Draper Esprit’s bet on tech pays off as portfolio value jumps 18 per cent
UK venture capital firm Draper Esprit has invested £90m in the year ended 31 March, increasing its gross portfolio value to £703m.
The firm has continued to make investments in key tech sectors already benefiting from historic trends, and which have been accelerated by the coronavirus crisis.
The figures
Draper Esprit’s gross portfolio value increased 18 per cent to £703m in the year ended 31 March. The value of the firm’s core portfolio companies increased from £415m to £471m, as at 31 March.
A total of $1.8bn (£1.64bn) was raised by the core portfolio across the year, up from $1.6bn in the same period last year.
Draper Esprit has invested in nine new companies and 19 existing portfolio companies, while committing to four new seed funds. This brings the total seed fund of funds portfolio to 20 with total commitments of £39m.
The group has invested £90m during the year, with a further £38m invested by EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme) or VCT (Venture Capital Trusts).
Profit after tax slumped from £111m in 2019 to £40m in the year to 31 March 2020.
Why it’s interesting
The firm has continued to invest in consumer technology, enterprise technology, digital health and wellness, and hardware and deeptech.
They have historically performed well, with some benefiting further from the pandemic. Companies focused on secure cloud, automation, and online financial services are among those trading well.
The venture capital firm i also investing in its own business to build the infrastructure that will “enable us to broaden our appeal to a wider pool of investors who would not usually have access to private high growth technology companies.”
Last month the firm said the substantial majority of its portfolio was “well positioned” to benefit from coronavirus, as cloud and automation tech is adopted.
What Draper Esprit said
Chief executive Martin Davis said:
Our strong performance for the period reflects that our portfolio of investments includes some of the most exciting private technology companies in Europe and, while the COVID19 pandemic has clearly impacted companies globally, we firmly believe in the role that technology will play in helping to support the wider recovery.
Our portfolio companies are likely to be at the vanguard of this recovery given the likely acceleration of trends such as cloud infrastructure, online gaming and entertainment, digital healthcare, remote financial services and automation as a result of the changes made by countries, corporations and individuals.