Cardiff-based venture capital firm Waterspring Ventures was born out of founder and managing partner Sam Huxtable’s frustration with finding finance in the Welsh capital.
Huxtable was previously an associate portfolio manager for the investment management firm Schroders before realising he wanted to work with startups, where he felt he could have a greater impact.
Following this, Huxtable worked for a Cardiff-based artificial intelligence business here he became acutely aware of the regional funding challenges facing startups and scaleups.
“Even though the startup has a fairly attractive buzzword with artificial intelligence, which raises a lot of finance, it was still very difficult to raise money from British venture capital firms,” says Huxtable, who believes the AI firm’s funding struggles stemmed from being based in Cardiff....