Episode 1 announces £76M fund for Pre-Seed and Seed-stage investments

Episode 1, a London-based VC firm focusing specifically on early-stage investments, has today announced the close of its third fund at £76 million.

The latest financial vehicle for Episode 1 will see the firm making 10 to 15 pre-seed and seed-stage investments per year in mainly UK-based startups, although Episode 1 says that there is room for US and Continental Europe-based startups to appear on its radar.

Ticket sizes are expected to range from £250,000 to £3 million, with the firm focusing on AI, TechBio, open-source, software infrastructure, healthtech and marketplaces startups.

Just over a decade in existence, Episode 1 has backed 69 startups to date including Carwow, Huboo, CloudNC, Raft, Robin AI, Fatmap and Omnipresent, and reports that 73 per cent of portfolio companies from their prior fund have gone on to raise a Series A, a statistic representing a 3x higher than the average pre-seed and seed graduation rate. 

On the new fund Episode 1 GP Hector Mason shared:

“This new fund, our biggest yet, is really a testament to the work of our portfolio founders who are building some of the fastest growing companies in Europe. It’s their tenacity, creativity, and vision which has enabled our fund to go from strength to strength and made this new fund possible. 

“As a team, we never sit still. This fund gives us the ability to double down on our team and the proprietary tech that’s got us to where we are today, as well as providing more firepower to invest in the next generation of extraordinary founders.”

Alongside British Patient Capital and the National Security Strategic Investment Fund’s cornerstone commitment of £20 million, Episode 1 Season 3 received backing from Molten Ventures. In addition to institutional investors, according to Episode 1, over one-third of the new fund’s LPs are former or current founders, including 21 founders previously backed by the firm. 

Additional LPs include Alex Chesterman (founder of Zoopla and Cazoo), Aidan Corbett (founder of Wayflyer), Aron Gelbard (founder of Bloom & Wild), and Alex MacDonald (founder of Velocity Black and Sequel). 

Lead image: The Episode 1 team.