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May 22, 2006
Scottish VC Goes To Europe On Back Of Home Runs
Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) is close to closing a new tech fund with a remit to invest in the UK mainly but also will add European ventures this time to its mix.
It would be its 70-times return-on-investment in semiconductor manufacturer Wolfson Microelectronics, 
that has helped the Glasgow and London-based firm garner commitments of €120M on its new fund that will back between 25 and 30 companies.
SEP, which also backed another poster-child of Euro tech VC investment, Cambridge Silicon Radio, a Bluetooth chipmaker with a market cap of £1.6B (€2.35B). Its style of investing covers semiconductors, healthcare, and energy sectors. It does both early stage and later stage investment, it said in an interview in the Scotsman this weekend.
Current portfolio firms includes goodies like the mobile portal software firm, Surfkitchen, and Wimax chipmaker, PicoChip.
A rare insight into the VC fundraising process was provided in the newspaper's report. We have the quotes below.
Not every venture capitalist has to pitch for funds, but Paterson suggests that they should: "It is remarkably good for the soul to have to sit on the other side of the table and make your case. I would recommend it as a process of improving self-awareness for all venture capital professionals....At times, it felt a bit like Groundhog Day, but it was a pretty quick and efficient process. Language has not been a problem - I did think about taking some lessons to brush up on my very basic French, but it was suggested that I should try to master English first!
...Paterson emphasises that SEP will not rush into a string of overseas deals. He says: "I strongly believe that to do VC well, you have to spend time with your portfolio companies and invest in other ways than money. Some of our competitors are investing on a pan-European basis and in the US. That is okay, but there is no compelling evidence that works any better than focusing on one country."
SEP's own investors are more cosmopolitan now - the last time the firm raised money, all of its backers were based in the UK. This time, traditional supporters such as the Royal Bank of Scotland were joined by investors from France, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Belgium.
We know that SEP has been moving towards more independence from its original parent company, Royal Bank of Scotland, but are not sure how far along in the process it is now.
Read - Venturing further afield(The Scotsman)
Posted on May 22, 2006 06:32 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Permalink
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