Tunde Olanrewaju

Scale-up business guide to getting investor-ready: THE FINANCIALS (2/7) Before approaching investors, you need to get your management accounts and everything associated with how you make money and spend money in order. This article explains the essentials of your business’ financials. #Business #investorready #financials

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Accessing investment is a major challenge for growing #climatetech companies, crossing the missing middle of capital between venture capital and infrastructure funds – too big for one, and too small for the other. Last week Steven Poulter and I were joined by four inspirational climate tech founders to discuss this challenge, and how it can be overcome. Read more here 👇 Agnes Czako Christophe Williams Kate Hofman Kevin Duffy https://lnkd.in/ej4Jw4Nj

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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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Great conversation yesterday at Preqin with Preqin's Cameron Joyce, CFA, CAIA, Blue Owl Capital's Cara Griffiths, Bain Capital's Tom Sargeant on the future of fundraising for private markets. Where will AUM come from going forward? What are the challenges that funds will face in fundraising? What strategies will be most popular going forward? It was fascinating to hear the perspectives of some of the industry's biggest platforms in Blue Owl Capital and Bain Capital from Cara and Tom, respectively, as to where fundraising is headed given their purview on the market and from Cameron on his data-driven insights from market research and plenty of numbers crunching on what it will take for private markets to grow to $30T AUM by 2030.

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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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📣 We’ve got a big ESG_VC event planned for Tuesday next week – featuring the latest updates to our measurement framework, news of our 2025 benchmarking with the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA), and an introduction to our new platform partners… 📣 On the afternoon of Tuesday 26 November, we’ll be gathering 200+ VCs for the latest update on the ESG_VC Measurement Framework – from what it covers to how it informs industry-leading research, and how you can now work with our accredited data collection partners. This will be our first event delivered in partnership with our cohort of platform partners: Apiday, Novata, and PortF. I’m excited to share with our members how these partners can support a big step up in your ESG initiatives. Join us for a jam-packed event that will feature: 🟢 An update from Suzi Gillespie of the BVCA on how you can take part in our 2025 research – we analysed ESG performance in c.600 VC-backed companies in 2024 and we’re looking to deliver an even more ambitious piece of research next year… 🟢 Insights from Emily Havers of Fidelity International Strategic Ventures on the updates that have been made to the framework and what it means for our members, their portfolio companies, and the broader ecosystem. 🟢 Perspectives from Emily Matthews of Oxford Science Enterprises and Nina Foote of Volution on how the ESG_VC Measurement Framework has supported their work on ESG. 🟢 Presentations from our platform partners: Edouard Audi of Apiday, Conor O'Laoire’Laoire of Novata, and Alex Lu of PortF. It’s going to be a good one so do register. Link to sign up in the comments! #ESG_VC #sustainability #venturecapital

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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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How robust is a company’s climate transition plan? This is what S&P Global Rating’s new Climate Transition Assessment is analysing. Check this first and newly released report.

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HETI RIPORT #UK #impact_investments Impact investments managed in the UK reached £76.8bn at the end of 2023, a 33.3% increase on 2020 figures, according to a study published yesterday by the Impact Investing Institute. The report, entitled The UK impact investing market – Size, scope and potential, was produced through a market survey and engagement with more than 100 stakeholders, estimates the amount of direct impact investments for which the majority of investment management activities occurs from the UK (the capital managed may be invested outside of the UK). It shows an increase of £19.2bn compared with the end of 2020, when the first iteration of the report estimated the size of the market at £57.6bn.

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Climate Hack, at UEA no less. For those not in the know, UEA was the first University in the world to carry out climate research and remains the foremost academic institution advancing knowledge in climate change. #climatechange #climate #hackathon #innovation

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All good recommendations from Martin Wolf, but lacking one key reform: teach people about finance. We continually see too many recommendations that suggest changes that assume either full financial literacy, classic "economic rationality" or the opposite, that there's no point educating people, just do stuff for them. Start now, teaching people about money, and watch the quality of conversation transform over the next 10 and 20 years. https://on.ft.com/3V9yBOm

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The more I integrate AI into my Knife Capital Work + Personal life, the more this resonates… The key? Mastering AI prompt writing. It’s the bridge that transforms chaos into clarity, turning AI into a true ally. #AI #PromptEngineering #FutureSkills (PS: This post was AI created) 😉

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"Around 43% of properties are likely to be affected by subsidence in London by 2030." This is of course getting lots of press and the matter is clearly urgent as in just 5 more summers 43% of all Greater London's properties will be "affected" by subsidence. As Bowie said - we've 5 years that's all we've got... I am calling today for a taskforce for insurers to start buying up vacant offices and vape shops to act as community claim liaison centres for insurers and for a major scheme of rehousing and resettlement away from London to maybe Wales or Guildford. Wait...wait, just reading the document - source, yes lets read the references, ah, 72, ref 72, so that's: https://lnkd.in/edQCvqgy I am sure the author and team have a real mission to warn in a modern way about why London isn't prepared for climate change. But on this issue this is a complete mis-reading not only of the science but just of the web story. Here is what BGS says: "Experts at the BGS, the UK’s geoscientific advisor which helps to advance our knowledge about changes in the environment, warns that the number of properties in Great Britain facing subsidence issues and damage to property from shrink-swell is on the rise, with figures of just 3 per cent in 1990 likely to reach 10 per cent by 2070. Projections suggest that the number of properties in London likely to be affected by climate will rise from 20 per cent in 1990, to 43 per cent by 2030, and almost 3 times 1990 values (57 per cent) by 2070." Of course affected by climate might mean flooding, heat impacts, higher retrofit costs and adaptations and subsidence, including sinkholes, landslides etc etc etc This is needed work and reporting and most of it good sense and sensible recommendations - but dragging the wrong sentence from a speculative piece of work online is the road to bad policy. #subsidence #claims #property #London #lossadjusters #insurers Did you know by the way the UK is the first Islamist state with nuclear weapons - didn't know that did you? https://lnkd.in/efcYJkTm

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✨ What founders and VCs should know about term sheets in 2024 🤝 We had a great chat with Sifted about our HSBC Innovation Banking Term Sheet report, which highlights market standards and how term sheets have changed in the past year. Sophie Winwood (WVC:E), Natasha Jones (Metris Energy) and I discussed: 🌎 International investors 💰 Secondaries (Big topic at the WVC:E Summit 2024!) 💃 Focus on DEI Link in the comments! Mat Lauren

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🚀 180 off-market deals in the first quarter! 🚀 As the leading non-executive and chair community in the UK, our members offer strategic advice to some of the most active businesses across various sectors that are approaching funding rounds or M&A transactions. Some of the deals they have brought to us: 🚀 £75m revenue £15m EBITDA insurance syndicate (See below the live listing) 🚀 £40m revenue £4m EBITDA manufacturing business 🚀 £30m revenue £4.2m EBITDA services business 🚀 £20m revenue £3m EBITDA specialist travel business 🚀 £18m revenue £8m EBITDA energy/eco business 🚀 £13m revenue £6m EBITDA specialist online leasing business 🚀 £10m revenue £1m EBITDA recruitment business 🚀 £7m revenue £2.8m EBITDA specialist procurement consultancy 🚀 £6.4m revenue £1m EBITDA SaaS business And there's been over 100 funding requests! Average raise amount is £1.4m. Want to hear how you can access this deal pipeline? DM me. #offmarket #virtualnonexecs #dealflow

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The LTI flow limit from the Bank of England is an immense barrier to many goals of politicians, and even the regulators themselves, which is ironic. Put a barrier against innovation in finance, you put a barrier against innovation itself! Society is connected, at least one of the points should resonate with anyone in the audience. - economic growth is depressed because the LTI cap locks up the housing market, a major part of GDP. - inequality would reduce without the LTI, because more people would have access to home ownership - more competition in the mortgage market, because start up innovators like Perenna would not be subject to restrictions aimed at the large lenders - more consumer choice, because different funding models like Perenna will introduce different mortgage products such a long term fixed rate mortgages - more productive finance, with the LTI limit stopping pension savings being channelled into the domestic economy through different funding models - the LTI limit is a barrier to wider adoption of retrofitting products, needed for our net zero ambitions - removing the LTI would help FTB own their homes, improving affordability - the LTI cap stops the development and introduction of mortgage loans that are appropriate for older people, hit by the cost of living and looking to borrow against their home - the LTI cap forces aspiring homeowners into the shadow economy through help to buy type products, in the end more expensive for borrowers, as well as increasing systemic risk Nobody denies leverage is a risk, but stopping leverage is a bigger risk. Leverage risk needs to be controlled, and other economies are doing that better without an LTI cap. As Tim Shipman wrote: “ .. we have been free to make our own mistakes, and boy have we made them” The Times Tim Shipman Jeremy Hunt HM Treasury Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP The Conservative Party The Labour Party

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📝 Zero Carbon Capital's Alex has written up some of our thoughts about #advisors for early stage start-ups - where do you find them, how to get the most out of them and how you should compensate them. We do see start-ups giving shiny-sounding advisors big chunks of equity and then not getting much out of it, so this is definitely something to navigate with care. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eXf2QR3z

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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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Very proud to see the WVC:E dream team - Anisah Osman Britton MBE & Rachel Drapper - alongside long time friend and rockstar Ekaterina Gianelli on stage at TechBBQ discussing "Fixing the Talent Exodus in VC". Key Takeaways: 💰Impact of Consolidation on Culture and Talent: The ongoing consolidation in the VC industry is reshaping company culture, affecting morale, and influencing talent. 🚀Emerging Managers Aren’t Diversifying VC: Despite the rise of emerging managers, the industry remains largely homogenous, with many new managers still coming from the same traditional, non-diverse backgrounds. ⚠️Perceptions of Diversity as High Risk: Many in the VC industry continue to view diverse hires, investments, and business models as "high risk," "too time-consuming," or "too costly," perpetuating a cycle of exclusion. 🚼 Parental Leave Inequality: Inequities in parental leave policies are disproportionately affecting women in venture, creating additional barriers to progression. But there are funds, investors, LPs and organisations (like us!) that are trying to change this!

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