In Europe there are very few venture capital funds set up by previous founders, or “operators” as the industry often likes to call them. Yes, Atomico has Nicklas Zennstrom. Firstment Capital has Brent Hoberman. More recently, Plural was created by Taavet Hinrikus (ex-Sage), Sten Tamkivi (ex-Teleport) and Ian Hogarth (ex-Songkick). But the list of “operator-turned-venture capital” quickly ran out across the European tech scene.
But now this story has moved to Bristol, England.
Harry DeStecroix co-founded biotech startup Ziylo while studying for his PhD at the University of Bristol. Ziylo, a spin-out of the university, has developed a synthetic molecule that binds to blood glucose.
But to do this, he decided he wanted to be surrounded by like-minded SciTech companies. So, in 2017, he launched the Unit DX incubator, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, to commercialize companies like his.
Three years later, in 2020, Destecroix exited Ziylo to Danish company Novo Nordisk — which realized it could use the Ziylo molecule to unlock “smart” insulin — in a deal. estimated Its value is more than $800 million.
DeStecroix used his exit to replicate the process of creating deep-tech, science-based startups, once again, in Bristol. He launched the ‘Science Creates’ technology ecosystem consisting of UnitX and Unit DY labs, a £15 million investment fund with the university and a network of strategic partners.
Fast forward to today, and Destecroix has taken this journey even further with its launch SCVC, which now aims to be a $100 million fund, claims to have reached its first close (for an undisclosed amount). The Bristol-based company will invest in deep technology related to health and climate.
“It’s been a couple of years and I feel like the more I invest, the more I’m addicted to it,” DeStecroix told me over the phone. “It’s been an amazing journey. I also feel like there aren’t enough founders in the UK who end up venturing out. So we want to build And we want to build a truly founder-led venture fund.
SCVC’s first seed fund of $17 million (before transitioning to full venture capital) backed 12 companies ranging from therapeutics, diagnostics, quantum sensors and semiconductors.
Recent investments include Delta g (quantum gravity sensors), Isomb (biotechnology), and Scarlet Therapeutics (red blood cell-based therapeutics).
The new fund will invest in the pre-seed and seed stage with initial check sizes ranging from $500,000 up to $3 million. It will also provide additional Series A funding of up to $7 million.
The fund’s first investment is VyperCore, a RISC-V startup developing modular processors.
Destecroix is joined by SCVC co-founder John Craton, an investor in Angle and former co-founder of Zynstra, which was acquired by NCR.
John Williams, Bristol-based founder and co-funder of Kudan (artificial perception technologies) has joined as the company’s first venture partner.
“What we do is we specialize in the 1% of start-ups that come out of science, which to the outside world sounds crazy,” DeStecroix explained. “What do you mean you need to raise millions of pounds? What do you mean you don’t even know what your product looks like? This is the kind of company Startups are crazy for most people who run traditional businesses, so of course you need to rally around them with a very specific, unique set of skill sets.
Ahead of the recent news that the UK will rejoin the EU’s Horizon science funding programme, DeStecroix criticized Brexit.
“I definitely think it didn’t help,” he said. “It has made it difficult to fund a fund in terms of European investors… I feel like we need to be part of this larger trading bloc to come together to go after some of these very big issues like energy and artificial intelligence.”
However, he supported the UK’s approach to AI: “I think the EU is over-regulating it and I think the UK is taking a much smarter approach. I’ve heard from startups from France that are considering moving to the UK. We need to think about implementing AI for everything: government, life sciences, healthcare.
The SCVC news will be a huge boost to Bristol’s thriving tech scene which already includes companies such as Ultrahaptics, Open Bionics, Graphcore and Immersive Labs.