Fuel Ventures announces £100m early-stage tech fund

Early-stage tech investor Fuel Ventures has announced a £100m fund to back seed and pre-seed rounds in the UK.

The VC firm, which has backed 140 startups including Peckwater Brands, Lunio and Volt, is aiming to use the new fund to double its total UK tech investment over the next 12 months.

Fuel Ventures’ latest fund is its largest to date and will primarily deploy cash in £250,000 batches for pre-seed rounds and £4m for seed to Series A rounds.

A small percentage of the new fund will be reserved for follow-on investments into existing Fuel Ventures portfolio companies.

“We are investing in the long-term future of the UK tech landscape. Despite the pain the industry is feeling at the moment, now is not the time to hold back,” said Mark Pearson, founder and managing partner of Fuel Ventures.

“There remains exciting entrepreneurial talent and incredibly innovative tech businesses with huge potential.”

Tom Greenwood, founder and CEO of Fuel portfolio company Volt, said: “Fuel Ventures was one of the first to back and have continued to be by our side as we have grown, expanded into new regions and challenged the market with our approach to real-time payments.

“They saw the potential right from the get-go, supporting and advising us so that we have been able to get to the extraordinary stage we are today.”

Other Fuel Ventures portfolio companies include asset management software startup Fundpath and Workplace mentor platform Guider.

The London-headquartered VC was launched in 2015 by Pearson, who previously launched coupon and price comparison platform MyVoucherCodes, which was acquired for £55m in 2017 by US financial services provider Fiserv.