Ada Ventures

We believe VC should be open source. That's why we're releasing the first ever 💥Ada Ventures Impact Report today 💥 To read the report: https://lnkd.in/erFbK5M7 Since we launched, we've tried to be as transparent as possible about how we're building Ada Ventures and how we make our investment decisions. We do this because: 1️⃣ We believe being open helps VCs do better by removing places to hide 2️⃣ We want other people to see, adopt and evolve our ideas 3️⃣ We want to be held to account and know where we could do better Today we're taking that one step further. This report dives into our thesis, our impact, and the current portfolio in a ton of detail. We're laying it all out on the table. Insights include: 1️⃣Progress against our Inclusive Alpha® goals 2️⃣How our Ada Scout and Angel programmes are developing, inc.: 👉 In Ada Fund II, 6/19 (32%) investments so far have been sourced by Ada Scouts  👉The Ada Scouts have helped us reach 6x more all-Black teams and 10x more all-female teams than the UK benchmarks 3️⃣Diversity stats for our portfolio, inc.: 👉78% of Fund I and II companies have an underrepresented founder 👉56% have a woman founder (vs 28% of wider market – IWC 2024) 👉76% have a founder from an ethnic minority 4️⃣Growth stats from a selection of our portfolio companies - showing that inclusion and outsized returns go hand-in-hand.  Thank you to everyone who helped bring this report to life including: Francesca (Check) Warner (Founding Partner), Shanika Amarasekara MBE (Venture Partner: Impact) Xun Ning Choong, (Head of Operations and Impact Lead) and Carla Adol Designs. We are also grateful for the support we’ve had from the Limited Partner community. Thanks to their belief and backing, we now have £120m of assets under management. We’d like to highlight and thank the LPs who contributed to this report including: Joe Shamash, Investment Director, Better Society Capital Ken Cooper, Managing Director, Venture Solutions, British Business Bank Tamara Savic, Senior Investment Manager, Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO)  Dr Catherine Martin, Vice-Principal, Corporate Services, The University of Edinburgh Betsy Zimmerman, Co-Founding GP, First Close Partners The report highlights case studies of the high impact companies and founders we’ve backed including: The ESTHER team led by Carol Rossborough The Flexa team led by Molly Johnson-Jones The Organise team led by Nat Whalley The Greenworkx team led by Mat Ilic  The BlakBear team led by Dr. Max Grell PhD The Oxford Medical Products team led by Dr. Camilla Easter  The Toothfairy ™ team led by Dr. Deepak Singh Aulak The R.grid team led by Dr. Amber Michelle H. We would love to hear your feedback on these metrics and insights. 👇

In 2023, Ada became the first VC in Europe to help pay for founders' childcare. Through a partnership with the UK's leading childcare app (and Ada portco) Bubble, each founder in our portfolio can to claim up to 40 hours of funded childcare for a 12 month period. In the Financial Times today, PlannerPal's Mark Whitcroft, talks about how this provision has supported him and his partner, Crystal Edgar Whitcroft, as they juggle the realities of being both a founder and a parent. As investors, our role is to enable our portfolio companies to thrive. They can’t do that if they’re not supported in ways that reflect the realistic trajectories of their lives. That's why this funded childcare is such an important part of the Ada offering and why we'd encourage other firms to roll-out similar schemes. 👇 Read the piece: https://lnkd.in/e4FEb78m

Ada Danish Angel, and Even Founders' CEO Ana A. has shared their comprehensive analysis of female funded Nordic startups: - 150 startups tracked across Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway & Iceland - €900M+ in total funding documented across all stages - 27% with female-only founders showing that there's still a way to go - CleanTech & HealthTech leading with the largest funding rounds This is the state of Nordic women-founded startups in 2024. It should come as no surprise that women are building remarkable category defining companies. 🤩 The data reveals fascinating trends about which sectors are attracting capital, how founding team composition affects funding, and which countries are becoming innovation powerhouses. Biggest rounds? Heart Aerospace (€104M), Syre (€100M), and Antag Therapeutics (€80M) leading the pack! Whether you're a founder looking for funding patterns, an investor researching the next big opportunity, or simply curious about the Nordic innovation landscape - this analysis provides valuable insights you won't find elsewhere. 👇 Check out the full report https://lnkd.in/du9UEuWS

100+ rejections eventually turned into a 13.8x return on a debut venture capital fund 🔥. Here's a brief introduction to the origin story of Union Square Ventures and lessons I drew from their fund prospectus. 👇🏾 https://lnkd.in/e6hw8Ba2

Reminder - applications for our Founder's Associate role will close next week (Friday 7th March) at 12pm UK time. We've already received a phenomenal number of applications and are beginning to shortlist submissions, so we do recommend submitting soon. This is a incredible opportunity to work directly with our founding partners - please do share this opportunity with anyone in your network who might be interested.

It's home to 94% of the world's wildlife. It holds 97% of the water on Earth. But our ocean remains a relatively unexplored and poorly understood ecosystem. However, thanks to the power of innovation, that could be about to change. 🌍 The ocean covers 70% of our planet, already drives a $1.5 trillion economy, and with advances in new tech, it could hold the key to unlocking food security, climate resilience and sustainable innovation. 🌊 From aquaculture and sustainable shipping, to wave power and carbon sequestration, progress in oceanography is producing radical solutions to some of the biggest challenges we face as a species - and we've only scratched the surface. At Ada Ventures, we’re keen to support founders matching big ideas with cutting-edge science to drive real change in this space. Investing in so-called “BlueTech” is a natural extension of our climate equity thesis. Read my piece to find out more about why we’re investing in oceanography. And if you're a founder building scalable BlueTech to generate real change, get in touch! 🤿 🪸 https://lnkd.in/ejYJSBGU

#PortfolioNews: Ada Ventures is pleased to announce its investment in Medly AI, a start-up that brings personalised tuition to more students. It's a pocket-sized private tutor for all. Ada is investing £550,000 into a £1.7m round alongside the lead investors, the impact-focused fund, Eka Ventures and angels. Institutional partners include UCL, Innovate UK, Microsoft and Google. Medly AI could revolutionise education, ensuring all students, regardless of their background, benefit from private tuition and personalised learning. Since launching last year Medly AI has: - 30,000+ active students using Medly for exam preparation - Consistently ranked in Apple's Top Education Apps - Usage across all academic achievement levels 👉 Read more about why we invested and Paul and Kavi's incredible story: https://lnkd.in/dUqhpeAT

📢 #GoodNewsFriday: Cherryrock Capital raises $172 million for growth-stage startups led by underinvested founders. When Stacy Brown-Philpot stepped down as CEO of Taskrabbit in 2020, following its acquisition by IKEA, she became one of the country’s most sought-after board members. With a $172 million venture fund, Brown-Philpot, a former executive at Google and co-founder of Softbank Opportunity Fund, and partner Saydeah Howard (SPHR, SHRM-SCP) will put their expertise to work for diverse and underinvested founders of growth-stage digital health, fintech and future of work startups. “Overlooked and underestimated teams are creating companies at an unprecedented pace,” Brown-Philpot wrote in a blog post announcing Cherryrock Capital. Lack of access to capital keeps many such founders from realizing their companies’ full potential. “This is where we come in with unique scaling, board, and networking expertise to build companies and deliver returns for our investors   LP's in Cherryrock: Goldman Sachs Asset Management, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, MassMutual, Pivotal Ventures and Spring Point Partners. Individuals including Mellody Hobson, Reid Hoffman and Sheryl Sandberg also joined the fund, one of the largest debut venture funds led by Black women.

#PortfolioNews: Flexa has been ranked the 4th best HR Startup 🏆 by Startups Magazine, they looked at businesses from the 2025 Startups 100 Index, which are reworking lives with technology. Flexa has dedicated the past five years to bringing more transparency to the job market. They are trusted by over three million workers and over 200 employers, including O2 (Telefónica UK), Virgin Media and Mars UK. Congrats to Molly, Maurice and the rest of the team.

📢 #PortfolioNews: Matnex has partnered with Viridien to build the world’s largest materials science supercomputer 💻🌍 With this turbocharged computational capacity, Matnex will drive the highest output of new material discoveries globally, unlocking extraordinary opportunities across industries like energy, sustainable computing, and transport. When we say we invest in the best, we mean it. Matnex is truly at the forefront of AI-powered materials innovation, and this milestone marks another significant step toward a more sustainable future. We couldn’t be more thrilled to see Jonathan Bean PhD and the team continue to break new ground and lead the way in transforming materials discovery. 🚀 Read more about Matnex and Viridien’s paradigm-shifting partnership here: https://lnkd.in/e692XhPe