Team Kapital is a division of Team Ventures Limited which, as a group, sources or supplies financial capital to technology businesses. Operating globally, we have a presence in London and Cambridge in the UK, Vancouver in Canada plus Wuhan, Beijing and Shanghai in China. We also have strong relationships in Boston, New York and Seattle.
Company History
Team Kapital is a new service within an established business. The business was originally acquired by AIM-listed investment vehicle IPSO Ventures PLC, co-founded by Simon Haworth. Simon stepped back from IPSO in 2010 to seek new markets and new capital, re-established Team Ventures as a private entity and commenced the most important step of the company’s development: accessing the key themes of Agritech investment, life sciences Artificial Intelligence and cross-border access between Europe, the US and China.
Nicholas Malins-Smith joined Team Kapital in May 2020 as Director of New Business.
Nicholas Malins-Smith
Director of New Business
Nicholas has a powerful network of connections across the listed company sectors in the UK and brings expertise both as a S&P “AA” institutional fund manager and as a corporate broker/money raiser. This appreciation of the risks and challenges faced by both listed – and increasingly unlisted – companies will assist Team Kapital in matching the needs of its clients with the right business opportunities in China.
“My own listed company experience is getting a little rusty,” comments Simon Haworth, “so it is extremely helpful to have Nicholas on board. Our knowledge is complementary and our networks overlap perfectly.“
Meet the Founder
Simon Haworth actually started life in the family farming business in Cheshire. But by the time he left university – with a BSc in Agricture and a PhD in Economics under his belt – he began to realise that a small family concern provide the challenges he sought so he moved on – though not before he had created his first startup (“Green Valley Herbs”), and learned the hard lessons that go with creation of one’s first new venture.
He has since founded or co-founded multiple companies including AIM-listed IPSO Ventures PLC, originally listed in London.
Simon’s IPSO experience was formative. The 3 co-founders established the business in 2005, raised hedge fund backing in 2006 and achieved a London listing in 2007. “We achieved many of the objectives of a typical growth company within three years and being a Director of a listed PLC was certainly interesting,” says Simon. “I stepped back from IPSO in 2010 when it became clear that the platform didn’t allow me to focus on what I consider to be a key issue for growth companies: accessing international markets.“
Education: BSc , University of Reading. PhD Economics, University of Reading (“The growth of firms”).
Agritech and Biotech
We have been invested in UK healthcare Artificial Intelligence company Intelligent OMICS for many years and AI is at last making real advances in drug discovery.
But this is not the only revolution underway. Our interests in agritech are expanding too – first as co-founder of UK investment syndicate Cambridge Agritech and more recently as sponsor of a new initiative to develop UK’s first growth capital fund for agritech.
“We have the luxury of dedicating our activities to areas where we can have the greatest impact,” comments Simon. “Right now we see a revolution underway in AI-driven drug discovery. I am not talking about the ongoing automation of research and image processing, over even the burgeoning but deeply flawed literature mining and meta analysis. No. What we are interested in AI that identifies patters in data that human researchers have never been able to see before, picks out the causative drivers of disease and enables us to deliver a vast stream of new drugs faster and more economically that was ever thought possible.”
“Add to that the revolution in agritech investment and its ability to do more for global human health than even biotech can … and one gets a glipse at the scale of change that we are focused on. Vive la Revolution!”
China might not be top of the agenda meanwhile. But it will be back and Team Kapital will be there to help. In 2017 Simon received the People’s Republic of China National Friendship Award from China’s Prime Minister: Premier Li Keqiang. This is the highest honour that can be given to a non-Chinese citizen and was granted to Simon as a result of his Sino-UK trade and investment activities.
Note – FSA Regulation: For the avoidance of doubt Team Kapital does not provide investment advice and is not authorised by the Financial Services Authority to conduct investment business. Team Kapital undertakes not to hold itself out as being FSA regulated nor to imply that the parent company Team Ventures Limited is making any public offering of securities. In particular, Team Kapital will not approach any US or Canada-domiciled individuals or entities.