I typically hear from VCs these days when they are either doing a big, growth capital round, a follow-on funding, an investment in concert with a syndicate or…. bleeeeeeeeep (as in not at all). The rise of the “Super Angels”, a trend TechCrunch Europe was first to call in 2008, seems to be putting paid to VC’s involvement in early stage.
Or perhaps not.
Venture capital house Eden Ventures appears to be on something of a roll and has taken to co-investing with angels like a duck to water. Today it announces five (count’em) new investments, which range in size from £100,000 to £1 million.
The investments bring Eden’s total to six new investments so far in 2010. Earlier this year it invested in a £4 million round in New Voice Media alongside Notion Capital and angel investors from MessageLabs and Salesforce.com.
Ben Tompkins, general partner, says “We seek to be good partners with angels by being prepared to take the early risk and having enough funds under management to support our best investments as they scale.”
The new investments are:
Brightpearl – Cloud-based (SaaS) business solution to manage sales leads, customers, finances etc in a single online service for SMEs. Eden has invested alongside Notion Capital and other shareholders include angel and long-time media figure Doug Richards (Dragons Den, Library House, School For StartUps).
DocCom – This is a cloud-based platform to manage communication between front-line doctors and other healthcare professionals. Eden has invested alongside Mark Jackson (founder and ex-CEO of Helphire.com), Jon Craton (founder of Cramer) and Richard Brennan (ex-CMO Orange).
Evolved Intelligence – This provides value-added services in the cloud for mobile networks operators. Eden has invested alongside Dave Edwards (founder of Aethos Communications Systems) and former executives of Apertio.
GreenManGaming – A site where you can purchase games on-demand and trade in your old games for new games. Eden has invested alongside Creative Capital Fund and angel investors previously from Eidos, BSkyB and Ciao!
Whatafind – This is an online clearance channel for retailers. Eden has invested alongside angel investors Mark Zaleski and Robert Dighero (both ex-QXL).