Samuel Knight

New funding opportunity for mental health projects. Wellcome Trust has launched a new funding award offering teams up to $10.6M. They're looking for projects that will "test the real-world effectiveness and assess implementation strategies of scalable transformative early interventions for anxiety, depression and psychosis in young people." Some details... - The funding is split over two phases. - Phase 1, The Foundation Phase, offers up to $265K over 12 months for applicants to build their team and develop their research proposal for Phase 2 - Phase 2, The Impact Phase. Teams from the Foundation Phase can then apply for the Impact Phase starting in 2027. This will provide $6.6M - $10.6M over five years. - Applications for the foundation phase are now open and will close on November 11th. - There's a link in the comments to all the details. If you know of someone who would be interested in this, feel free to share with them or tag them below.

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🚀 We launched (yet) another fundraising accelerator last week! 💰 This particular investment-ready programme supports under-represented founders in London, and is funded with the support of Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, delivered in partnership with Funding London. 📈 We covered a whole host of topics including types of investors available at different stage, how they think, building FOMO in a fundraise and what best-in-class investor documents look like. 👉 Our mission - to increase the number of funding rounds led by female or ethnic minority founders and have a material impact on the fundraising statistics over the next 12 months.

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👀 Hopefully, you've heard by now that we run free fundraising accelerators for seed founders... 👉 What makes this next programme particularly unique is that we teamed up with 4 other organisations - GC Angels, Stronger Stories, Foundervine and Firstport to deliver a brand new initiative called Venture Forward. It combines our decade of experience of running programmes with partners from across the UK to deliver a new initiative, fully funded by Innovate UK, to support a whopping 160 companies in the next 15 months. 🇬🇧 We will deliver these workshops to companies all over the UK, including London, Birminghman, Manchester, & Edinburgh. 🚀 We will also be focusing on under-represented founders (more details in the application form). The programme will consist of fundraising workshops, 1-on-1 mentoring, regional meet-ups, national investor days, centralised resources and an active alumni community. ✅ Applications are now open via ventureforward.co.uk

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Alternative Capital Pathways: Key Lessons from Our Breakthrough Session with Ben Maitland-Lewis Huge thank you to Ben for an incredibly candid and expert-driven session on securing capital beyond the traditional Angel/VC route last Friday. The core message is clear: Alternative Capital is another tool in the box, and a smart founder knows when to use it. Here are the top lessons Ben shared with our cohort: 1. Traction Cures All In the current market, "sales cures all." The trend is demanding strong traction and measurable revenue over pure potential. Focus on building and proving your business model first. 2. Equity is the Most Expensive Asset Prioritize non-dilutive financing (like Revenue-Based Financing and bank debt) to "extend runway" without selling off your most valuable asset. 3. The Math of Dilution A valuable framework for decision-making: "It's more important to own 10%... of a $100 million company... than it is to own 80% of, like, a $5 million company." Be clear on when dilution is acceptable for achieving massive scale. 4. Don't Overlook Reg CF (Regulation Crowdfunding) Reg CF is a misunderstood vehicle that allows you to raise capital from both accredited and unaccredited investors, opening up a "whole new market of potential investors." It's a powerful tool for companies with a baked-in audience or community-led growth. 5. Reduce Risk with "Testing the Waters" Platforms like Wefunder offer a "testing the waters" method. Founders can gauge market appetite and momentum before fully committing to a major public raise, significantly reducing risk and ensuring optimal timing for the campaign launch. Navigating the founder-banking landscape requires situational awareness, whether it's distinguishing between innovation banks (SVB) and counterpart traditional banks (First Citizens Bank), or leveraging community for capital. #startup #venturecapital #fundraising #founder #entrepreneur #regCF #alternativefinancing #breakthroughsession

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We've officially filmed 30 episodes of The Learning Corner by Precursor Ventures! We had a hard time choosing just three articles to discuss this week, but Mia and I picked a few that we thought were particularly interesting: 💡 We opened with a great piece by Alex Konrad exploring talent retention challenges at “almost-exited” startups like Figma and Plaid. He discussed some of the retention challenges that can occur when companies stay private for longer and how each company's fortunes have evolved since its last fundraising round. 💡 One of the godfathers of seed investing, Josh Kopelman, reminds us that in venture, it’s not just about generating a multiple on invested capital; the timeframe and timing of those returns have a significant impact on the internal rate of return (IRR). As often happens with a great post, the comments included a rich discussion on IRR, LP expectations, and the growing push for faster liquidity. 💡 We unpacked an interesting presentation from Apollo Global Management, Inc.’s Chief Economist on how new tariffs could ripple through the economy, from inventory hoarding and falling consumer sentiment to early signs of stagflation. It's too early to tell how this will all play out, but I thought the presentation framed the challenges in a very digestible way and it's worth a read if you haven't seen it. Thanks to all of you who have liked and subscribed to the podcast, we really appreciate your support! 🎧 Listen here: Apple: https://lnkd.in/eJ9K_yPG Spotify: https://lnkd.in/ezAcnmRJ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eg2YEQqK Website: https://lnkd.in/euifiGrC Substack: https://lnkd.in/egNmAzeP IG: @learningcornerbyprecursor

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Proud to launch H&F Green Innovators — a brand new programme from Startup Discovery School and Hammersmith & Fulham Council that puts local solutions at the heart of climate action. We often talk about climate change at the global level, but some of the most powerful, practical innovations come from the communities that live the reality of the transition every day. This programme is about backing those changemakers — community groups, local entrepreneurs, residents, and mission-driven organisations with bold green ideas rooted in place. 🏆 Up to £3,000 in funding 🤝 Hands-on support and coaching 🌱 A chance to build, test and pitch your solution If you're working on something that could make H&F more sustainable, more resilient, and more inclusive, we want to hear from you. 👉 https://lnkd.in/e_r8s8zP Let’s build the future from the ground up. Upstream London Undaunted: Tackling climate change with innovation #PlaceBasedInnovation #JustTransition #GreenInnovation #NetZero #CommunityPower

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The end of a traditional private equity buy-and-build era Over the past few month(s), I’ve found myself involved in conversations about the perceived convergence of the VC and PE worlds. Below, I’ve summarised some of the thinking that crystallised from those discussions with incredibly smart people I’m humbled to be surrounded by. Chapter 1 out of 3. The Shift of Paradigm 🔄 Private equity (PE) has grown to an asset class roughly 20 times the size of venture capital (VC) in terms of AUM. With PE totaling around $10 trillion compared to VC’s $0.5 trillion, the dynamics are significantly different. VCs typically underwrite 0–100x risk: expecting most portfolio companies to fail or return little, while a small number may return 10–100x, driving overall fund returns. In simple terms, out of 20 companies, 19 may fail while 1 delivers outsized returns. This leads to peak fund performance of 2–3x net returns. PEs, in contrast, aim for 2–3x gross MOIC per investment (with some excellent deals targeting 3-5x), which translates into similar 2–3x net returns at the fund level. Long story short, 25-30% IRR on the fund level would make most of the investors quite happy. Sustained net IRRs in that range are rare over long horizons. Many PE funds deliver ~15–20% net IRR; top-performing VC/PE funds may push into the mid-20s+. 🔝 💰 The traditional PE playbook, particularly buy-and-build strategies, has been the most reliable way to deliver those returns. Today, around $4 trillion—eight times VC’s total AUM—flows into these buy-and-build strategies. It is known that buy-and-build strategies on average yield a better MOIC (~2-2.5x with no add-ons VS 3.5-4x for serially acquisitive platforms), and that growing proportion of PE investments underwrite a buy-and-build spree. But with the rise of AI, the question emerges: does this dynamic stay the same, or is it about to change? #pe #vc #ai

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