Scaleup programmes
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Balderton Capital
Finance and Risk Capital
Impact for scaleups
45
UK companies backed
41%
Follow-on investments
22%
Investments outside of London
36
Growth-stage investments
Key sectors
Founded in 2000, Balderton Capital focuses on Series A and B investments into European and US technology companies. It has backed more than 230 companies. It typically invests between US$1-20m into “companies with the potential to disrupt huge industries, and the ambition to scale globally” and says that it takes a long-term approach.
The fund primarily invests in businesses based in the UK, US and Europe. It takes a broad sector focus on technology and the internet as a whole. Four in five of their investments in UK companies between January 2016 to June 2023 were at growth stage. Notable scaleups in the firm’s portfolio include Zego, Revolut, Lendable, Wagestream and Wayve.
After announcing its first fully-fledged growth fund in June 2021, the firm also launched its $600m Fund VIII – its largest ever early-stage fund.
The firm has a “Build platform” to provide talent, marketing, finance and legal services to support companies as they scale, and to connect founders and their team to an active peer community. The firm provides guidance on talent acquisition and global expansion, as well as publishing guides on topics such as employee equity schemes and optimising board structures. Scaling portfolio companies have access to the firm’s executive council, which consists of leaders in the global technology industry, and has “a CEO community” of more than 100 people, sharing guidance with one another in a private community.
The firm has launched a Founder Wellbeing programme, saying that “high-performance athletes don’t train at 100% intensity, 7 days a week and ignore everything else – and neither should high-performance founders.”
The firm has a Sustainable Future Goals initiative, bringing together over 60 portfolio peers actively involved in sustainability and impact to share ideas and learnings, and has appointed its first “executive in residence,” to advise Balderton’s portfolio CEOs and founders on areas including SaaS metrics, strategy, marketing and US expansion.
