Balderton Capital

Stage Preferences

Business plan only, Product/Service ready to launch, Making early sales, Funding for growth.

Funds Under Management

$2.3 billion fund from private investors and European Investment Scheme.

“Balderton is the largest Europe focused venture fund, with funds totalling $2.3BN. We invest between $1M to $20M into companies with the potential to disrupt huge industries, and the ambition to scale globally. Our focus is on early stage, European technology businesses, with ambitious founders and unique approaches. We invest for the long term, with the ability to support our companies from start to exit.”

Eligibility

Balderton is discerning with the entrepreneurs it will work with and looks for particular characteristics: having direct experience of the problem they are trying to solve, passion, conviction, a vision of the world that is different to most people, and the ability to convince an ‘excellent’ team to quit their careers and work in “something as ridiculous as a startup,” as Wise puts it.

How A Decision Is Made

Balderton takes a deliberately broad sector focus when deciding on its investments. “We don’t really focus on one thing very, very deeply. We focus on technology and the internet as a whole,” James Wise, Principal of Balderton Capital. For Wise it’s important to keep an open mind on tech investing because every sector has potential if a company can find the right people to build the right product.

Example companies

Tictail

Tictail allows an individual or retailer to set up a virtual store in minutes. Dubbed ‘the Tumblr of e-commerce’ by Wired Magazine in 2012, Tictail focuses on strong community integration, simplicity of use, and attractive, customisable design.

Why they invested

Tictail experienced explosive growth in 2014, now with over 85,000 independent brands and 2 million unique products on the site, the investment will enable Tictail to further invest in elevated shopping functionality on mobile and focus on its global footprint, with independent brands representing over 140 countries and 12 languages.

Revolut

Revolut’s technology allows people to transfer money through a smartphone app without incurring the fees that banks and other financial services levy on consumers as they travel.

Why they invested

The addressable market for Revolut is huge, and as well as eradicating hidden costs for travellers, Revolut’s app has a myriad of applications. They’re solving a major pain-point that the banks have ignored, and “they’re doing it with an extremely elegant, mobile-first userinterface” – Daniel Waterhouse, Balderton Capital.

Directory

Investment Range

Sector Preferences