VCs and institutional investors

Institutional investors are those which invest funds on behalf of others, and include Venture Capital (VC) firms, corporate venturers, and others. Included here are organisations which have invested in Scottish companies (either currently or in the past), and others which have not yet made an investment in Scotland but have indicated an intent to do so, eg by partnering with the Scottish Investment Bank.

Most VCs and corporate venturers have few or no geographical restrictions on where they invest. We have included where possible examples of investees in Scotland, but anyone approaching one of these firms should look at their current portfolio and be aware of the standard of competition for funding.

VC firms are set up in order to attract funds from partners such as pension funds and insurance companies, by offering a different asset class (high growth privately owned companies) and their own expertise in investment. While VC firms are investing to make a profit for their own funders, corporate venturers are usually looking for companies which have technology or services which could complement or contribute to their own core business activities.

Many VCs do not invest at the start-up stage of a business, and expect companies to have established at least an initial level of revenue before they will invest – we have indicated those known to consider companies at the pre-revenue stage.