Episode 1 has closed a new £76 million early-stage fund.
The VC, which has a decade of experience backing fledgling founders, promised to invest in a new generation of B2B innovators at the pre-seed and seed stages.
“We are excited to announce the close of a new £76m fund, our third and biggest yet,” it stated. “We’ll be investing between £250k and £3m — and allocating plenty for follow-ons.”
Technologies and sectors of interest include AI, computational-bio and HealthTech innovation, while Episode 1 is keen to add more open-source and software infrastructure deals alongside its traditional Software-as-a-Service sweet spot.
“Although we’re looking primarily for companies with a UK footprint, we will be making some investments in US and European-based companies where we feel we have something unique to offer,” it continued.
‘Investors & entrepreneurs told me to leave Leeds for London’
Several new institutions and individuals have joined this fund alongside previous backers including British Patient Capital and Molten Ventures.
Over a third of the new fund’s LPs are former or current founders, including 21 previously backed by Episode 1. Other founder LPs include Alex Chesterman (founder of Zoopla and Cazoo), Aidan Corbett (founder of Wayflyer), Aron Gelbard (founder of Bloom & Wild), and Alex MacDonald (founder of Velocity Black and Sequel).
Episode 1’s combined portfolio is home to 70 companies, including well-known names such as Carwow, Huboo, CloudNC, Raft, Robin AI, QuestDB and Omnipresent.
Around 75% of its Fund 2 portfolio companies have gone on to raise a Series A — almost 4x higher than the average pre-seed and seed graduation rate.
High-profile exits include Fatmap (acquired by Strava), Passfort (Moody’s), Feedr (Compass Group), Touch Surgery (Medtronic) and Atlas (Meta).