Anthemis Group is attempting to lift $200 million for a 3rd fund, in accordance with an SEC submitting, as first reported by Axios. It has been out there since final yr and has to date secured commitments of simply $36.4 million. The agency individually had to scrap plans to lift a SPAC late final month.
Based in 2010, London-based Anthemis is concentrated on monetary expertise (higher often known as fintech) — a sector which has been laborious hit by the financial downturn and enterprise capital slowdown. The agency in late 2021 introduced that it had raised $700 million in new funds in what a spokesperson described as “a group of capital” it closed “throughout methods” from its enterprise studio via to its enterprise development fund. That assortment of capital was dubbed Anthemis Enterprise Fund II.
The agency beforehand raised $106 million in its first enterprise fund in March of 2018; Anthemis had mentioned it has $1.5 billion in property below administration altogether.
TechCrunch has reached out to Anthemis about its makes an attempt to lift capital for its third fund, and its dissolved SPAC, however had not but heard again on the time of writing.
The brand new fundraising submitting comes simply months after Anthemis laid off 16 folks, or 28% of its employees, as reported by TechCrunch in April. At the moment, a spokesperson for London-based Anthemis informed TechCrunch that the transfer was an effort “to higher mirror present market situations and to arrange the enterprise for future development” towards its “strategic priorities.”
Whereas we’ve got seen some massive funds raised in current months, the market has tightened dramatically for different corporations. Both means, Anthemis just isn’t the one outfit to have needed to retreat from SPAC plans. Many others, together with Acorns, for instance, opted to lift capital as an alternative in 2022. For some time in the course of the bull run, SPACs, also referred to as particular objective acquisition automobiles, have been considered as a great way for operators, in addition to sure VC corporations, to increase the quantity of capital they might put to work. However they’ve plunged in recognition since 2022, after the SEC launched proposed pointers for SPACs, particularly round disclosures, advertising and marketing practices and third-party oversight.
As TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos has beforehand reported, Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced final yr that she was planning a invoice that focused the SPAC business. Referred to as the “SPAC Accountability Act of 2022,” the invoice would broaden the authorized legal responsibility of events concerned in SPAC transactions, shut loopholes that SPACs have “lengthy exploited to make overblown projections” and lock in longer the traders sponsoring a deal.
To date this yr, Anthemis has publicly introduced a number of new investments. together with: Flyby, Elevate (lead investor), Greenspark and Agreena. It additionally introduced a follow-on funding in Flock. The agency has additionally seen a few exits, together with Energy being acquired by Marqeta and Goji getting picked up by Euroclear. Different corporations in its portfolio embrace social funding app eToro, investing and financial savings app Betterment and insurtech Vouch.
Like a rising variety of corporations, Anthemis has additionally seen a few portfolio corporations stumble during the last yr. In November, controversy surrounding the sudden stepping down of three of Pipe’s co-founders, together with its CEO, raised eyebrows. And extra lately, LGBTQ+-focused digital financial institution Daylight was slammed with a lawsuit by three former staff “alleging age and wage discrimination, whistleblower retaliation, and fraud.”