Today we are delighted to announce that we have completed our acquisition of Forward Partners, a proposition we announced in November last year.
We welcome 40+ new, early-stage, disruptive technology companies into our portfolio while also expanding the resources, expertise, and networks available to us in support of some of Europe’s most innovative firms. We also welcome six new members to our team, including Nic Brisbourne, who returns to the Molten fold after striking out to found Forward Partners in 2013.
By bringing Forward Partners under our umbrella, Molten gains access to a range of promising startups in high-growth sectors like AI and digital marketplaces, complementing our existing investments. It's a bold step towards capturing more of the innovation market and driving value creation in a challenging economic landscape.
Martin Davis, CEO, Molten Ventures said: “Molten’s purpose is to advance society through technological innovation and we are continually seeking to find and equip the best innovators with the tools they need to transform the world. Whether this is achieved through direct investments, growing and nurturing our Fund of Funds ecosystem or by acquisitions.
“Our unique listed platform and broad investment mandate to support businesses for the long-term provide us with the flexibility to undertake this type of M&A activity that others are less able by virtue of their structure and investment model.”
“Forward Partners’ culture of innovation, track record of successful investments, and its team’s expertise are invaluable assets that strengthen Molten’s capabilities and competitive advantage in the venture capital market and underscore our commitment to nurturing transformative founders and technologies.”
Nic Brisbourne, Founder of Forward Partners, now Senior Partner at Molten said: “Molten has a high-quality portfolio that's a really good fit with the companies we’re bringing along. We focus on similar sectors of course, but it's also very complimentary from a stage perspective. Where Forward focused one notch earlier; investing in Seed deals, Molten's core franchise is Series A and B. The single biggest thread through it all, however, is software companies and we've had a big focus on AI, specifically applied AI, since 2017.
“For example, Gravity Sketch is a virtual reality design software business, and Robin AI is a legal tech business. They work with one of the leading large language models in the world and they've combined that with their own proprietary machine learning models to massively improve the processing of legal documents.
“I'm very excited for the next stage of our journey with Molten. Our startup ecosystem continues to flourish and the tailwinds for tech generally remain incredibly strong. For seed investments, a lot of those tailwinds are now in the AI sector, and that's an area where we've been building expertise for many years.”
Added Martin Davis: “The Forward Partners capability and portfolio fits nicely into that gap between our seed Fund of Funds and our typical PLC investing. That's why we were interested in the business, why we completed the deal, and how it fits into this overall platform that we are now building.”