We look for the following:
#1. Innovative technology - ventures with high-growth potential developing and applying intelligent technology to reshape industries, markets and products/services. This may include the application of technologies to find opportunities that traditional approaches miss. We assess this in the domain of AI, using ML, data-driven processes or algorithmic reasoning.
#2. Transformative - new intelligent technologies that disrupt existing markets or create new markets. Ventures that show a clear ability to challenge the status quo in a way that has substantive commercial merit. This may include technology-based opportunities beyond AI where these hold strong commercial potential or value creation in the broader AI ecosystem.
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Our Five Pillars
1. AI focused
With a dedicated AI-centric technology focus and team, we build deeper, differentiated investment capability to better originate, and manage for superior return. Our founders and team have experience, energy and passion for next-generation deep technology. However, we are AI-focused, but NOT AI exclusive. We do not purse AI as the end, but as the means to innovate in clearly differentiated and promising technology.
2. Domain specialist
We are focused in specific core verticals – Financial Services/FinTech, AdTech and Marketing Technology, Industrial Process Automation/RPA and Digital Health. Exceptional investment origination and management requires that we target best risk/return through pragmatic, practical domain expertise, assessment and due diligence. This focus better sustains investor/LP partnerships over the long-term and builds deeper and more valued relationships with ventures.
3. Partnership with strategic investors
Our team is differentiated through senior level operational and advisory experience comprising partners and professionals who have worked with or for leading global professional firms, Fortune 500 corporations and supranational institutions. Whilst accelerators and CVCs (Corporate Venture Capital) are ways in which established and emerging companies have sought to work together the results have been mixed. A core aspect of what we do is build strategic partnerships with market leaders in our verticals to enable startups to pilot applications, access the datasets needed for AI learning/testing and at the same time secure innovation, growth opportunities and strategic technological value for their business.
4. Pan-European with a local presence in key geographies
We have a Europe-centric investment focus on AI technology development, building local teams in key European geographies such London/Cambridge and Berlin/Munich – with coverage to other important European centres for AI expertise and startup access (e.g. Paris, Moscow/St Petersburg etc).
5. Optimised deal-flow through an active network
We leverage a network of complimentary professional relationships built with the key stakeholders active in the development of technology, commercial application and VC/PE. As an active player in the AI focused technology sector in Europe we have a network through which we credentialise our expertise and build our reputation as an engaged specialist VC investor.
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Deeply embed in the European AI and Deep Tech ecosphere
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Partnership with Fraser Finance
We are partnered with Fraser Finance, a specialist M&A advisory and investment firm based in London and Berlin. Fraser Finance works with technology leaders in Europe’s enterprise software, SaaS and services sector for achieving exceptional growth and success.
The firm advises entrepreneurs, management teams and boards on their most important strategic decisions and transactions. Its clients include emerging and established technology leaders, growth equity and buy-out investors.
Many clients have been recognised as growth leaders in their sector and have been backed by some of the leading technology investors or have completed transactions, at premium valuations, with global strategic buyers.
Fraser Finance LLP is an authorized representative of Fraser Finance Ltd, which is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority. Fraser & Company GmbH is an affiliate of Fraser Finance LLP.
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Our Core Values
We are driven by a vision to build long-term sustained relationships with investors, startups and other key stakeholders that leads to superior returns and reduced risks for investors and investees. This is premised on establishing and living a set of core values:
Clear investment thesis – a strong investment thesis is a driver of good performance and attracts better investment opportunities. This is not fixed and will evolve and change with time, but must be clear enough to align investment decision taking and management internally and to provide clarity and transparency for our investors as well as the startups we invest in.
Promote good Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) behaviours – investors and fund managers have an important role to play in promoting and sustaining good behaviours. We strongly believe diverse teams produce the best results and that there is much work to do in the technology sector and in venture capital to promote gender, race and other social equality. This and related technology concerns such as data bias in training AI systems, as well as ethical and environmental factors are important aspects of our investment practice and decision making as well as objectives that shape our own internal practices.
Silicon Valley mindset but with European skepticism – In the new paradigm of Machine Learning, traditional financial analytics and corporate finance methodologies arguably have less value. Europe has been more circumspect and cautious in AI investment and as a result the early leaders in this area have emerged in the US, China and Israel. Our approach is to take a middle ground, focusing assessment on the technology maturity and market readiness but with a degree of European skepticism in grounding the hype in commercial reality.
Proactively assess investments for resilience to downturn – our partners have experienced previous cyclical downturns and understand that in those circumstances there is always a flight to quality. Investment assessments will include the assessment of resilience to a global downturn as a core, weighted criteria.
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Investment Themes
AI-ML Technology Stack
The power of the virtuous closed-loop
The power of the virtuous closed-loop
The motivation to automate and enable better decision-making seeks to actuate manual processes, inform decision-making and through ML create the thinking and acting enterprise that actively seeks to create competitive advantage by continuously evolving in real-time.
Vertical vs. Horizontal application
Sectors with the best potential and also those with the opportunity for cross domain application (NLP, Computer Vision, RPA etc.)
Sectors with the best potential and also those with the opportunity for cross domain application (NLP, Computer Vision, RPA etc.)
The commercial potential of AI in specific market sectors will vary over time reflecting the sector readiness as well as the technological and commercial barriers and limitations that are present or need to be overcome.
Automation vs. Augmentation vs. Substitution
Time horizons for investment and return over the next decade.
Time horizons for investment and return over the next decade.
The development and application of ML will impact over 3- 5, 5-10, 10-15 year and beyond timelines reflecting increasingly sophisticated technology solutions from simple automation through augmented assistance to humans and finally to substitution in certain domains and applications.
Big data vs. algorithmic reasoning
Recent research and development at the algorithmic level has moved to relying less on bottom-up big data and more on top-down logic driven processes that more closely resembles the way humans approach problems and tasks.
These may hold significant potential requiring less that 1-2% of the data previously required by purely statistical models and attaining much greater predictive accuracy.
Disruption/Transformation vs. Process/Function Re-Engineering
The battle for the AI market between the emerging enterprises and the global platforms and consultancies
The battle for the AI market between the emerging enterprises and the global platforms and consultancies
AI is disintermediating established players and creating new markets and products parallel alongside AI that enables established corporates to re-engineer and stay ahead.