Vivian Bertseka

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

23

1 Comment

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

122

8 Comments

🌍💡 Embracing Interoperability: The Evolution of Carbon Markets 💡🌍 The landscape of carbon markets is rapidly evolving, with a significant shift towards fungibility and interoperability. What does this mean? We (at the SoHo Global Climate Fund) spoke with leading climate fund manager, Charles Bedford of Carbon Growth Partners, to shed light on this important trend in the carbon markets. It's about creating seamless connections between compliance and voluntary markets, allowing for the exchange and recognition of carbon credits across borders and sectors. This trend marks a pivotal moment in our collective efforts towards combating climate change. By enabling carbon credits to be fungible and interoperable, we're fostering a more efficient and scalable approach to carbon pricing and emissions reduction strategies. Companies and organizations now have greater flexibility to participate in markets that align with their goals. #CarbonMarkets #ClimateAction #Fungibility #Interoperability #Sustainability #Innovation #GlobalImpact

30

Question. Who should we meet about climate hardware exits or more specifically M&A . We have IPOs and private secondaries pretty well covered, but happy to learn more. We’re now approaching 10x in climate investments since 2021 compared to cleantech 1.0. We’ve unfortunately repeated some of the mistakes and there are some signs that large bets will fail. But there are also some fast growing, even profitable climatetech startups. The problem is we don’t have many exits to confirm that this time is different. The last required step is to turn paper gains into cash. Unfortunately, as we learned about fundraising, the software playbook isn’t reusable because so many of the companies include hardware. So who has figured this out? Could be founders, investment bankers or folks who’ve led corp dev. Main specific qualification is they’ve worked on deals involving hardware or climate, or both. Please add to the comment s (if you prefer email or DM, that works too).

65

14 Comments

Green Angel Ventures has just launched the eighth round of our EIS Climate Change Fund. This is how I am personally doing all my EIS investing now, because it gives me a great spread of investments, all backed by individual angels in our group and after our thorough due diligence process, and means that I don't miss any of Green Angel Ventures' portfolio (no FOMO!) #EIS #climatetech #angelinvestment

8

Sharing today the first in a new series that I'll be publishing with HSBC Innovation Banking over the next couple of months... Following a conversation with Alex Hazell at one of our ESG_VC events earlier this year, we decided to collaborate on a series of articles that spotlights the growing importance of ESG for scaling businesses, and shares simple, practical advice from our experience throughout the ESG_VC community and the Beringea portfolio. For our first piece (thanks to Kyle Gregorowski for his help pulling this all together!) we've taken a look at the FAQs, including: 🤔 Why has ESG become such a prominent topic in the start-up ecosystem? ❌ Will my business be penalised if I don't get to grips with ESG? 💭 How do investors think about ESG for their portfolio companies? Check out the full article via the link below - including a nice mention for our research with Marriott Harrison earlier this year. #sustainability #ESG_VC #startups

45

3 Comments

🌱 Looking to Connect with Leading VCs and Early-Stage Investors? 🌱 At Virtualnonexecs, we don;t only work with PE firms - we are also proud to be working with some of the UK’s most active early-stage investors to help them find the top board advisors and chairs who can drive impact. If you're a non-executive or chair looking to connect with the heart of the startup ecosystem, take note of the names below. Here are 10 of the UK's most active early-stage investors and the incredible numbers that back them: 1. Octopus Ventures - Backed 100+ startups, with a portfolio value of over £1.3 billion. 2. Seedcamp - Over 400 startups funded, including unicorns like Revolut and TransferWise 3. LocalGlobe - Invested in 300+ startups across deep tech and fintech. 4. Playfair - Early backer of companies like Stripe and Anduril. 5. Passion Capital - Early investor in Monzo Bank, managing £100M+ in assets. 6. Ascension - Over 100 startups backed with a focus on social impact and fintech. 7. Frontline Ventures - Backed 80+ startups across Europe with a key focus on B2B. 8. MMC Ventures - £500M+ under management, supporting 60+ innovative growth companies. 9. Balderton Capital - Invested in 220+ startups with notable exits like THG. 10. Entrepreneur First - 500+ startups built, including companies now worth over $10 billion collectively. ✅ To join Virtualnonexecs: https://lnkd.in/eXBj687 ✅ If you are a VC or company looking to hire: https://lnkd.in/d3na7CEC #NonExecutiveDirectors #Chairs #VentureCapital #Startups #Virtualnonexecs #BoardRoles #Leadership #BusinessGrowth

15

1 Comment

Striking: Zenobē, a UK climate tech startup, raised £600m from KKR and £270m from Infracapital, bypassing VC entirely. Zenobe captures excess energy from wind farms to stabilize the grid and reduce gas power reliance. This means: Zenobe secured one of 2023's biggest startup fundraises — without any venture capital. #battery #fundraising #venturecapital #energystorage #infrastructure #growthinflection Sifted: https://lnkd.in/g8wF-xA5

5

As Impact Lead at FPC, it's awesome to be able to contribute the research by The Global Impact Investing Network, featured by Financial Times, outlining the strength and continued momentum in impact investing. 🗣 "Based on data tracking investment activity over the past five years, including by organisations on the list, the GIIN says allocation of assets to impact strategies has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 14 per cent in that period." 🗣 As the industry continues to grow and mature, we look to remain at the forefront of impactful venture - check out our most recent Impact Report: https://lnkd.in/dRA8qSuu 🌊 A nice nod to our Blue Ocean strategy also included in the GIIN's report - "There is growing interest in areas such as biodiversity and the so-called blue economy — marine resources and ecosystems." Keep eyes peeled for our most recent investment from the fund... Ed Phillips 👀 #impactinvesting #FinancialTimes #blueeconomy

21

1 Comment

"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).

735

195 Comments

💡 Watch this video, in which the importance of shareholder voting in tackling the climate crisis is perfectly articulated by Mark van Baal from Follow This | Shareholders change the world.

3

Always capitivating the audience with your strategies.

4

1 Comment

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.

32

2 Comments

"Diverse PE & VC firms invest in a different universe of deals" My own experience in investment management shows that the different views on deals is one fo the key success factors! 🏆 Working together in gender diverse teams or with people of different backgrounds is so inspiring and value generating and, in addition, provides better performance! It is so important for investors and the teams themselves to have more equal opportunities on all levels of an investment firm from junior to senior positions. 🚀 More information in our emma Ventures' post below:

8

☀ Climate founders, operators, and investors...☀ We are actively deploying (non-dilutive!) debt capital to growth-stage climate companies - and have more dry powder at the ready. I'm looking for intros to climate companies and investors who may be interested in debt financing. As a recap, Ezra Climate does two things - 💸 Provides debt financing to climate companies. We lend $5M to $50M+ to help you scale and deploy your climate technology quicker. ⚙ Builds your "Climate Tech-as-a-service" platform. We provide the financing and software that allows you to offer customers a lease, rental, or subscription product. Drop me a line if this is you - or if you know founders, operators, and investors who may be keen to learn more! Additional info on what we look for below. Dan Rosen Dori Rutkevitz Shujaat Khan Christin Price Matt Weiss Paul Tregidgo Asher Hochberg

74

8 Comments

At the start of 2024 we invited a subset of leading climate fund managers to share views on market sentiment as well as their performance. Insights include sentiment on the fundraising environment, sector focus, impact tracking methodologies, portfolio valuation expectations and spending allocations. Please find an abridged version of the survey here: https://lnkd.in/e-BgCKpG We truly appreciate the participation of all the contributing managers and hope the results are insightful and useful to all. We view this inaugural survey as the first of many CREO Climate Investment Surveys and aspire to attract participation from an increasingly robust and diverse set of managers. We will invite managers to participate in our 2025 survey at the end of this year. Participants who completed the survey received unabridged versions of the aggregated results. CREO Owen LoudonLucas FiorettiTaline Filipovic

46

Fantastic report from the BeZero Carbon team quantifying the many benefits of a healthy carbon market. There is no silver bullet to achieve #netzero but putting a financial value on quality carbon assets, and allowing them to form part of an emission reduction strategy, is an important step towards incentivising climate positive behaviour. The success of the #carbonmarket can serve as a blueprint for other environmental asset classes, all of which will be needed for us to maintain a healthy and diverse natural ecosystem. 🌱 🌍

27

Commentary picking up on the growing trade in GP partnerships (and the lucrative rewards for the lucky few). A consequence of the increasing maturity of this asset class. Market dynamics are evolving.

13

Recent M&A market performance is showing significant signs of recovery from the lows of H2 2023, with the growth in PE and PE-backed deals leading the charge.

8