SPARK's strategy is to make investments in early stage European (mainly UK) TMT and healthcare businesses led by visionary entrepreneurs with disruptive ideas. The objective being the delivery of significant capital growth over the medium to longer term.
The SPARK team will invest in companies at various stages of their financing rounds, ranging from early stage through to development and business expansion funding.
Within the Technology, media and telecom (TMT) sectors SPARK is looking to exploit a number of key technology trends:
- Network infrastructure (mobile, internet, broadcasting)
- Enterprise software (business intelligence, compliance, security and storage)
- Mobile commerce and applications
- Internet commerce and applications
- Digital publishing (information publishing, content creation and advertising)
- Clean technology
For healthcare and life sciences SPARK is looking for opportunities in:
- Disease management, and wellness
- Medical devices, medical technology and instrumentation
- Telemedicine and e-Health
- Diagnostics and point-of-care
- Biological therapies
- IT in Healthcare
- Specialty pharmaceuticals
SPARK Ventures fulfils the following roles:
- Provides exciting deal flow from its own business network established over 12 years in the early stage venture capital business.
- Researches sectors to seek out the best opportunities.
- Networks with numerous entrepreneurs and proven management teams.
- Conducts selection process of management team and business model.
- Decides on capital allocation and other resources.
- Assembles Boards of directors.
- Hands on management of operations and further selection other senior personnel.
- Strong influence on strategic direction by presence on the board.
- Identifying opportunities/partners for business expansion or cooperation potential.
- Advisory work on developing high growth from early stage, expansion, sector strategy and final exit to a strategic buyer or to the stock exchange.
Our key criteria for investing are as follows:
- Strong management teams
- Identifiable and addressable markets with strong growth potential
- Market ready technology
- Demonstrable route to profitability
- Clear exit strategy
Size of investment
We take significant minority stakes, investing between £0.5m and £2.0m in the first round, and in subsequent funding rounds for companies successfully executing their business plans.
Guidelines for submitting a proposal:
Content and format
Proposals should ideally be presented as a brief business plan or presentation (30 pages or less). Please be explicit about the following:
Products and customers
- Outline of the company's products and services
- Who are you selling to? What need are you addressing?
- How is this need currently fulfilled and why is your solution better?
- What is the sales process and length of the sales cycle?
Market opportunity
- What is the market opportunity and size of the market?
- Who are the key competitors?
- What are your competitive advantages?
- What barriers to entry are there?
Management and operations
- Background of the management team
- Outline of the current operations and those required to execute the business plan
Business model
- What does it cost to deploy and maintain your products and services?
- What will you be able to charge for your products?
- When and with how many customers will the company become profitable?
- How much investment is required? Where will it be invested?
Confidentiality
We are happy to sign non-disclosure agreements
click here for BVCA template