About This Fund
Episode 1 Fund III is the third flagship early-stage vehicle raised by Episode 1, the London-based venture capital firm specialising in pre-seed and seed investments into primarily UK-founded, B2B technology companies. Closing at £76 million ($95 million) in February 2024, the fund represents a significant step up from the firm's previous vehicles and marks Episode 1's most institutionalised raise to date, with British Patient Capital and the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) as cornerstone limited partners.
The fund deploys check sizes of between £250,000 and £3 million per initial investment, targeting 10–15 new commitments per year, principally in companies at the pre-seed or seed stage. Episode 1's sectors of focus span artificial intelligence and machine learning, software infrastructure, techbio and life sciences, open-source tooling, healthtech, and marketplace businesses. While the fund prioritises UK-based founders, it considers early-stage companies with a strong UK presence from elsewhere in Europe or the United States. Approximately 25% of investments are sourced through proprietary data-driven tools that track founder trajectories and company signals.
Since Episode 1's founding, the firm has backed over 69 portfolio companies and achieved notable exits including Fatmap (acquired by Strava), Passfort (acquired by Moody's Analytics), Feedr (acquired by Compass Group), Touch Surgery (acquired by Medtronic), and Atlas (acquired by Meta). Fund III's limited partner base includes institutional investors British Patient Capital, NSSIF, and Molten Ventures, as well as more than 21 founder-investors who were previously backed by Episode 1—a co-investment community that the firm has cultivated as a structural sourcing and value-creation advantage.