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Metropolis veteran Martin Gilbert has vowed he’ll “by no means” promote his shares in fintech Revolut as he invests in a brand new fund aimed toward shopping for inventory from staff of fast-growing expertise companies globally.
Gilbert, who’s chair of London-based Revolut, is backing the LTC Make investments fund V with two different entrepreneurs, contributing a mixed $20mn, in accordance with folks aware of the scenario.
The fund will snap up inventory in established tech firms from current shareholders — equivalent to fintech workers who took shares of their firm — who’re eager to promote, in accordance with an investor presentation seen by the Monetary Occasions.
However this might rule out extremely valued firms equivalent to Revolut, which secured a $45bn valuation on the finish of final yr, making it one of the useful fintech firms in Europe.
Gilbert informed the FT in response: “I’ve no intention of ever promoting my Revolut shares.”
Early Revolut traders and staff offloaded practically $1bn price of inventory in a collection of secondary share gross sales all through the second half of final yr. New consumers who sought publicity to the fintech included rich Goldman Sachs purchasers and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund Mubadala.
The presentation stated that lots of of billions of {dollars} “are locked in late stage expertise firms” that had “fractured, multi-layered possession”, with restricted choices for traders looking for to money of their stake and exit.
The fund is being launched by the London Expertise Membership, a community of rich traders, entrepreneurs and establishments, with Gilbert’s backing, with a view to elevating $250mn to speculate. Considered one of LTC Make investments’s current funds is a backer of Revolut.
LTC Make investments, an offshoot of the expertise membership, is within the means of looking for regulatory approval as an funding supervisor for additional fund launches, in accordance with folks aware of the scenario. Martin Gilbert will be a part of the board of LTC Make investments as chair of the funding committee, the folks added.
The agency is led by Konstantin Sidorov, founding father of the LTC community, and Denis Clean as chief funding officer. Clean reportedly left his job at Greek billionaire Maria Angelicoussis’s non-public funding agency in 2023 over a pay dispute, and previously labored at Hermitage Capital, the funding fund co-founded by Invoice Browder. Clean declined to remark.
In response to LTC Make investments’s presentation, start-ups backed by enterprise capital, quite than non-public fairness, lack “any significant secondary market specialist consumers,” making it troublesome for current traders to exit.
It stated that whereas companies backed by non-public fairness firms have been usually majority owned by one investor, firms backed by enterprise capital have been normally owned by dozens, if not lots of, of particular person traders, who had their very own have to promote inventory at sure factors.
The presentation famous that this “mismatch of provide of secondary shares and lack of devoted capital” has created a chance to purchase shares in late-stage expertise firms at “distressed valuations”.
