Eka Ventures has announced the closure of its ‘milestone’ £80m ($107m) Fund II.
Eka specialises in making pre-seed and seed investments between £1m and £3m and traditionally works with founders building category-defining consumer technology companies.
It makes Eka the UK’s largest early-stage impact VC, investing across health, wellbeing and sustainability.
Fund I’s portfolio includes Runna (seed round, recently exited to Strava), Urban Jungle, Axle, Hived, Foresight Data Machines, Jude and Flok Health. Several have gone on to raise from Index Ventures, Accel and Balderton.
The oversubscribed Fund II will back up to 30 UK pre-seed and seed-stage companies, with an average first investment of c.$2m and meaningful reserves for follow-ons.
Founding partner Jon Coker said: “It is another milestone in our mission to show we can deliver outlier investor returns by backing companies that deliver outlier impact.
“It is still early, but the signs from Fund I are good. It is one of the best-performing venture funds in its 2021 vintage, both on current value (TVPI) and exited value (DPI).
“The underlying data also points to some repeatable patterns. We were the lead or co-lead investor in 90 per cent of our investments.
“There was no competing term sheet in 69 per cent of the investments we made. We sourced 47 per cent of our investments through our data platform.
“Fund II doubles down on all of this with even more conviction, enabling us to be even bolder in our first investment size.
“This fund would not have been possible without the founders we backed in Fund I.”
He added: “Building a new venture firm is like nothing else. Every four years you have to re-prove your right to exist.
“It takes a level of resilience only possible when you deeply believe in what you are building and who you are building it with.
“To get to invest this fund alongside Camilla Dolan is a huge privilege. Her ability to push me to be a better investor is a core part of what I love about building Eka. 13 years of working together and counting.
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“While we are only just announcing this final close, we have been quietly investing the fund for the last year and have already backed seven companies, five of which have been announced, including Hesta Health, Cyclana Bio, Conveyed, DITTO Daily and Chune.
“The quality of the entrepreneurs building in our space is extraordinary. Our main job is finding and supporting them, and that is what this fund is all about.”
Investors in the oversubscribed fund include the British Business Bank, Bettys & Taylors Group (via Bettys & Taylors Society Capital), Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation, The Health Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Molten Ventures, Aarum Impact and Vivensa Foundation.