Following a “double dragon” exit, third fund brings total under management to over £175m
IQCF III builds on the successes of IQ’s existing funds, which included a ‘double dragon’ exit in May to Oracle (a deal that returned an entire fund twice over), enabling the first fund, IQCF1, to deliver a healthy 3.5x net return to its LPs. IQ Capital’s second fund has invested in 22 deep-tech start-ups over the last four years, leading investments into deeptech companies such as Privitar, Speechmatics and Fluidic Analytics.
Deeply embedded within Cambridge’s thriving technology ecosystem, IQ Capital celebrated its tenth anniversary last year and will continue investing in founders of deeptech companies looking to launch or to scale their businesses. The firm’s partners - Max Bautin, Ed Stacey and Kerry Baldwin - have worked together for over 12 years and achieved numerous strong exits to tech giants including Google, Apple, Oracle and Huawei and several high profile IPOs, including Autonomy.
Investors in the first close of IQCFIII include Family Offices, Wealth Managers, technology entrepreneurs and several CEOs that were previously backed by IQ Capital, alongside equity investment from British Business Investments, the commercial arm of the British Business Bank (the largest UK-based LP investing in UK Venture Capital).
Max Bautin, Partner at IQ Capital, said. “When we launched our first fund over 10 years ago, we had the ambition to become the pre-eminent fund for deeptech in the UK. Over the last few years, this sector has grown tremendously and produced a number of world-leading companies. We are seeing brilliant entrepreneurs bringing ever more experience and ambition to scale up their deeptech companies, so our latest fund will see even bigger successes.”
Ed Stacey, Partner at IQ Capital, said: “Deeptech is increasingly being appreciated by investors and corporates alike, for its massive potential to disrupt and reconfigure industries. As one of the first investors focused on UK deeptech, we are delighted with the growth of UK expertise and ambition in the sector, and we anticipate it will continue to strengthen. In particular, the development of the tech ecosystem in Cambridge is quite unique, and we are proud to be right at the heart of it.”
Kerry Baldwin, Partner at IQ Capital, said, “Beyond the cash injection, we are seen as true partners supporting entrepreneurs to scale their businesses. Trust with our founders is absolutely essential and we work closely together on all the challenges that arise with scaling globally - both technical and commercial challenges.”
IQCF III is a ten year fund with a five year investment period, with ability to invest up to £10m per portfolio company in order to scale an original tech innovation into global commercial success.
About IQ Capital:
IQ Capital is a Cambridge-based venture capital firm that invests in UK ‘deeptech’ across sectors including machine learning, AI, engineering and materials, and data-focused propositions based on disruptive algorithms. All the firm’s portfolio companies are potentially capable of dominating their respective markets on a global scale. The team typically invest at seed and series A stage, with significant capital reserved to scale portfolio companies through their growth stages. Initial investments typically range from £0.3m to £5m, with capacity to invest up to £10m per company over its life. IQ Capital’s current portfolio includes leading deeptech companies such as Speechmatics, Privitar, Thought Machine, Audio Analytic, Oxford Space Systems, Fluidic Analytics, Divido, Senseye and Spectral Edge
The IQ Capital team has achieved over 20 exits to date including trade sales to Oracle, Google, Apple and Huawei and several IPOs. IQ Capital has led 22 deep-tech investments over the last three years and expects to invest in 10-15 new companies per annum
For more information, please visit www.iqcapital.vc
Additional information
The British Business Bank backed both of IQ Capital’s previous funds under its Enterprise Capital Funds programme. It will shortly transfer existing and approved commitments from the VC Catalyst programme run by British Business Investments, its commercial subsidiary – under which this investment in IQCFIII is being made - to British Patient Capital, a new programme to support up to £7.5bn of investment for UK businesses.