Molten Ventures eyes selling more Revolut shares after Nvidia investment
A major shareholder in Revolut is planning to further sell down its stake as the company looks to rebalance its investment portfolio.
London-listed venture capital firm Molten Ventures recently sold shares in Revolut worth £26.3m but continues to hold a stake in the fintech darling worth £152m, the largest single shareholding in its more than £1bn portfolio.
Yesterday, Revolut confirmed its valuation had risen to $75bn after a secondary share sale saw top investors pile into the company, including Nvidia’s venture capital arm.
But Molten chief executive Ben Wilkinson said the firm did not want to wait until an eventual IPO to cash in on the value of its remaining stake.
Expectation Revolut will pass $100bn
Wilkinson told City PM: “The people investing at $75bn will be looking for at least a 2x return…so the expectation that they’re underwriting is that this can go beyond $100bn.
“But for us, given it’s a large portion of our portfolio we’re just going to keep taking a little bit of liquidity as it becomes available.
“We might ride some through the IPO but we don’t want to run a £200m position…that would be the wrong balance for the portfolio.
“It’s a mixture for us of portfolio management but also recognising that there’s still upside in the asset.”
It comes as Molten reported a near-£100m rise in the value of its portfolio to £1.4bn by the end of September, with value uplifts for some of its biggest investments including French blockchain firm Ledger, cloud-based phone business Aircall and satellite company ICEYE. But this was partially offset by a more-than £10m fall in the value of its stake in digital coaching platform coachhub.
The firm said it saw IPO opportunities for a number of businesses within its portfolio, after a partial recovery in the London IPO market in the fourth quarter of the year.
“Equally, we’re working on a pipeline of realisation opportunities through strategic M&A and potential IPO routes, building on the strong exit momentum we delivered,” Molten said.
“These exit pathways, whether through trade sales, strategic acquisitions, or public listings, represent the natural progression for our most mature holdings and we expect to see continued activity through the cycle.”
Molten Ventures shares rose 5.1 per cent to 441p. The stock is up by more than a third since the start of the year.