New £50m fund to support early-stage start-ups

NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts) has launched a new £50million fund to invest in innovative early-stage businesses over the next five years.

The Fund will look to invest up to £10 million each year, offering individual start-ups seed money of up to £250,000 and investing £500,000 per company over the course of its development. In addition to financial input, companies will receive ongoing mentoring and business support from NESTA to maximise the potential of the business and attract further rounds of funding. NESTA has one of the largest pools of mentors in the country.

The Fund will focus on identifying, investing in and supporting particularly innovative early stage companies in the ICT, healthcare, technology and environmental technology sectors. A key aim of the Fund is to attract other investors to work in partnership with NESTA in funding selected start-ups.

NESTA will also use the Fund to invest in seed or early-stage funds, either as a limited partner or co-investor and will make two or three investments per year from £1million to £3 million.

The new Fund is to be overseen by an Investment Committee of private venture heavy-weights, including Adrian Beecroft, Partner and former Chief Investment Officer at Apax ; former Deloitte partner, Ian McIsaac, an expert in global risk management; Sherry Coutu, a successful entrepreneur and well-known early-stage technology investor; NESTA Chairman, Chris Powell and Marc Clement, Head of Research and Innovation at Swansea University.