VC investment in Bristol remains robust despite volatile start to the year says KPMG

By Nicky Godding

24 May 2022

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Fast-growth businesses in Bristol secured £38 million in venture capital (VC) investment in the first three months of this year, despite the uncertain geopolitical and macroeconomic environment.

The figures from KPMG’s Global Venture Pulse Survey found that year-on-year deal volume remained the same with 15 deals completed during the first quarter, but the aggregate value fell from £75.8 million to £38 million.

Among the significant investments were Rovco, a provider of hydrographic subsea services to serve the marine renewable and energy sectors, and Cloud8, a developer of cloud-based employee benefits software.

Kay Drury, Transaction Services Partner at KPMG in Bristol, said: “Despite uncertainty, fast growth businesses in Bristol still attract significant values of venture capital investment, indicating the resilience and adaptability of firms in our city. It’s great to see Rovco, a UK finalist in our 2020 Tech Innovator competition, successfully raising investment this quarter.”

“Looking ahead, our team on the ground have a strong pipeline of activity as private funds look for ambitious fast-growing businesses to invest in. Fintech, B2B-focused services and healthtech remain top areas for investment. We’re also seeing a rise in investments in companies bringing solutions to support the drive towards net zero, such as those making developments within renewable energy, and we expect these sectors will continue to play a big role in propelling growth in our region. I am sure we will see these themes being represented in the line-up for the South West regional heat of this year’s Tech Innovator competition.”

Nationally, UK scaleups saw 745 deals completed in the first quarter of 2022, raising over £6.9 billion, including the $1 billion megadeal for Checkout.com, a cloud-based payments platform.

The report found that a major convergence of factors has helped to continue to energise the UK’s VC market, including a rise in corporate-backed VC, private equity funds looking for better returns, and increasing fundraising focused on earlier stage companies in order to achieve higher returns.

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.