Sure Valley Ventures, the founder-led Venture Capital firm that invests in high growth software companies in sectors such as Immersive Technologies, Web3, the Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, InfoSec and Cybersecurity, has established a presence in the North of England with the appointments of Mel Ellyard and George Mensah who are based in Leeds and Manchester respectively.
Sure Valley Ventures is securing offices in each location which are due to open in the coming months.
By establishing a local presence, Sure Valley Ventures aims to deliver on its goal to challenge regional disparities across the UK and to access opportunities to invest in the significant and exciting innovation clusters that have developed around creative technologies in the North of England and in the Metaverse and AI opportunities in cities such as Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle.
The firm will be launching in Leeds with an event at Nexus on Thursday 14 July with guests to include Eve Roodhouse, Chief Officer, Culture and Economy at Leeds City Council, Simon Cunnington, Investment Director and Mark Sims, Director Funds, Venture Solutions at British Business Bank. A launch event in Manchester is planned for September 2022.
This expansion follows the recent announcement of the £95m UK software technology fund, which included a £50m investment from the British Business Bank through its Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF) programme, which aims to increase the supply of equity capital to high-potential, early- stage UK companies.
Led by Managing Partner and Co-Founder Barry Downes, Sure Valley Ventures is focused on investing in disruptive software innovation at the seed stage in sectors such as the Metaverse (e.g. Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Web 3 decentralized technologies), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cybersecurity.
Typically, Sure Valley initially invests in the range of £750,000 to £1,500,000 and will often bring in co-investors to complete total investment packages of £1 million to £3 million in new companies.
Sure Valley Ventures was founded in 2017 with support from Shard Capital, the leading wealth and asset manager. It currently has offices in London, Dublin and Cambridge.
FinSMEs
06/07/2022