Eka closes $107M Fund II to becomes the UK’s largest early-stage impact VC

Eka has announced the final close of its second fund at $107 million (£80 million), marking a significant milestone in the firm’s journey.

With this raise, the firm becomes the UK’s largest early-stage impact venture capital firm investing across health, wellbeing, and sustainability.

In a blog post, the firm says the announcement is also an opportunity to thank its supporters and outline the thinking behind its next phase.

Rewriting the impact–returns equation

Eka was founded in 2018. The prevailing view back then was that impact and returns were in tension. Eka’s thesis has consistently challenged that assumption, arguing instead that the most compelling commercial opportunities of the coming decade will emerge from companies reshaping the systems society depends on — including how people eat, stay well, move, consume, and power their homes.

Three structural shifts underpin Eka’s investment strategy:

The first is the transition from reactive to preventative healthcare. The UK spent 10.9 per cent of GDP on health in 2023, with total healthcare expenditure reaching approximately £317 billion in 2024. However, just 5.2 per cent of government healthcare spending is allocated to prevention.

In effect, for every £1 spent treating illness, only around 5p is spent on preventing it.

Eka sees significant opportunity in companies focused on early detection, behaviour change, improved access, and digitally delivered care.

The second shift is the decarbonisation of consumer-driven emissions.

While production-side emissions have declined, consumer activity now represents the largest share of UK emissions, accounting for 26.0 per cent of the 2024 total, with transport contributing a further 16.1 per cent. This reframes climate action as increasingly dependent on consumer behaviour — from food and travel to home energy and purchasing decisions — extending into supply chains and broader infrastructure.

The third shift is expanding access to the social determinants of health. Eka highlights the role of technology in widening access to essential products and services such as insurance and housing for underserved populations. In these areas, commercial and social returns can align closely, with each new customer representing both growth and measurable impact.

Themes under this pillar include legal access, education, community, safety, and identity.

Together, these three areas intersect with some of the world’s largest consumer markets, where Eka sees founders building with a strong sense of purpose and long-term ambition.

The learnings from Fund I

Eka reports that Fund I ranks in the top 5 per cent for both DPI and TVPI within its 2021 vintage, bringing the firm’s total assets under management to $200 million following the second fund close. This reflects a consistent investment approach: leading or co-leading 90 per cent of deals, with an average cheque size of $2 million, and focusing on pre-seed and seed-stage companies.

The Fund I portfolio includes Runna (seed round, later acquired by Strava), Urban Jungle, Axle, Hived, Foresight Data Machines, Jude, and Flok Health.

Eka has also emphasised its sourcing strategy. Since 2021, 47 per cent of Fund I investments have originated from its in-house, AI-driven sourcing platform, designed to identify founders operating outside traditional venture networks.

According to the firm, these companies typically share a focus on systemic challenges and category-defining potential.

Increased support to founders at scale

With Fund II, Eka plans to invest in up to 30 UK-based pre-seed and seed-stage companies. The firm will maintain an average initial investment of approximately $2 million, alongside significant reserves for follow-on funding, and will continue to lead or co-lead the majority of its deals.

The core investment focus remains unchanged — spanning health, essential products and services, and sustainable consumption — but the firm notes that the scale of support it can provide to founders will increase.

Eka's limited partners include the British Business Bank, Better Society Capital, Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation, The Health Foundation, WRAP, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, John Ellerman Foundation, and Vivensa Foundation, among others. The firm credits their shared conviction that commercial and societal returns can compound together as central to the growth of impact investing at scale in the UK.