#UK IQ Capital raises £92m of new £125m deeptech fund

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Cambridge deeptech investor IQ Capital, has held the first close of its £125 million third fund – IQ Capital Fund III – at £92m.

The fund will invest at Seed and Series A stages into UK deeptech companies with transformational deep technology, AI or disruptive algorithms at their core and led by visionary founders.

Following a ‘double dragon’ exit, the third fund takes the total capital under management by IQ to more than £175m.

IQCF III builds on the successes of IQ’s existing funds, which included the ‘double dragon’ exit in May to Oracle on the acquisition of Grapeshot in Cambridge – a deal that returned an entire fund twice over – enabling the first fund, IQCF1, to deliver a healthy 3.5x net return to its LPs.
  
IQ Capital’s second fund has invested in 22 deep-tech startups over the last four years, leading investments into deeptech companies such as Privitar in London and Cambridge duo Speechmatics and Fluidic Analytics. 

Deeply embedded within Cambridge’s thriving technology ecosystem, IQ Capital celebrated its 10th anniversary last year and will continue investing in founders of deeptech companies looking to launch or to scale their businesses. 

The firm’s partners – Max Bautin, Ed Stacey and Kerry Baldwin – have worked together for over 12 years and achieved numerous strong exits to technology business giants including Google, Apple, Oracle and Huawei and several high profile IPOs, including Autonomy.

Investors in the first close of IQCFIII include family offices, wealth managers, technology entrepreneurs and several CEOs that were previously backed by IQ Capital, alongside equity investment from British Business Investments, the commercial arm of the British Business Bank (the largest UK-based LP investing in UK Venture Capital).

Max Bautin, partner at IQ Capital, said: “When we launched our first fund over 10 years ago, we had the ambition to become the pre-eminent fund for deeptech in the UK. 

“Over the last few years, this sector has grown tremendously and produced a number of world-leading companies. We are seeing brilliant entrepreneurs bringing ever more experience and ambition to scale up their deeptech companies, so our latest fund will see even bigger successes.”  

IQCF III is a 10-year fund with a five-year investment period with ability to invest up to £10m per portfolio company in order to scale an original tech innovation into global commercial success.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Max Bautin

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