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Molten Ventures (previously Draper Esprit)
Finance and Risk Capital
Impact for scaleups
42
UK companies backed
39%
Follow-on investment
43%
Investment outside of London
40
Growth-stage investments
Key sectors
Molten Ventures (previously known as Draper Esprit) invests in venture and growth-stage companies based in Europe. Founded in 2006, with offices in London, Dublin and Cambridge, it invests primarily in four sectors: consumer technology, enterprise technology, hardware and electronics, and digital health and wellness.
The firm makes between 15 to 30 investments a year, including follow-on investments into tech companies that it believes are “poised for category leadership.” Notable scaleups which it has supported include microchip design firm Graphcore, blockchain security firm Ledger, and the fintechs Thought Machine and Form3.
In 2021 the firm moved its listing from AIM onto the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange with a secondary listing on Euronext Dublin. The firm says that this demonstrates how “publicly listed venture capital is a powerful force for supporting entrepreneurs on their own long-term journeys to outsized success” and that its “public listing and multi-fund model enable us to provide entrepreneurs with backing across their companies’ life cycles, fuelling the best businesses for longer.”
Between 2015 to June 2022, it invested a total of £2.15bn in 42 UK companies in 69 fundraising rounds. The average turnover of these companies was £24.5m and the estimated average number of employees was 155.
In its financial year to March 2022, it made £311m of investments from its balance sheet, including £130m in follow-ons and £112m in primary investments, compared to £128m in the previous year.
