAIgual #vc #trends #investment #latam

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🐿 back when I graduated from my MBA I was asked to help scale up Oxford Seed Fund: cut to today, I’m excited to share the first 10 investments we've made this year (w/ 10+ more on the way by July). BIG congrats to the team → Learn more about the epic founders and what they're building: 🕸️ Louisa AI / Rohan who you know + what you know 🧠 Allia / Amie Leighton - bridging the mental health data gap with Al ☁️ NodeShift / Andrey + Mihai - decentralising the cloud 👐 Compass Labs / Elisabeth - democratising access to DeFi 🔢 Bilanc (YC W24) / Samuel - mixpanel for unit economics 💤 Albus Health / Mikesh Udani - monitoring sleep to improve patient care 🛰️ Little Place Labs / Bosco + Gaurav - satellite data edge compute 🚢 Armada Technologies / Alex - reducing ship's fuel use 💸 Serene / Savannah - detecting financial vulnerability with ML ⚗️ Limula / Luc, Yann, Thomas - automating cell & gene therapy development Oxford Seed Fund is powered by Entrepreneurship Centre at Saïd Business School & backed by Oxford Science Enterprises - if you’re an Oxford founder, apply here: https://lnkd.in/e--M9net If you’re hiring, check out the stellar student team who closed the deals: Celina, Alex, Viktoriia, Julia, Isabel, Yusuf, Isobel, Raymond. Oxford Seed Fund is only 1% built - this year we invested alongside Y Combinator, Notion Capital, a16z crypto and more → if you're a VC/LP/accelerator interested in #Oxford (coinvestment + collabs), get in touch. 🐿 As for me, I’m back to exploring #whatsnext - recs & suggestions welcome = looking to join a team and be useful (roles in org change, innovation strategy, corporate development, climate tech + climate VC, coaching + catalyst).

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2024 has been 📈📉🤝💰👶🍼🍌🛥✈ 🌴 🥱🔥 It's been tough again But our founders smashed it, raising $176m across 6 rounds We made 5 new investments across Europe, the same pace as last year - hello NetFabric.ai & Recurse ML (🤫 x 3) Andrew Sheffield was promoted to Principal, Clare Zhang to Associate and Head of FFOH, and we welcomed Matt Gill, CFA as CFO I became a Dad for the first time in May (🐣👼🦞❤) Our Founders' Dinners were the best yet, deepening relationships and collaboration across so many companies FFOH Editions 11 & 12 saw 600+ founders meet 300+ investors for 2,300+ one-on-one meetings And we were in person at Slush for the 3rd time and WVC:E and LTST for the 1st time We started asking founders what they really think about us and the results were good - 4.7/5 We grew our angel community, brought angels into every new investment we made and held some awesome events at Warner Yard It's been an incredible year For the full top 10 highlights, check out the link in the comments below 👇 A huge thank you to our founders, my team and everybody who supported us, especially Federico Pirzio-Biroli 🙏 Looking forward to doing it all over again in 2025...after a good rest... 😴 #venturecapital #startups #technology #innovation #future #economy #markets #fundraising #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #founders

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UK Start-Up Funding Hits Six-Year Low The Times highlights alarming stats from VenturePath and Beauhurst, with insights from Michael Moore (BVCA) and Julian David (techUK): Series A funding down 44% year-on-year. Q3 2024 saw a 57% drop from Q2. 90% of seed-funded startups can’t secure Series A funding. Only 32 UK companies accessed Series A funding in Q3, a six-year low. £500 million less in Series A funding compared to two years ago. The UK is losing ground in startup and scaleup support, now ranking 13th globally (OECD). Despite some reports showing positive trends in private investment, our focused research reveals a stark decline in Series A funding. The UK ScaleUp Investment Mission aims to address this by uniting the scaleup ecosystem and £7bn in funding. We’ve engaged with the new Government, seeking immediate action to reverse this trend and ensure equitable access to capital for UK scaleups. Follow JayaSankar Subburaj for daily insights on Startups and Venture Capital. #VentureCapital #Startups #Funding #Investment #AngelInvestor

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Lots of activity in the Media for Equity space in this autumn, and just in the last two days we have had some great news, one coming from the UK and second from Australia. 🫡 dmg ventures has announced the launch of their new fund with 50M GBP in cash capital, as well as their traditional media credits. They plan to invest into European as well as US-based startups, from two separate funds: "The Headline Fund will target startups between seed and series A, while the second, the Scale Fund, is for more established startups. The Scale Fund has already made two investments, into Trip, a UK maker of sparkling drinks that contain CBD, and Blue Stripes, which makes cacao-based products by reusing the fruit that is wasted by the chocolate industry." - Global Corporate Venturing The second announcement is coming from the Scaleup Mediafund, "backed by investors including News Corp Australia, NOVA Entertainment, Foxtel Group, REA Group, and oOh! Media and has committed over $45 million in advertising and marketing inventory to support the Australia's startup ecosystem. The two new investments are, Naked Life, a non-alcoholic cocktail drinks business, and Settle Easy, an online property conveyancing platform. 💪 These are great news for the media for equity, media capital, media credits or may you call it media investments, and great new set of proof points for the investment model. #MediaForEquity #MediaCapital #MediaCredit #MediaInvestments cc: Flavius Floare Borderbridge

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I could not be prouder to announce that I've joined the board at Furthr | B Corp™ Tikto Capital + syndicate have been invested in Furthr for 1.5 years over which time we've seen the business > 4x revenues which is a direct read-across to brilliant environmental outcomes for businesses like Aspen Insurance Group, Form3 and Gattaca + their employees too. I've watched the business grow, delight customers (*very* positive NRR), build a platform, make acquisitions and level up internally. What's more, they've done this with a business model that is core-profitable. Never have I come across a business which delivers on its promises to employees, customers, shareholders and the environment in such a way. A lss act. Here's to the next chapter Henry, Paul, Margot, James, Crawford, and team.

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There's no doubt that sentiment in the market is improving and it feels easier to raise funding than it did a year. At least this side of the pond. But a new report from @wilson sonsini highlighting US/UK venture financing trends and deal terms for first half of this year doesn't show such a great picture with valuations pretty much on hold to their end 2023 levels. Some thawing in capital markets might open up IPO exit opportunities and ungunge the machine. Full report https://buff.ly/4e38UWM

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🚨 Sebastian Peck started off as a management consultant before pivoting into investment banking and eventually venture capital. He talks to Sam Shead for VC Wednesdays, a weekly series featuring a Q&A interview with a venture capitalist. 🖊️ You invest in startups that can accelerate the digital transformation and decarbonisation of the building and manufacturing industries. What attracted you to this niche? The built environment accounts for nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions, while materials associated with industrial production like steel and aluminium account for nearly 20%. Backing successful companies that focus on decarbonising the built environment and industrial production allows us to have outsized impact. At the same time, there is scope for massive efficiency gains in both industries through AI and automation. As an opportunity space for venture capital, it does not get much better than that. 🖊️ What are limited partners (LPs) saying to VCs at the moment? Institutional investors such as pension funds mostly sit on the sidelines and wait for liquidity events that would allow them to redeploy capital. LPs with a strong mission or strategic intent such as foundations or corporations are still in the market, but the alignment has to be very strong between the respective vision, mission and values of LPs and VCs. 🖊️ Which areas of AI do you think are overhyped? While I think the recent technological breakthroughs are very significant, corporate adoption for more complex use cases that rely on proprietary data will be much slower than anticipated by many. A lot of companies have still very little control over their data, and lack the resources to make good use of it. At the same time, they are very protective of their data. I think it will take a few more years until companies will be in a position to fully exploit the potential of AI. 🖊️ What does an average day look like for you? My days alternate between working on new investments, looking after existing ones, managing a team of 10, developing our knowledge base, engaging my network, building our brand and keeping my LPs happy. It’s one of the most varied and intellectually stimulating jobs you can wish for, but I also have to continuously make sure to find the right balance in juggling all these different commitments. 🖊️ What similarities do you see between management consulting/investment banking and VC? I think all three professions are characterised by a certain analytical rigour and also the ability to communicate efficiently with a healthy level of conviction. Where they differ is that VCs have to have a very different level of risk tolerance. VCs also stay committed much longer – sometimes a decade – while investment banking and consulting engagements usually only last for a few months. #VCWednesdays #vc #venturecapital #startups #TechonLinkedIn

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