# Top 15 Franchise Startup Investors in United Kingdom in May 2026

## Alchimia Investments
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Rome, Lazio, Italy
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Series A, Seed
- Focus: Health Care, Medical, Biotechnology

Alchimia is an investment company primarily operating in the Venture Capital Sector. Leveraging the expertise of our team and a wide network of international advisors, we invest and co-invest in high growth potential opportunities offering capital, as well as dedicated strategic and operational resources.

## Pembroke VCT
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: London, England, United Kingdom
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Seed, Series A
- Focus: Fashion, E-Commerce, Food and Beverage

Pembroke VCT PLC is a venture capital trust specializing in investments in any stage of business development. Their focus is on companies in the health and fitness, hospitality, apparel, and accessories, and media and technology sectors.

## EchoVC Partners
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Information Technology, E-Commerce, Software

EchoVC Partners is a seed and early-stage venture capital firm focused on financing and cross-pollinating leading technologies, teams, business models, and knowledge across North America, Africa, and SE Asia. The average investment size ranges from $25,000 to several million dollars depending on the stage of opportunity and capital needs of thebusiness.

## Fuel Ventures
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: London, England, United Kingdom
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Software, SaaS, E-Commerce

Fuel Ventures - a leading early stage seed / growth stage EIS Fund based in London, UK. Investing in the most ambitious technology companies.

## LDC
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: London, England, United Kingdom
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Private Equity, Secondary Market
- Focus: Software, Information Technology, Manufacturing

For over 40 years, LDC has been the trusted investment partner for ambitious management teams. We invest in a diverse range of businesses across every region and sector of the UK economy.

## Auxxo
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
- Focus: Software, Apps, Information Technology

The Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund is a sector agnostic pre-seed and seed stage investors that backs female (co-)founded startups in Europe.

## Sebastien Breteau
- Type: Angel
- Location: London, England, United Kingdom
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A, Angel
- Focus: Apps, Biotechnology, EdTech

Sebastien Breteau is an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. He is the founder and CEO of QIMA, a global supply chain compliance solutions provider headquartered in Hong Kong.Founded in 2005, QIMA partners with brands, retailers and manufacturers in consumer goods and food to secure and improve the quality of their global supply network.QIMA combines on-the-ground experts in 85 countries for quality inspections, supplier audits, certification and lab testing, with a digital platform that brings accuracy, visibility and intelligence for quality and compliance data.In 2013, Sebastien created the Breteau Foundation, a non-profit organisation which aims to promote digital education for children in developing countries. 18,000 children are now enrolled in its program.Sebastien Breteau is also an active private investor in Europe, China & the US and has invested in over 30 start-ups globally.

## Firstminute Capital
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: London, England, United Kingdom
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Software, Information Technology, Machine Learning

firstminute is a seed fund backed by over 120 unicorn founders and a world-class community.

## Tencent
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series B, Series A, Series C
- Focus: Software, Financial Services, E-Commerce

Tencent is an internet service portal offering value-added internet, mobile, telecom, and online advertising services. Its communications and social platforms Weixin and QQ connect users with each other, with digital content and daily life services in just a few clicks. Tencent has maintained steady growth under its user-oriented operatingstrategies. It provides value-added internet, mobile, and telecom services, as well as online advertising under the strategic goal of providing users with "one-stop online lifestyle services." Tencent’s Internet platforms in China – QQ (QQ Instant Messenger), WeChat, QQ.com, QQ Games, Qzone, 3g.QQ.com, SoSo, PaiPai, and Tenpay – aim to address the various needs of internet users, including communication, information, entertainment, e-commerce, and others.In September 2013, Tencent's market valuation rose to $101 billion, and as of November 21, 2013, QQ had 2 billion active users and WeChat had 650 million monthly active users. The numbers of active users for QQ mail, Qzone, Tencent Weibo, and QQ news were 274 million, 626 million, 220 million, and 150 million, respectively.Tencent was founded in November of 1998. In April 2000, the IDG and PCCW invested a total of $2.2 million dollars in the company. Tencent was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK) on June 16, 2004. Baidu, Alibaba, and Netease are Tencent's major competitors.

## Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen
- Type: Angel
- Location: London, England, United Kingdom
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A, Series B
- Focus: Software, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen is a Co-Founder & serves as a Partner at 2xN. Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen was General Partner at Balderton Capital in London from 2015-2021 through four funds. He joined after spending a decade in Silicon Valley where he was with Uber and Dropbox.Since 2012 his venture track record includes two IPOs (Uber, Dropbox) and 11acquisitions.Lars joined Balderton from Uber which he joined when the company was operating in less than 20 cities. His role as Vice-President resulted in strategic alliances. Lars joined Uber from Dropbox as one of the company’s first 25 employees. As Head of Mobile, his growth deals with Samsung and other mobile OEMs helped Dropbox reach its first 100 million users. Prior to that Lars held positions at Voicesignal (acq. Nuance), Skyhook Wireless (acq. TruePosition), Ness Technologies (acq. Opentable), 3Jam (acq. Skype) and T9 Tegic (acq. AOL). More than a billion people have used the software and services distributed as a result of mobile growth partnerships led by Lars.His venture investments include Voi (Raine), Labster (A16Z), Hiya (Ericsson), Cambridge Quantum Computing (HON), Hopin (A16Z), Opensea (A16Z), Yassir (YC), Beacon (Eric Schmidt), The org (Sequoia), Octant (A16Z), Zycada (Khosla), Monarch Money (Accel) and Kukua (Tencent), Dubsmash (acq. Reddit), Tempow (acq. Google), Rahko (acq. Odyssey Therapeutics), Pocket (acq. Mozilla), Blue Bottle (acq. Nestle), Marble (acq. Caterpillar).Lars, who is Danish-Portuguese, grew up across Africa and served with the Royal Danish Guards. He holds a MBA from London Business School, where he also serves on the Board of Trustees, an MSc from Oxford University Keble College and a BSc from King’s College, London. He lives in London with his wife and three children.

## Kima Ventures
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Paris, Ile-de-France, France
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
- Focus: Software, E-Commerce, SaaS

Kima Ventures is one of the world's most active early-stage investors, investing in 2 to 3 startups per week all over the world; providing founders with funding, network, and support for them to reach the next steps of their journey.The firm invests from seed to Series A, mostly as lead investor but also working alongside other investors;backing ambitious founders who work hard to build awesome things that more and more people use everyday. The company helps them to build a great team, to learn very quickly, to keep the right focus and execute towards growth.Kima takes pride of itself in working side-by-side with entrepreneurs. They claim to understand that fundraising is only one step in the company’s journey, that’s why they take quick decisions and make the fundraising process as smooth as possible so the founders can get back to the work of building their business. Kima considers itself not only an investor, but a network of founders and experts sharing a pay it forward mindset.Headquartered in Paris with an office in London, the company was founded and backed by Xavier Niel, founder of Iliad and supporter of entrepreneurs through such projects as 42, Station F and 101projets. Over the last 5 years Kima has invested in over 400 startups in 24 different countries.

## HMB Finance Group
- Type: VC Fund
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Angel
- Focus: FinTech, Franchise, Financial Services

The HMB Finance Group provides financial solutions for every stage of your financial journey. 

## GC Angels
- Type: VC Fund
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Software, SaaS, Information Technology

The Growth Company’s two Angel services, Co-Angel Investment Service and North West Business Angels have recently merged creating a more cohesive offer, enabling increased access to early stage equity funding. The service now known as GC Angels, supports businesses seeking access to angel investment, ranging from £25,000 up to £2m.
Developed by GCas the next evolution of its successful Co Angel Investment Service, GC Angels forms part of the GM Combined Authority's response to supporting the early stage investment market, and integrates with the range of wider GC business finance and business support services. It will incorporate the network offer (NWBA); the fee-bearing advisory service (Co Angel) alongside the new GM Co-Investment Fund, providing an innovative, single solution equity funding service.

## SBI Investment
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Minato, Chiba, Japan
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series B, Series A
- Focus: Financial Services, Information Technology, Software

SBI Investment supports the business development and growth of private venture companies through fund investment.

## Burda Principal Investments
- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Munich, Bayern, Germany
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series B, Series C, Series A
- Focus: E-Commerce, Fashion, Retail

Burda Principal Investments (BPI) is a division of Hubert Burda Media which provides long term growth equity for fast growing digital technology and media companies.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co