Limited Partner Spotlight

British Patient Capital

I’m excited to have British Patient Capital, the UK’s largest domestic investor in venture and venture growth funds, in the spotlight today. With more than £3B of assets under management, BPC’s mission is to enable long-term investment in innovative UK companies led by ambitious entrepreneurs who want to build successful, world-class businesses.

The British Business Bank, which BPC is a subsidiary of, also has a dedicated emerging venture capital fund manager team. If you are a UK-based first-time or Emerging Manager interested in raising a venture capital fund, please read through the guidance documents and if the program is suitable for you, you can fill out the form here.

Carmine, who is a director at BPC, has been a valuable member of the Embracing Emergence LP community, and if you are an Emerging Manager who would like to learn more about the funding options, you can reach out to him via email through the button below ⤵️

Volume #13 TL;DR:

• I am currently looking for Pioneers for Data & Events for our platform.

• As I have talked with hundreds of Emerging Managers over the past years it has always surprised me why not more Emerging Managers utilize the name they chose for their fund as a vehicle to explain their story, strategy, and differentiation.

• You think about the name for your business so much, because the name has to succinctly communicate what you stand for, why you are unique, and what value you offer.

• By leaning into your fund name, by explaining what it stands for, you are reversing the process and start to unpack most elements the LP wants to learn about your fund anyway.

• Unpacking your name and the how and why behind it, most likely communicates the basics of your strategy and your background better than 5 slides on your deck.

Table of Contents

• Embracing Emergence Update

• The Path To True Differentiation

• The First Step on This Path

• Why Your Fund Name Pitches Your Fund Better Than Y …

Embracing Emergence Update

As a platform where both Emerging Managers and Limited Partners find convergence, I believe Embracing Emergence has a unique position in the ecosystem.

I also believe in building things that are bigger than myself.

So, I am currently looking for Pioneers for Data & Events for our platform.

With a community of 40+ (and growing) LPs who are all actively investing in Emerging Managers, we have the potential to generate research and data reports unlike anybody else.

I also want to grow the space for conversation between EMs and LPs and Peer-to-Peer connection for LPs - high-quality events (i.e. Demo Days, interviews, etc.) are a great way to foster these spaces.

The value: build unique relationships with LPs and GPs, access to learnings and data + get your name and brand out there!

If you know anybody in your network or would like to get involved yourself - please reach out!

The Path To True Differentiation

In a previous post, I outlined the differentiation for Emerging Managers that nobody seems to be talking about: differentiation through linguistic consistency.

You could summarize the argument for why not enough Emerging Managers are truly differentiated as such:

1. Many Emerging Managers do not have enough visibility of the market and crowd they are in themselves, which results in a lack of clarity of why they are different.

2. If you are a GP with a specific industry focus, it is very likely that the LP you are speaking with has met at least 15 if not 20-50 other Emerging Managers who share a similar investment focus and strategy with your fund.

3. Having a slide with logos of co-investors, a slide about the market and why now is the right time, and a slide about why the GPs are the right investors to execute the strategy in the pitch is not enough to communicate true differentiation.

4. If the people you are pitching are exposed to a crowd, the best and most sustainable way of standing out is by finding something everybody else the LPs come across is also doing. This means that the LP is familiar with it and familiarity will exponentially increase your differentiation. You don’t have to convince anybody of your differentiation, it reveals itself to your target audience.

5. This kind of differentiation, that is compelling in such a unique way, can only be achieved through the linguistic consistency you form around your fund.

6. The language an Emerging Manager forms around their fund is the one tool every Manager has in common. And yet, few utilize language to its fullest potential. Human beings are everywhere and anywhere interpreters: we are hermeneutic beings.

7. The way they talk about their investment focus, their personal stories, how they perceive the market, their portfolio construction, the traits they look for in founders, etc. is all marked by this language they have formed.

8. Linguistic consistency sparks the imagination of the LP.

So, where can Emerging Managers begin this path to true differentiation?

The First Step on This Path

I’m not in the business of recipes - especially not in Venture Capital. I don’t like anything that starts with “Here are the 5 Steps to…”

I think Venture Capital is highly nuanced and requires a level of thoughtfulness that is unique to this industry.

Nonetheless, I would like to suggest a general step that most likely any Emerging Manager can take to communicate their differentiation more clearly. And the only reason it can be generally applied is because it is a simple one. Simple, but heavily under-executed: leaning into the name you chose for your fund.

As I have talked with hundreds of Emerging Managers over the past years it has always surprised me why not more Emerging Managers utilize the name they chose for their fund as a vehicle to explain their story, strategy, and differentiation.

Mostly, when you go through picking a name for your company, it is somewhat of a long and strenuous process. Coming up with ‘Embracing Emergence’ took me weeks and I drove my wife crazy numerous times as she was the chosen one who had to go back and forth with me on the different options.

You think about the name for your business so much, because the name has to succinctly communicate what you stand for, why you are unique, and what value you offer.

So, by leaning into your fund name, and by explaining what it stands for, you are reversing the process and starting to unpack most elements the LP wants to learn about your fund anyway. But now the GP is in the unique position where they can show how deeply they thought about everything.

Why Your Fund Name Pitches Your Fund Better Than Your Deck

Here are several reasons why unpacking your fund name to LPs is a better pitch than your deck:

1. It’s the first step to shaping the language around your fund. Language is the number one path to differentiation that very few GPs tread down. Leaning into your fund name is the easiest and first step to shaping a unique language around your fund. It matters because this is the language the LP will use internally to think and talk about your fund - make sure you give them the right words.

2. It communicates your values. Yes, LPs care about your values, because your values are the underlying framework of how you operate and how you pick founders. It’s not about whether or not your values are wrong - it’s simply about understanding how they inform you, so the LP can understand your frameworks.

3. It shows you are commercially minded. Michael, from Allocator One, who anchors first-time managers before anybody else does, emphasizes that the special 3% of GPs are uniquely marked by a commercial mindset. Leading with the name of your fund, shows you are about building a business, not your personal brand. There are few GPs that I associate more with the firm they are building than with themselves personally - that’s a good signal.

4. It communicates thoughtfulness & conviction. How you selected the name of your fund and why shows that you thoughtfully considered your strategy and why you are the right person for the strategy. You clearly came to this strategy with conviction. If you have too much thoughtfulness and low conviction you never get anything done. If you have too much conviction and low thoughtfulness, you’ll execute into the wrong direction. LPs need to underwrite for both.

5. It makes for a better initial conversation than your deck. Most LPs will tell you that they don’t want to go over the deck in their first call with an Emerging Manager. I once surveyed both EMs on LPs on whether or not a deck should be used in the initial conversation. Unpacking your name and the how and why behind it, most likely communicates the basics of your strategy and your background better than 5 slides on your deck.

   Response from EMs:

   

   Response from LPs: