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Ascension
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== Investment strategy == Ascension is an early stage venture capital fund that focuses on investing in seed stage technology companies. They typically invest in a company’s first institutional funding round, at what Ascension terms the ‘Seed+’ investment stage (which is after initial pre-seed funding but before a startup’s series A round). The fund has a multi-sector approach, investing in both B2B and consumer businesses. In assessing opportunities, the team focuses on three key elements of early stage business: the quality of the team, the robustness of the technology versus the competition, and the market size/potential of the product. At the stage where the fund invests, Ascension recognises that a startup’s founding team is of key importance. Given this, Ascension emphasises that it looks for teams that have “a mastery of the problem they are trying to solve with a keen eye on commercial opportunities.” A typical team will also have complementary skill sets - for example two founders may be a CEO and CTO. Ascension investee companies will typically be generating early revenue of around £30k per month when they receive investment. Ascension views this revenue level as evidence of early product/market fit. In addition to revenue, given many early stage startups overestimate future revenues and underestimate costs, Ascension typically requires investee companies to have a minimum of 12-18 months cash runway at the point of fundraising, assuming no revenue growth. Ascension believes this gives companies time to achieve key performance indicators (typically revenue or customer growth) before they complete a future, larger capital raise at a higher company valuation. Through this strategy, Ascension was an early backer of Albert, the fintech acquired by Santander, ZigZag, the ecommerce software business acquired by Global Blue and Chilli Connect, the live game management platform acquired by Unity. In 2021, Ascension’s 2017 EIS fund was ranked the number one EIS fund for calendar year performance by Tax Efficient Review, an EIS review company. Ascension’s team consists of 14 core members alongside 14 venture partners, who together manage and advise the Ascension portfolio. Ascension’s average ticket size is around £300,000 and they routinely co-invest alongside other funds and notable angel investors that are active at the seed stage. Ascension’s main sources of deal flow are its existing portfolio company founders (through referral) and fund co-investors, through which it sees over 3,000 investment opportunities a year. The fund embraces a co-investment approach, where it seeks to invest in companies alongside other funds, and believes this philosophy “not only increases deal-flow opportunities but also the likelihood that portfolio companies are well capitalised and supported on their journey from Seed+ to Series A and beyond”.
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