Meyer’s new seed fund to help entrepreneurs ‘in the hot kitchen’

Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund, a seed fund set up by Julie Meyer, Karima Serageldin and Ariadne Capital, has raised $8.25 million (£5.3 million).

Seed capital fund Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund (ACE Fund) has achieved its first close and attracted commitments from investors such as Clive Jacobs, founder of car rental broker Holiday Autos.

The new ACE Fund is planning to invest in ‘digital enablers’ in the UK. This will involve deals in sectors such as media technology (gaming, video and radio), financial technology and health and cleantech.

Joining Jacobs and Julie Meyer in the investment round are Russ Shaw, non-executive director of online dating website Cupid and Unwire, Travis Baxter, ex-managing director of Bauer Media and Jon Rubenstein, director at Amazon former CEO of Palm.

Deal sizes are said to be around the $500,000 mark, of which two are projected to be made during the summer.

Meyer says, ‘Entrepreneurs are naturally inclined to help other entrepreneurs because they have been in the hot kitchen of running a start-up.

‘We’ve aggregated some of the most innovative and successful business people into our limited partner base – entrepreneurs who have built businesses with many billions in market capitalisations.’

According to ACE Fund, it will be backing companies which are business-to-business ‘in nature, which are looking to transform large industry. Alastair Lukies-formed mobile money company Monitise is cited by the firm as the kind of business it will be looking to back.

On the back of the fundraising, each limited partner will become a co-investment partner of the firm providing, what it calls, ‘significant follow-on capital for further investment’.

Also on the seed fund list as investors are Irwin Jacobs, Mike Alfant, Todd Ruppert, Robbie Vann-Alibe and Clive Pinder.

Hunter Ruthven

Hunter Ruthven

Hunter was the Editor for GrowthBusiness.co.uk from 2012 to 2014, before moving on to Caspian Media Ltd to be Editor of Real Business.

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Seed funding