Venture capitalist firm Draper Esprit has managerial reshuffle
Venture capital firm Draper Esprit has had a reshuffle at the top with its chief executive moving to the role of chief investment officer.
Simon Cook will move into the chief investment officer role to control the Dublin-based company’s £1.2bn of funds across start-ups and pre-float investments.
Read more: City startup Freetrade raises £15m from Revolut backer Draper Esprit
Martin Davis will take over as chief executive after moving across from investment management business Kames Capital.
The company has been an investor in Transferwise, a payments company valued at £2.7bn, and fast-growing fintech Revolut.
Cook told The Telegraph that he was confident about future growth prospects for Europe’s fintech sector.
He said: “We have amazing companies in Europe.
“Revolut and others have refined their apps where the Americans have yet to really develop them.
“If the top banks have an average market cap of $70bn (£54bn), one of these challenger banks will get there.”
Davis said: “With companies staying private for longer, our role in helping to democratise venture capital and provide our shareholders with access to high growth technology companies is more important now than ever before.
“Generating value for our shareholders while helping the very best entrepreneurs to secure the right capital to grow their businesses is central to this approach.”
Read more: Draper Esprit leads £7m funding round of deep tech firm Hadean
Draper Esprit is jointly listed in Dublin and London, and has had a hand in numerous startups throughout Europe.
This has included Graze, Trustpilot and Seedrs.
Last week it injected $7.5m (£5.8m) into stock trading startup Freetrade as a part of its Series A funding.