The MMC London Fund five years on: over £100m funding for early-stage businesses

We reported on the progress of the MMC London Fund. Five years on from its launch, Fund has secured more than £100m of investment into a portfolio of 19 fast growing London businesses.

The MMC London Fund focuses on early-stage London-based businesses that can generate significant levels of economic growth and create jobs in the capital. The £14m technology co-investment fund – of which £9m was provided by the Mayor of London – was designed to be matched by private investors ensuring at least £28m would be channelled into high-growth SMEs in London.

To date, the Fund has directly invested £12.5m and the portfolio has attracted co-investment of more than £100m from private investors including; Funding London, Accel, Index, Balderton, Unilever, Mastercard and Mitsui, beating its target by 700%.

The companies in the portfolio have been held for an average of three and a half years, and in that time, have achieved revenue growth of almost 5x. Portfolio companies have also created more than 700 jobs across the capital.

“The MMC London Fund is a fantastic example of early-stage investment in the capital. With more than £100 million invested, together with our partners, this shows our city continues to support growing businesses and entrepreneurs and is further evidence that London is open to innovation and investment.” Rajesh Agrawal, Deputy Mayor for Business

Companies in the MMC London Fund portfolio include;

Appear Here - an online marketplace connecting landlords’ vacant spaces with retailers and brands looking for short-term commercial space
Gousto – a home delivery service, providing ingredients in precise proportions, with recipes to cook delicious meals at home
Mastered – Education provider offering 10-month training accelerators to the fashion and creative industries
Masabi – Providing mobile ticketing solutions for mass transit and allowing users to buy tickets anywhere at any time
Sky-Futures – Enabling enterprise customers to make drone-based infrastructure and industrial inspections

In addition, there have been two successful exits from the MMC London Fund: Love Home Swap and Wool and the Gang. Both female-led businesses, they were sold to Wyndham Worldwide and BlueGem Capital Partners respectively. Returns from the Fund will be cycled back into funding for future companies, creating a growing pool of capital for London to support its thriving entrepreneurial community.

“Simon Menashy, Partner at MMC Ventures, said, Five years ago, we were challenged by the Mayor of London to create a new kind of co-investment fund to back London’s most promising early-stage technology companies. So it’s a real pleasure to report on a successful and thriving portfolio, attracting more than £100m of capital and creating hundreds of high-quality jobs in the capital. This great city produces world-leading talent – from engineering and data science to creative and retail – and it’s fantastic to be partnering with the Mayor to help ambitious entrepreneurs grow global companies from London.”