Amadeus Capital, a Cambridge-based tech investor, has announced the first closing of its fourth early stage fund at £33.2m ($54m).
The fund will be used to invest in a number of high-growth ICT-related sectors and technologies, such as big data analytics, cloud computing, cyber security, the internet of things, medtech, and digital healthcare.
The fund is an enterprise capital fund (ECF) – Amadeus’ second such fund – and is supported by the British Business Bank, a UK government project with £1.25bn to be made available to British small-to-medium enterprise firms.
Amadeus will be targeting UK start-ups funds as well as spin-outs, confirmed by a spokesperson for the firm who told Global University Venturing that “universities will certainly be one source of investment opportunities” for its early stage fund.
Although the firm is yet to make any investments in the local Cambridge cluster, Amadeus has been involved with supporting university spin-outs in the past. Most notably of these is Bristol spin-out XMOS, a manufacturer of fabless semi-conductors. Amadeus first co-led an investment round in the firm in 2006 for £1.2m before continuing to back its subsequent rounds, and retains a position in the firm.
Alex van Someren, managing partner of Amadeus’ Early Stage funds, said: “Demand for investment for potentially disruptive technology start-ups is increasing at a time when early stage capital is very scarce. This presents a real opportunity for early stage funds such as ours. The Amadeus team has been building and backing technology companies for a long time; we see a wealth of potential today in certain sectors. Naturally, I am grateful to all our investors who have made it possible to invest in and support that potential.”
