Investec-backed FinTech investor Outward Venture Capital has struck a first closed for its debut fund on about half its £75m target.
Founding investors Investec and NIBC were joined by other unnamed investors from the UK and abroad, the firm said.
The fund will be open to new backers for a 12-month window, as the firm looks to bring in more institutional and private limited partners.
Outward, which was previously known as INVC, has been operating for the past 18 months, making early investments in businesses including Monese, Curve and Bud.
The firm targets UK-headquartered FinTech category leaders, investing at Series A to late-stage.
A central core of the fund’s strategy is reserving a substantial portion of its capital for follow-on investments, as it did for its recent participation in Monese’s $60m Series B in September, Bud’s $20m Series A in February and Curve’s $55m Series B last month.
The firm said it is seeing a 4x average multiple of first money invested so far.
Outward co-head Kevin Chong said, “London’s fintech ecosystem is leading the world and we have a deep pipeline of attractive opportunities.
“A number of investments are under negotiation and we will be announcing new portfolio companies over the summer.”
Nils Schaffner, NIBC’s head of FinTech UK, added, “We are convinced that tech and fintech are poised to deliver the next generation of global category leaders.
“This unique initiative fits with NIBC’s entrepreneurial spirit and is a perfect opportunity to leverage NIBC’s platform across Northwest Europe and its existing fintech relationships including with OakNorth, Ebury, and iwoca as well as leading German fintech company builder Finleap.
“We are very excited to work closely with the Outward VC team and support its portfolio of leading fintech companies.”
