Helping Concept Ventures grow into the UKs largest pre-seed fund

Since 2018, Concept Ventures’ mission has been to back start-up founders at pre-seed stage with the goal of helping them secure venture capital funding. In July 2022, Concept Ventures launched the UKs largest pre-seed fund of £50 million. The fund will be used to invest in British-born pre-seed start-up businesses, addressing what they call a ‘major gap’ in the investment ecosystem.

Founded by Reece Chowdhry, Concept Ventures are laser-focused on investing in start-up businesses that are working to reshape how consumers work, play, and learn.

Concept Ventures’ platform places each business in their portfolio into three distinct categories:

• Work: Concept are especially keen to back new founders that are building tools and platforms that will accelerate the shift and make the day-to-days of workers a smoother process.
• Play: Concept recognise that consumers are spending especially significant periods online outside of work and are looking to meet with and invest in teams that are devoted to the games, consumer tech, infrastructure, and interactive media sectors.
• Learn: Concept are actively seeking to invest in businesses that are looking to change the way consumers access and consume educational systems.

The Concept Ventures team has backed 100+ founders to date, with Concept VC-backed founders seeing a 71% graduation rate from pre-seed onwards, which is twice as high as the industry standard.

We’ve been working with Concept Ventures for 3 years and have provided legal support to them along their journey, building out their necessary legal foundations from the start. Concept turned to us because they had difficulty finding the necessary experience and advice elsewhere. Since Concept work on closing investment deals in a timely manner, it was also important for them to find legal advice paired with quick turnaround times.

Our corporate solicitors have provided and continue to provide support for Concept’s investment rounds in their portfolio of businesses. Our intellectual property solicitors have also assisted with trade mark applications to protect their IP and our commercial property solicitors managed their commercial lease to ensure fair and practical terms. Concept were able to access a multitude of our legal services through our unique subscription plans, benefitting from partner level lawyers at a fraction of the cost compared with traditional law firms.

One of our senior corporate solicitors, Stephen Evans, who continues to work with Concept Ventures on their various investment rounds, said:

I’ve enjoyed working with Oliver, Reece and the rest of the Concept team over the last few years and its great to see them expanding and raising new funds. Their pragmatic approach to transactions matches our own and helps to get deals completed efficiently.

When asked what it was like working with Stephen, Reece Chowdhry said:

It’s been excellent working with Stephen, he’s made every investment round extremely straight-forward and he understands our needs completely, while explaining the legals without the legal jargon. He’s only a phone call away which keeps us reassured. Previously, we’ve had to go through many hurdles when working with traditional law firms. You don’t get that at Harper James.

Over the next four years, Concept Ventures have plans to utilise their £50 million fund to back over sixty start-ups that will be added to their vast portfolio of companies in the technology and creative industries.