UK’s Eka Ventures closes €79.5M fund to back companies focusing on sustainable consumption, healthcare, inclusive economy

London-based Eka Ventures, a venture capital firm that backs consumer technology companies enabling sustainable consumption, announces that it has had a final close on a £68M/ $95M (approx €79.57M) fund. 

Investors

The investors in this fund include British Business Bank, BSC, Isomer, Guys and St Thomas Foundation, Planet First Partners, Draper Esprit, Snowball and others, including 24 entrepreneurs, 12 of whom are founders previously backed by Eka partners.

Speaking on the development, Ken Cooper, MD, Venture Solutions, British Business Bank says, “The Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds programme is a key tool in helping to develop and maintain an effective venture capital provision in the UK, lowering the barriers to entry for emerging fund managers and for those targeting less well-served areas of the market. Our commitment [of £36M] to Eka Ventures, will enable them to support new and growing sustainable consumer technology businesses in the UK.”

Investing in companies that have a positive societal impact

Eka Ventures was founded on the belief that most businesses of the next generation will be built to solve a clear social or environmental challenge and is integrating impact investing into mainstream venture capital.

Camilla Dolan, General Partner of Eka, says “When it comes to working with companies, we look for entrepreneurs who set the bar for impact driven innovation high and who are focused on fundamentally changing or creating a category, in the same way Tesla has single-handedly propelled the electric vehicle industry forward. We set Eka up to back companies with that level of ambition.”

The venture capital was founded by Jon Coker, Camilla Dolan, and Andrew Richardson. Together, they have a combined experience of 30+ years working in venture capital, and claim to have backed some of the biggest consumer tech companies of the last 10 years, including Gousto, Bloom & Wild, Peak and Elder.

Eka backs consumer technology companies focused on these 3 themes that redefine business systems: sustainable consumption, consumer healthcare, and the inclusive economy. The currently closed fund will focus on the UK, invest early and lead rounds, making investments between £500K to £3M (approx €585K to €3.5M).

Here are the three themes Eka looks for in a company

Sustainable consumption: to reduce emissions, waste and resource use through more efficient, circular consumption models and supply chains. 

Consumer healthcare: to reduce chronic illness and health inequality through prevention, early detection, and low impact treatment methodologies. 

Inclusive Economy: aims to reduce expenditure poverty and financial exclusion by using technology to reduce the cost to serve in life-essential products. 

Jon Coker, General Partner of Eka says “Over the next 20 years the effect our old business systems have on our health and climate is going to become increasingly and undeniably apparent. At the same time, the power of our new technologies to meet, shape and change these old business systems can be realised in mainstream adoption. The combination of these two dynamics will create an environment of unparalleled opportunity for entrepreneurs to build companies of extraordinary value that positively shape the world. These are the entrepreneurs we set up Eka to back.”

A brief about the Founding Partners of Eka Ventures

Camilla Dolan: She has been investing in consumer technology companies from seed to growth since 2013. Dolan claims to have worked with some extraordinary entrepreneurs at Bloom & Wild, Gousto and Elder, seeing them develop into emerging category leaders. She has a Law degree from Oxford University.

Jon Coker: With 14 years of investing at seed and Series A in consumer tech companies, Coker spent 11 years at MMC Ventures from 2007 – 2018. He joined as an analyst, became head of the investment team in 2010, a Partner in 2012 and Co-Managing Partner in 2015. He led MMC’s investments in 14 companies, including Gousto, Bloom & Wild, Mubi, Cloudsense and Peak. Coker has an Engineering degree from Oxford University.

As for Andrew Richardson, he gained 8 years experience at a mission-driven recruitment & consulting company called La Fosse. There he joined as an associate & became Head of Sales in 2014 and then finally in 2017 started a consultancy supporting post-seed/series A businesses within La Fosse. In 2018 he joined the board of FYXER.