Sadiq Khan-backed investment fund for tech scale-ups hits £5m

A Sadiq Khan-backed investment fund for tech scale-ups has provided more than £5.3m to over 32 London businesses since the EU referendum.

The London Co-investment Fund (LCIF), which seeks to support and invest in early-stage tech, science and digital start-ups in the UK’s capital, has so far invested £14m into 88 tech companies – as well as attracting almost £98m in external investment.

The news comes just one day after it was revealed that London remains Europe’s number one city for investment in tech start-ups, with VCs investing a total of £1.1bn in the last six months.

In contrast, second-best Berlin received just £775m in the same period.

Rolled out in December 2014 by then mayor Boris Johnson, the LCIF was established by Funding London (FL) and Capital Enterprise (CE) with an initial investment of £25m from the mayor of London’s Growing Places Fund.

Partners in the scheme include Crowdcube/Braveheart Consortium, Wellington Partners, London Business Angels, Angel Lab, PLAYFAIR Capital and Firestartr.co.

Originally pledging to invest in over 150 new businesses from 2014 to 2017, partners are required to pledge at least £1 for every £1 invested by the LCIF, though in reality, partners normally invest more.

Companies to recently receive investment include Benivo, BridgeU, VChain and Cognism – while previous recipients include the likes of Live Better With, Hubble and Truly Experiences.

Last November, and following the announcement that LCIF recipients had received £2.5m since Brexit, Khan also announced the establishment of a business advisory board to help strengthen the city’s economy during the EU negotiations – which many believe will cause both political and economic uncertainty.

16 entrepreneurs were selected to sit on the board in an attempt to highlight the importance of London’s tech sector, and included Debbie Wosskow of Love Home Swap, Sarah Wood of Unruly, Nicola Mendelsohn of Facebook and Omid Ashtari of City Mapper.

Maggie Rodriguez-Piza, CEO of Funding London and co-founder of LCIF, said:

“The ultimate objective of LCIF is to empower London’s start-ups to grow into tech giants and we will continue to support them with the same vigour.”

Rajesh Agrawal, deputy mayor for business, said:

“Since LCIF was launched in 2015, it has invested £14m into 88 tech companies, which has attracted almost £98m in external funding from its co-investment partners.

“These investments in LCIF have created more than 600 new jobs and safeguarded a further 250. The Fund aims to invest in at least 20 high-tech companies before the end of 2017.”