In a world awash with capital, target companies and founders increasingly expect more added value and support from their financial relationships and backing partners.  

With funds in PE, corporate partnerships and early stage VC, True has a distinct model of leveraging PE skill sets to enhance the development of its VC investments.

The UK based firm has a sector focus; backing businesses capitalising on shifts and consumer behaviour.

“We purposely push together traditionally disparate markets of individuals or capital allocation to drive network effects. Typically these people would operate in silos, for us it is about bringing them together to drive further value add on both sides of the coin,” Claire Cherry, venture capital investor at True , explains. “Typically people see the innovation flowing in the opposite direction (from VC to PE), but we see innovation and benefit flowing in both directions.. She adds, "We are very focused on vertical integration; taking learnings from small, medium and large sized businesses and amalgamating those into a suite of views that helps accelerate them all.” 

Cross pollination 

True takes expertise, data and insights from the firm’s private equity fund and determines what tools to use, how to manage them and how to avoid previously made missteps. Some of the most beneficial PE infused techniques True routinely implements at the early stage are in operational streamlining, professionalising of marketing, integrating enhanced systems and adding best in class skill sets and talent. “The key areas are marketing and digital ecommerce, best in class skill sets, agencies and individual talent and everything that goes in to building the suite of driving better and more efficient returns. It then goes all the way through to systems integration, systems migration. Most of our businesses will go through that under our hold period.”  

Cherry highlights the implementation of coaching schemes for all CEOs in early stage businesses, due to the value they have seen that provide in their PE fund, as a key example. Similarly, True early stage companies are accelerated through the leveraging of partnerships with corporate partners. Early stage companies are given the opportunity to sell their offerings and services to this network. “We support our early stage companies by giving the opportunity to access our corporate partners. While we can be a facilitator, when appropriate to open doors, it is ultimately down to founders and teams to close on those opportunities.”

Unique perspective

Cross fund collaboration has been a part of True’s strategy since its inception. Its team, integrated with members from its PE, commercial partnership side and early stage teams all sit in on deal flow meetings and are actively involved in the screening and due diligence of new deals, all the way through post completion and integration. “We have everyone feeding in from the largest businesses, the mid-tier PE fund and the early stage, it gives us a relatively unique perspective in terms of what levers we should be pushing to drive growth and those changes we can make.”