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(Alliance News) - Draper Esprit PLC on Monday reported several movements within its portfolio, including two direct investments by the London-headquartered venture capital firm itself.
The first movement is with cloud native banking platform Thought Machine, in which Draper Esprit led a GBP63.8 million Series B funding round into the portfolio company.
Draper itself invested GBP26.5 million, with other participants in the funding round including IQ Capital, Backed and Playfair Capital. The proceeds will go towards driving expansion into Asia and North America.
Following the funding round, Thought Machine is expected to become a core holding of the firm.
The second transaction is with synthetic biology company Evonetix Ltd, in which Draper Esprit took part in a USD30.0 million Series B funding round.
The fundraising was led by Foresite Capital, with other participants including Data Collective, the Morningside group, Providence Investment Co, Cambridge Consultants Ltd, Rising Tide Fund and Civilization Ventures.
Proceeds from the fundraising will go towards internal development, including technology that will allow the synthesis of DNA on a chip.
Draper Esprit also noted software firm Graphcore's announcement that it had secured USD150 million through a private placement.
Operationally, Graphcore is now shipping production products in volume, and in 2019 signed a partnership with Microsoft to make a joint intelligence processing unit available for external customers on the Azure cloud.
Finally, Draper noted digital bank Revolut completing its latest funding round, raising USD500 million and achieving a valuation of USD5.5 billion.
"Our participation in the funding rounds of Thought Machine and Evonetix, alongside other leading investment partners, and the valuation uplifts from the Graphcore and Revolut fundraises, demonstrates the value in our portfolio and its continued commercial momentum: our strength is in the application of our patient capital model and expertise to support technologies which are revolutionising industries as diverse as banking and healthcare," said Chief Executive Officer Martin Davis.
Shares in Draper Esprit were up 0.4% at 528.00 pence on Monday in London.
By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com
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