WE INVEST AT THE EARLIEST STAGES INTO INNOVATIVE TEAMS ACROSS THE UK...

Due to our Student VC network we are uniquely placed to invest into early stage, growth focused businesses across the UK that have a strong emphasis on scientific, creative digital and technology enabled innovation. Although we will consider most technology business, we believe that truly scalable business models display one or more of these core traits:

Especially when you are focused on using this to address global problems

With a focus on providing your customers with an economic benefit

With a focus on investing into product rather than sales & marketing

Although this may be many years away, we look for a teams with the focus, drive and want to reach this lofty goal.

BUT ABOVE ALL THIS WE LOOK FOR, DRIVEN, EQUITY INCENTIVISED TEAMS

SOUND LIKE WE'RE A MATCH?

LET'S START THAT JOURNEY

WHO WE ARE

Campus Capital was founded with the vision of providing a credible, early stage investment source to each city region around the UK. We achieve this though our Student VC programme which enables the best and brightest, PhD's, MBA's and Undergraduates to make real investment decisions. They will be the people you meet and the ones who will evaluate your opportunity and decide if its put forward to our investment committee.

ITS FAIR TO SAY WE EXIST TO BE DIFFERENT

Raising investment can be frustrating and time consuming, especially if the round isn't progressing and you don’t know why. We tell founders the amount of funds we have left to place, how many investments we’ve made so far this year, and how we come to our investment decisions.

The worst investment decisions are made because investors see all their peers ‘going in’ on a round and suddenly have the ‘fear of missing out’. We will make all of our investment decisions based on our own thesis, research and knowledge and not whether there are other investors on board or not.

Starting up is hard. Scaling up is harder. Our partners and board members have been through this process themselves and vicariously through the startups they have mentored. We don’t pretend to know everything, but we do have knowledge and experience which will help you avoid the startup version of a 5-car pileup.

A good way to stomp all over the morale of a startup’s founder is to give them a never-ending MAYBE. We believe the 2nd best answer after 'Yes' is 'No, because'. This not only saves time, but also provides insight to build on. Our decisions are always careful and considered, but prompt and to the point.

The world of Venture Capital and high growth startups is certainly in vogue right now, but is often misunderstood and distorted by Silicon Valley-tinted glasses. Our aim is to show how UK venture capital really works through our crystal-clear processes and experiential learning programme.

No founder should accept 'dumb money'. An investment from us means we’ll do everything we can to help you to the next stage. Whether that’s with our own industry experience and expertise. Or through opening up our little black book and connecting you to our university knowledge networks.

Hidden fees suck, especially when you only find out about them at the end of the process. We will never charge companies a ‘management’ or ‘close’ fee beyond our fixed legal costs. - We won’t even charge expenses when we take part in your board meetings and have been known to pay for our own coffee.

It’s insane to raise £150k just to pay out £15k in legal fees. Our standard terms and industry partnerships mean we can keep legal costs low, and get deals closed quickly. This increases your runway and gets you back to focusing on building your company as soon as possible.

A set of bad terms can be detrimental to a founder, investor and even the company as a whole. Because of this we've had multiple lawyers collaboratively create a set of documents which are founder friendly, but provide us with the necessary protections.

OUR INVESTMENT TRACKS

  • IDEA STAGE
  • £ 0
    For the moment...
    • Unfortunately it doesn’t matter how amazingly groundbreaking your idea is, we are unable to invest any money at this stage.
    • To speed up your idea validation and to get yourself investor ready, we recommend reading our insights and maybe joining our VC community.
  • FIRST MONEY
  • £ 50-100k
    On its own, with fixed terms
    • If you have the makings of an awesome team (even on paper), have mock-ups or sketches of how your product will look like / work and have basic idea validation this track is for you.
    • We like to invest at the earliest stage, filling out the whole round so that we can progress quickly with fixed founder friendly terms.
  • EARLY STAGE
  • £ 200k
    On its own or as part of a bigger round
    • Have a strong founding team with a few more potential hires lined up? A working MVP… even if it’s a little buggy? Looking for an investor to either lead or partake in a round up to £1m?
    • Whether you’re just starting your fundraising journey or are about “heard all the sheep together” we would love to receive your pitch.

OUR LATEST INSIGHTS

Our blog covers a whole range of topics, from VC insights and fundraising tips though to founder stories and the occasional guest post.