Portfolio Update

RNS Number : 5020T

Forward Partners Group PLC

25 July 2022

 

Forward Partners Group plc

("Forward Partners" or "the Group")

PORTFOLIO UPDATE AND FURTHER DETAILS OF NEW INVESTMENTS

Forward Partners Group plc (LSE: FWD), the London-based investment firm specialising in supporting high growth, early-stage technology businesses, announces an update on its Ventures portfolio.

Further details of new investments

● Baselime: £0.4 million

● Sonrai: £1.0 million

On 30 June 2022, Forward announced new investments totalling £1.4m. The Group is pleased to disclose that the new portfolio investments are two high growth, early-stage technology companies called Baselime and Sonrai.

Baselime is developing the tools that companies need to confidently adopt 'serverless' technology. Serverless architectures is the next evolution of cloud-computing and allows developers to build and run applications without having to manage servers. Baselime's technology offers greater scalability, high flexibility, and faster releases at a reduced cost. It is experiencing rapid adoption across both digital products and internet applications.

The Group invested £0.4m into serverless technology company, Baselime, as part of their £1.5m pre-seed round, led by Arc, Sequoia's catalyst for outlier founders. The Company will use the funds to invest in product development and fuel adoption across the developer ecosystem. This investment builds on Forward Partners' existing portfolio of companies forging the future for digital products and experiences, including Ably, Silico and Apexx.

Forward also led a £2.2m 'seed plus' round into Sonrai, an analytics platform that leverages AI to speed up drug and healthcare developments, investing £1.0m alongside Techstart Ventures and others. The Company has successfully placed its platform with key healthcare businesses across the EU and the US, counting Roche and the NHS among its partners. It will use the funds to scale and secure further key partnerships. This investment adds to Forward Partners' existing investments in companies applying AI technology to solve societal problems that include PocDoc, FairHQ and Uplearn.

Portfolio momentum

The Group continues to see positive momentum from its early-stage portfolio. Recent highlights include:

● Ably ( https://ably.com/ ), the platform building real time infrastructure for the internet announced the bolstering of its senior team with the appointment of James Aley as Chief Technology Officer and Tim Buntel as Chief Product Officer. The Company recently featured in a Gartner research report where it was recognised for playing a critical role in powering live online experiences and was voted amongst the top Best Internet Companies and Best Small Companies by InHerSight

● Silico ( https://www.silicoai.com/ ), an AI-powered decision-making platform, raised £3.4m in a series A round led by Join Capital, in which Forward Partners invested £0.5m. Silico is already working with global enterprises across the banking, telecoms, healthcare and chemicals industries, with clients such as Vodafone. The funding will be used by the Company to expand its reach across Europe

● Spoke ( https://spoke-london.com/ ), a direct-to-consumer eCommerce company, raised £5m from over 1,500 investors in the most successful Seedrs crowdfunding campaign of 2022 so far. The funding will be used to accelerate international growth in Europe and the US. The business recently opened an additional distribution centre in Germany to improve delivery capabilities across Europe. Trading performance is strong, with year-on-year gross revenue growth of 60% as of mid-June

Nic Brisbourne, CEO of Forward Partners, said :

"We are pleased to have completed these two new investments and see good momentum in the portfolio. Venture capital is a long term game, and we remain focused on delivering our strategy of building a world class portfolio of early stage applied AI, marketplace, ecommerce and now Web3 companies. We are proceeding with a degree of caution appropriate for the uncertainty in the markets, but continue to see exciting opportunities to make new investments and support our portfolio. We remain confident in the underlying strength and growth prospects of our portfolio and of delivering long-term value for our shareholders."

ENDS

Enquiries

FORWARD PARTNERS GROUP PLC		Via Maitland/AMO
Nic Brisbourne, Chief Executive Officer
Liberum Capital Limited
(Nominated Adviser and Broker)			Tel: [phone]
Neil Patel
Lauren Kettle
Cara Murphy
Maitland/AMO (Financial PR)	[e-mail]
Sam Turvey, Alistair de Kare-Silver	Tel: [phone]

About Forward Partners

Founded in 2013, Forward Partners is an established and respected London-based venture capital firm, specialising in supporting high growth, early-stage technology businesses.

The Group brings together venture capital provider Forward Ventures, equity-free revenue-based financing through Forward Advances and highly specialised growth support from Forward Studio. This model supports founders to build stronger businesses faster to provide better outcomes for companies and investors alike.

The Group makes equity investments in early-stage, high growth UK companies, and from inception to its admission to London's AIM market in July 2021 had made over 60 unique investments and built a portfolio with an Initial Portfolio NAV in excess of £100m. It holds an eight-year track record of making venture capital investments, and targets underlying NAV growth of 20% per annum on average over the cycle.

The management team brings together highly experienced venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and expert consultants. Since 2015, Forward Partners has been backed by BlackRock, one of the largest institutional investors in the world. The Group receives over 4,000 start-up funding applications every year.

For more information, visit https://forwardpartners.com

 

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