Feedback on Omers Venture & Draper Esprit

I’m well acquainted with both of their investment team.

Both are decent firms and will provide you with a good springboard into UK VC. I think both are fairly opportunistic in their approach, vs predominantly thesis driven. 1)The partners I’ve worked with at Drapers have been more thoughtful and rigorous in their approach. In my limited experience, Omers were lighter touch in their analysis (I’ve heard people in the market refer to them as ‘spray and pray’ - but that’s probably a bit unfair). 2) Drapers has an embedded global network as part of the Draper network. 3) Drapers recent portfolio is probably more impressive: UiPath, Revolut, Transferwise, N26, Graphcore. That being said Omers has also had some major wins with Spotify and others. 4) One thing to bear in mind is that Draper Esprit has quite a different fund structure to most VC funds as it has a publicly traded VCT component and other pockets of capital. This entails certain restrictions. Conversely, Omers is (I believe) entirely funded by its parent - so won’t have to spend huge amounts of entry fundraising.

I think ultimately it’s down to the rapport you have with the teams - but on the basis of prestige and approach Drapers is probably a bit better.

Happy to answer any specific questions.