Revolut backer Molten Ventures hits £175M first close of growth fund

Molten Ventures, the investor behind the popular financial technology startup Revolut, has announced the successful close of its £175m first tranche of a growth fund. The Ventures Growth Fund aims to address the scale-up gap by plugging the funding shortfall faced by successful UK and European scale-ups. Molten Ventures is targeting a total raise of £350m for the fund, with the British Business Bank contributing a significant £75m cornerstone investment.

This cornerstone investment is crucial as it paves the way for other investors to join the fund and helps it achieve its target close. The fund will focus on investing in Series B and later rounds of startups in the UK and Europe, across sectors such as space, AI, fintech, quantum, deeptech, and hardware. Ben Wilkinson, CEO of Molten Ventures, highlighted the endorsement of his strategy by the British Business Bank's involvement as a cornerstone investor, as well as the importance of bringing more long-term institutional capital into venture and Growth stages to support UK and European technology companies in scaling.

With the Ventures Growth Fund managing £2 billion across its existing funds, Molten Ventures is also reportedly in line to manage the £1bn government-backed Scale Up Fund, for which they are competing against other potential investors such as M&G Investments and Schroders.