Draper Esprit ploughs £17m into three new tech ventures

Venture capital firm Draper Esprit announced on Tuesday that funds it managed have recently committed £17m into three new Europe-based digital technology businesses - Ieso Digital Health; insurtech company Premfina; and live entertainment word-of-mouth sales software Verve.

The AIM-traded company said that in aggregate, the companies had recently completed fundraising rounds totaling over $75m.

In the four month period to 30 September, following the £100m raise in June, Draper Esprit invested a total of £26.5m from the public limited company and a further £12m from across the group, into “new and existing” portfolio companies including Graphcore, Perkbox, Trustpilot and Pushdoctor.

“We want to help build large successful European technology companies that can compete on the global stage and all three of these recent investments have that potential,” said Draper Esprit CEO Simon Cook.

“Premfina has innovated on the traditional insurance model, having built a strong software-as-a-service revenue model with excellent growth.

“Ieso is a perfect example of the kind of company we like to invest in in the digital health space. It has a strong clinical platform and a scalable model that is delivering robust outcomes with high levels of quality control.”

Cook said Verve had already proven word-of-mouth was a “scalable and powerful” tool for live entertainment.

“We are now in a position to invest larger amounts in investee companies and retain the ability to hold and grow these companies for much longer than our non-listed competitors can.

“With larger sums available for later rounds entrepreneurs are increasingly realising that partnering with us maximises the opportunity to scale their businesses quickly.”