Draper Esprit sees portfolio rocket in value by 44%

Venture capital firm Draper Esprit saw its portfolio rocket in value by 44 per cent in the first six months of the year, buoyed by strong valuations for a number of its investments.

The Dublin-listed company said that its gross primary portfolio value increased by 44 per cent to £162.8 million (€181.7 million), up from £112.7 million (€125.7 million), in the six months to September 30th, 2017.

The company had net assets of £266.8 million (€297.7 million), and a pre-tax profit of £20.9 million (€23.3 million), down from £26.5 million (€29.5 million) in the same period in 2016.

The group made three new investments during the six-month period, and six follow-on investments, including in online review platform Trustpilot, telemedicine company PushDoctor and loyalty company Perkbox.

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Disposals

Draper Esprit had no significant disposals during the period. Most of the investments in its portfolio increased, with the fair value of Trustpilot advancing by 30 per cent, and ecommerce site Lyst by 50 per cent.

Simon Cook, chief executive of Draper Esprit, said that the company was consistently achieving a financial benchmark of 20 per cent year-on-year growth in portfolio value, with the figure up to 22 per cent at the half year.

“Importantly, we are retaining the ability to hold and grow our companies for longer than our non-listed competitors can and with larger sums available for later rounds to maximise the opportunity and build large successful European technology businesses.

“We continue to find exciting new opportunities as technology innovation shows no sign of slowing, and our recent seed funds initiative is helping to forge key relationships at the very earliest stages,” Mr Cook said.

Looking ahead, Mr Cook said that the company was “on target” to hit its expectations across all metrics for the year end.