Draper Esprit enters into strategic partnership with Earlybird

Draper has taken a "significant" stake in Earlybird's new Digital West Early Stage fund VI and will invest an initial €18m, with a further investment of around €17m a year until 2022.

Earlybird is a venture capital partnership with a team of 23 investment professionals.

Draper Esprit's co-founder and chief executive officer Simon Cook said: "We have worked with the Earlybird partners as co‐investors and industry members for many years and have huge respect for the leading VC position they have built in Germany and across continental Europe.

"With our resources combined as genuine partners we will be able to help European entrepreneurs scale their global ambitions even higher. Together with our recent placing to raise £115m, and strong financial performance reported in our recently announced results, this strategic partnership builds on the significant momentum we are achieving."

Numis said the geographic reach, strong in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Turkey, is highly complementary to Draper Esprit's strength in UK, Ireland, the Nordics and France.

"This creates one of the most active venture capital partnerships in Europe, with the equivalent of a $1.3bn+ pool of capital. We expect some immediate small accretion from exposure gained to existing investments in the fund."

At 0905 BST, the shares were up 2.7% to 513.30p.