London-based venture capital firm LocalGlobe, announced on Tuesday that it has closed a new $500M (approximately €475.36M) fund and changed its name to Phoenix Court Group. The rebrand is centred on the firm’s ambition to remain a seed investor, while also having vehicles to participate in businesses at all stages.
Co-founder Saul Klein and his father Robin’s VC firms LocalGlobe and Latitude are now under the parent organisation, Phoenix Court Group. Besides, the group has also announced two new investment vehicles, Solar and Basecamp.
The group has unveiled how its four new funds will operate and how it will deploy 10 per cent of its profits into its Phoenix Court Works foundation to invest in charitable organisations.
The renaming of LocalGlobe to Phoenix Court Group reflects the company’s links to the community. Its offices are in Somers Town, a 5-minute walk from major tech businesses such as Google, Meta, and Apple. It is also one of the poorest boroughs in the UK.
Phoenix Court Works
Phoenix Court Group also shared details around Phoenix Court Works, its foundation which supports organisations in the North London neighbourhood of Somers Town, as well as more broadly in Camden and New Palo Alto.
Phoenix Court Works is funded through the allocation of 10 per cent of profits from Phoenix Court Group’s management company and 2 per cent of carrying from all the funds. It has invested in 23 initiatives in the areas of health, education, and climate change so far.
Phoenix Court Group’s two new fund
The Group now comprises four distinct funds, each aimed at a particular stage of the market. LocalGlobe is focused on the pre-seed and seed stage, Latitude is focused on the breakout and early growth stage, and the new funds, Solar and Basecamp – which were previously internally funded – will now begin to be institutionalised.
Solar is Phoenix Court Group’s scale-up fund focused on supporting tech businesses on their journey from the private to the public markets and beyond. Basecamp is a diverse community of 50+ emerging early-stage funds, angels and solo GPs across Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, India, Israel, and the US.
The company says that Solar expands Phoenix Court’s commitment to addressing the underinvestment in funding at the breakout and scale-up stages, while Basecamp continues to demonstrate, alongside the Newton Venture Program, Phoenix Court’s mission to support the next generation of “great” investment businesses, while seeking to increase the diversity of the venture capital investment sector.
Capital utilisation
The new funds will invest in opportunities in New Palo Alto, an area within a four-hour train journey of central London. This area has moved in the last 5-10 years from being seen as a frontier market for the world’s best investors, to the most successful innovation ecosystem globally, after the Bay Area and Beijing, producing world-class science and technology companies.
Saul Klein, co-founder of Phoenix Court Group, says, “Despite being the third best producer of high growth private companies globally, this geography is still underserved by investors, especially at the breakout and scale-up stages. Not only is there an acute funding gap at the scale-up stage here, less than 20 per cent of the capital invested at that stage is domestic, so when companies in our region are acquired or move to the public markets, UK pensioners and savers miss out, while their Canadian, Australian and Singaporean equivalents benefit.”
“We have a 10-year view on investing and given the access, insight and engagement that we have through our LocalGlobe, Latitude, Solar and Basecamp funds, we continue to think that this is a great place to build innovative companies and also pioneer a new era of ethical innovation. We’re not building the next Palo Alto, it’s a different one,” adds Klein.
