Tech startup ecosystem of Liverpool

Apologies, I keep adding more content as folks from Liverpool engage with me. May lose the flow of the article due to updates.

Techcelerate Coffees Liverpool 7

Just got home after running the 7th episode of Techcelerate Coffees Liverpool (TCLPL7), followed by attending a Liverpool Seed Fund event.

Among the TCLPL7 attendees:

• Akhlaq Choudhury of GGM360 – A Techcelerate Member.
• Stuart Scott-Goldstone of Aaron & Partners – Techcelerate’s Legal Partner
• Jieun Seo of Liverpool Seed Fund.
• Yuliia Ozarynska.
• Iain Bennett of The Fifth Sector.
• Paul Jenkins of J2 Aircraft Dynamics.
• David Tully of Spirit VR.

Liverpool Seed Fund (LSF) Event

As a tech company, if you run an event, you would focus on inviting those who fit your Ideal Customer Persona (ICP). I found this was not quite the case at the Liverpool Seed fund event. I believe part of the remit from the Limited Partners (LPs) is to educate the market; hence, perhaps, except for one company that attended, the rest were nowhere close to LSF’s ICP. But it was a great event for me to update my knowledge about Liverpool’s growing tech startup ecosystem.

Who did I meet at LSF Event:

• Seed fund team.
• George Wright – LCR Finance Hub Lead.
• Kirsten Munn– Fractional CFO.
• Yogesh Prasad of Biosecuredid – fundraising. Manchester Business School Alum.
• Claire Tasker of Refittr – About to launch Version 1 in Summer.
• Rakshith Chandra of Delista.

Review of Liverpool Tech Startup Ecosystem

So what’s going on in Liverpool?

Key Locations

I’ve heard of the Baltic Triangle, but I have no idea where it is or what it is. However, it is supposed to be Liverpool’s main tech startup district, hosting creative studios, tech startups, event venues, accelerators, and co-working spaces. Google Maps identifies it as below.

Baltic Creative CIC provides commercial spaces specifically designed for creative and digital businesses and tech startups. Good to see Clemens Wangerin on the Non-Executive Voluntary Board.

Knowledge Quarter Liverpool seems to include the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Liverpool Science Park and Liverpool Innovation Park are also home to tech startups.

Key Players

Thanks to immense publicity, everyone has heard of Baltic Ventures. It has become the key player funded by the local government, businesses and individuals. It was the brainchild of Carl Wong and the initial tenure was spearheaded by Claire Lewis.

Merseyside Special Investment Fund (MSIF) has been the most prominent investor in Liverpool for a long time. LCR Finance Hub, River Capital and Gateway Angels are the deployment vehicles of MSIF.

Accelerators and Incubators

At the top sits Baltic Ventures, which invests £25,000 in equity funding through Baltic Ventures Angels, an angel syndicate via an Advanced Subscription Agreement (ASA) with 20% discount. In addition, it runs launchpad, a pre-accelerator. The Baltic Ventures is backed by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority with £4.1 million investment.

Sustainable Ventures seems to be running an accelerator at the University of Liverpool focusing on ClimateTech startups.

LYVA Labs run by Lorna Green is a commercialisation vehicle supporting university spinouts backing healthtech, cleantech and deep tech ventures.

Royal Academy of Engineering Accelerator, which Techcelerate Member GGM360 headed by Akhlaq Choudhury attended.

Investor roundup

We already mentioned:

• Baltic Ventures Angels.
• Gateway Angels.
• Sustainable Ventures.
• LYVA Labs.

Other players include:

• Liverpool Seed Fund run by Rupert Wingate-Saul of AXM Ventures.
• Northern Gritstone.
• Deepbridge Capital.
• Praetura Ventures

Among the family offices are:

• Bill Currie & Sir Terry Leahy.

Active Business Angels include:

• Professor Paul Morrisey (previously of Nova)

Events and Conferences

Tech Climbers, which started in Liverpool, has expanded into Manchester and other Northern Cities.

Funding Rounds

Some of the successful fundraises based on data from Deal Lite.

• Yodel £85 million.
• Marosa £10 million
• Vtime £5.83 million.
• PEAK:AIO £5 million.
• Count £5 million.
• Evo Dental £4 million.
• GoJoe £3.6 million.
• Made With Intent £3.9 million.
• Nyxium £2.4 million.
• Deltabase £1 million.

Real money of Liverpool

Please correct if my understanding is wrong. Thank you in advance:

• Duke of Westminster (Grosvenor Estate) – Hugh Grosvenor. £10 billion. Invest in venture capital globally.
• Tom Morris (Home Bargains) – £5 to 7 billion in valuation.
• Peel Family (Whittaker Family) – John Whittaker. £2 billion.
• Simon and Bobby Arora (B&M) – £2 billion
• Moores Family (Littlewoods Fortune) – Peter Moores – £1 to £1.5 billion fortune. Mostly philanthropic capital rather than venture investment.
• Downing Family (Downing Group) – George Downing – £500 million. Mostly invests in proptech, urban development and infrastructure-related opportunities.
• Mark Radcliffe (Victoria Plumbing) – £440 million
• John Hargreaves (Matalan) – £400 million
• Frost & Beetham Development Family – Hugh Frost.
• Tom and Phil Beahon (Castore) – £350 million

Liverpool’s wealth comes from retail and property. Typical money flow:

• Property and legacy wealth >> Regional family fortunes >> Public funding partnerships >> Regional venture funds >> Accelerators >> Startups.

What if the retail and property wealth could be used to plug any gaps in the tech startup ecosystem?

Why is Liverpool lagging behind Manchester?

It seems Liverpool historically produced retail entrepreneurs rather than tech founders. Most large fortunes are family-owned private businesses, not venture-backed exits. As a result, it seems venture capital culture developed later than in Manchester or London.

Liverpool Influencers

• Mark Rathbone – Brabners.
• Katie Nicholson – Gateway Angels.
• Colin Sinclair – Knowledge Quarter Liverpool. Colin and I go back a long way!
• Frank McKenna – Downtown in Business.
• Carl Wong – Baltic Ventures.
• Ian Warwick – Deepbridge.
• Lorna Green – LYVA Labs.
• Steve Rotheram – LCR Combined Authority.
• Paul Morrisey – ex Nova
• Bill Currie – Family Office
• John McKerrel and Adrian McEwen – DoES Liverpool – Grassroots effort
• Helen Cross – she has been active through many entities at least for 2 decades, since 2006, when I started developing Manchester’s Tech Startup ecosystem.
• Anna Heyes – Active Profile and now Tech Climbers.

Who’s who at Liverpool Seed Fund

To wrap up the short article, here is the small team of the Liverpool Seed Fund:

• The top man (Executive Chairman) is Fred Mendelsohn. I have not seen Fred for a very long time.
• Investment Director – Rupert Wingate-Saul. I’ve known Rupert for well over a decade. Rupert joined David Smith to run the North West’s first Digital Fund.
• Investment Director – Joanne Evans. Glad I had a few minutes to chat with Joanne.
• Marketing Executive – Jieune Seo. She introduced me to Kalkoa App, my GTM app for Korea for SkilledUp Life.
• Investment Analyst – Cynta Nyaga. Just noted she got an MBA from Manchester Business School. Need to discuss SkilledUp Life’s mission for Kenya next time. We had so many skilled volunteers from Kenya and our current HubSpot Associate is Kenyan.

Life is about building relationships and connecting dots. I will be back in Liverpool at the end of April to run Techcelerate Coffees Liverpool 8, coinciding with Liverpool Seed Fund’s next event.

Not the LSF needs my help, but TCLPLs could become feeder events for their events.

Big thank you to Akhlaq for almost forcing me to run TCLPLs in Liverpool. Thank you, buddy!

What’s next?

No one does anything without a plan. My plan is emerging as a result of yesterday’s visit. What I proved to myself yesterday was:

• It’s not hard to make the trip to Liverpool from Cheadle Hulme (South of Manchester)
• Public transport works. In the past, I used to drive. Yesterday, I worked on the train, so very little time was lost.

Could Techcelerate, Deal Lite, SkilledUp Life and the forthcoming “new thing” help the ecosystem? How could these entities help?

• Knowledge for tech founders: Regular Techcelerate Coffees Liverpool, run at least 6 events a year, can bring tech founders and those who could help them together in a low-intensity, high-engaging environment, as all our events are capped at 25 and very much about “doing business”. We are not about fluff.
• Intelligence for tech founders: Whilst I am not in the business of raising investment for tech startups, we can help tech founders find the best-fit investors through Deal Lite. We can also amplify the successful fundraisers through UK Tech Investment News and weekly Deal Lite News.
• Talent for tech founders: SkilledUp Life can help de-risk tech startups through our 60,000+ skilled volunteer talent base. We are creating three pathways: bootstrapping, fundraising and venture-backed.
• New thing. I’ll hold off until it’s ready.

What seems to be missing?

Seems a Pre-Seed fund is very much in demand to plug the gap between accelerators and LSF. I thought LYVA Labs were founded to fix this gap. Perhaps they are limited to University spinouts.