Please contact enquiries@kingsburyventures.com for more information.

Nick Kingsbury Appointed Chairman

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:23:20 +0100

Accumuli plc today announced the appointment of Nick Kingsbury as Non-Executive Chairman of the Company.

Accumuli, quoted on AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, is a managed security services provider . The company provides multi layered security services that protect customers' networks and their users from targeted assaults on resources and data.

Using leading edge technologies, Accumuli have created solutions that can identify irregular patterns and lead to disruption and financial loss. The company delivers a full range of capabilities that ensure the successful deployment of advanced security solutions from inception to a fully managed support service.

C5 Capital

Thu, 1 Sep 2011 12:04:23 +0100

Nick Kingsbury has joined the newly formed C5 team, headed by Christina McComb, also from 3i. His role is as part-time Venture Partner, setting strategy and sourcing investment opportunities. Other team members are Barry Knight and Christopher Hay, see web site for details.

C5’s investment strategy is to support private companies developing novel and innovative solutions to problems faced by companies, governments and citizens as a result of a growing range of complex threats.

By focusing investment on niche sectors that mitigate risk and protect assets and lives – such as cyber security, biometrics, detection and communications – C5 will be at the forefront of global trends and developments.

YooDoo CLOSES Top-Up Round

Thu, 2 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

YooDoo Media Limited (formerly Beermat Entrepreneur Limited) completed a top-up investment round over the summer. This was followed in December by the formal launch of the YooDoo.biz website, the site had been in beta since March 2010. The company has also partnered with Lloyds Bank as a funding partner for entrepreneurs who go through the YooDoo process to build the skills and knowledge of how to run a business.

Board member and author Mike Southon also published a new book entitled This is How YooDoo it, with contributions from many successful entrepreneurs. (Proceeds from book sales go to the Princes Trust.)

The company is also pursuing other market opportunities with its video driven training platform.

Pictured are Nick Saalfeld and Tony Heywood, founders of the business. Nick Kingsbury is also a board member.

Cortexica wins Techcrunch award

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:03:43 +0100

Cortexica, chaired by Nick Kingsbury, is a bio-inspired image recognition business spun out of Imperial College London in February 2009. After six and a half years of research into “human visual cortex”, to understand how humans see – and two years building algorithms and computer models which can accurately mimic human visual recognition – Cortexica is now going live. It’s Visual Search API is now in closed beta, which developers can request access to by emailing api@cortexica.com
One of the first uses of Cortexica’s image system will be seen in the (now live) WINEfindr iPhone app, which claims to be the “world’s first visual search enabled price comparison wine app”. Essentially, users can take a picture of a bottle of wine and WINEfindr returns multiple results so the prices of different retailers can be compared and a whole host of data.
Founder and CEO Steve Semenzato said in his pitch to the Techcrunch GeeknRolla’s first start-up panel of the day: “Where visual search has been in the past, we have taken pictures with phones but now we’re starting to see just how our phones can relate to the label on a product… and we want to expand the horizons of what you can do with this.”
See link

2009 GSC Cyber Security Competition WINNER: KSPLICE

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:24:16 +0000

Cyber security has become the new frontier in the security and defence world.
Therefore, the GSC sought out the world's most creative innovators and start-ups to help responding to these mounting challenges in cyber security. The winners of this year's Cyber Security Challenge, Ksplice, received cash prizes and also mentorship by Nick Kingsbury of Kingsbury Ventures. Nick is seen above presenting the award to Wassem Daher, CEO of Ksplice, at the Global Security Challenge summit in November 2009.
Ksplice, an enterprise software company offering to make systems more secure, reliable, and maintainable through seamless updates, was named the winner of the 2009 Cyber Security Challenge, a competition run by the Global Security Challenge based in London. See www.ksplice.com

The Cyber Security Challenge aims to recognize the world’s best startups responding to mounting challenges in cyber security, the new frontier in the security and defense world. The competition is sponsored by BAE Systems, a leading defense and aerospace company.
Ksplice’s Chief Operating Officer, Waseem Daher, said, “We are honored at the enthusiastic response to our product. Ksplice solves a major security problem by making it possible to apply updates to running software without restarting it. We thank the Global Security Challenge for creating valuable opportunities for promising security companies, and BAE Systems for sponsoring the Cyber Security Challenge.”

See link for more details.

BAE Systems are sponsoring the Cyber Security Challenge through their Investment in Innovation team:
Targeted Technologies: Examples of our areas of interest include data protection, user authentication, penetration testing, network protection, spam-prevention, anti-malware, identification of data theft, detection of dormant threats on corporate servers, tackling of identity theft on the internet and defences for virtualised computing resources.

Imperial Innovations INCREASES INVESTMENT IN Cortexica

Mon, 3 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Cortexica is a new software company based on the research of Dr Anil Bharath and Dr Jeffrey Ng from the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London.
The inventors have been studying the way the human brain analyses visual information and have replicated this in the Cortexica technology which imitates human visual behaviour.
Although potential applications for the technology are diverse, Cortexica is focussing initially on supplying services to brand management and marketing agencies. Cortexica’s solution will continuously monitor both broadcast and online video sources, measuring the number of times a brand appears in each video stream and for how long it appears. Measurements can also include a ”perceptual” weighting based on the focus of human visual attention.
Having passed a number of milestones the company closed the second round funding.
The company also recently demonstrated it’s iPhone “WineFinder” app. Click here

Nick Kingsbury, Chairman of Cortexica, commented, “We are delighted to have the continuing support of Imperial Innovations to further the development of the market for this exciting technology.”
See: www.cortexica.com

Objective Acquires Limehouse

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Leading enterprise content management company, Objective Corporation
Limited today announced the acquisition of Limehouse Software Limited.
Limehouse is a market leader in collaborative content creation, publishing
and stakeholder consultation solutions for local government in the United
Kingdom and has an emerging presence in North America.

Objective has acquired 100% of the issued capital of Limehouse for £3.18 m,
with an additional performance-based earn-out of up to £1.42 m contingent
on achieving FY2010 benchmark results.

Limehouse’s full year revenues to 30 June 2009 are expected to be in the
range of £3 to £3.5m. The acquisition is expected to be earnings per share
positive and will be funded from existing cash reserves and new facilities.

The acquisition extends Objective’s market share and capability in the Public
Sector market, where its products help customers improve the efficiency of
their operations and record keeping obligations. Limehouse has over 250
customers, including approximately 200 in the United Kingdom local
government sector and over 35 in North America.

Objective Corporation is a publicly quoted company on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX, ticker OCL).

Nick Kingsbury advised the buyer, Objective Corporation Limited, for whom he also serves as a director.

See full release
See also report by Ovum Group

Opinion: Venture Capital Post the Crunch

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

January 2009
So we have all moved our savings to that sock under the mattress, and the governments seem to have at least stabilised the situation for the time being. What now for Venture Capital in the UK ?
Given that he crisis has in fact been playing out slowly for well over a year, it is surprising perhaps that the rate of venture investing in Europe is still almost at an all time high, tracking 2007’s record performance closely. See the light blue dotted line on graph. Indeed according to the EVCA Q2 2008 in fact saw a dramatic rise in Europe of early stage funding. In the US again Q3 2008 is at the levels of 2007.

I can’t see how this will continue and we should expect that the 2008 line will end up below 2007, and first half of 2009 will be quiet to say the least, though shortage of bank debt funding may drive some deals.

For he VCs themselves, fund raising will be harder, and there are signs that capital inflow is slowing, is the US Q2 fund raising by VCs was 6% down and into 26% less funds in a flight to quality. If you are a debut fund, forget it. (See NVCA report)

VC are rightly concerned about their portfolios, and their ability to raise further syndicated rounds in the next year.In July this year Sequoia Capital called in all its portfolio CEOs and gave its “RIP Good Times” presentation setting out a pessimistic scenario for the economy in general and for VC based companies in particular.

While the tone is very negative, partly to make the point there is good advice here. For later stage companies assume it batten down the hatches time; cut now and cut deep and avoid the “death spiral” of cutting too late and too little (red line on graph).

Exiting over the next 12 months looks unattractive, firstly valuations will be under pressure to say the least, and also the acquirers will be trying to re-set strategy regularly which means that completing deals will be harder.

For early stage companies a sober reassessment of strategy is necessary. A few should frankly pack up, some should slow the burn dramatically. For others if you can see a clear path to profit and your target customers are showing you now that they are buying your proposition, then be cautious about increasing spend, but there is no reason to panic.

Key takeaways:

- Deal cycle times will lengthen.
- Many VCs will sit firmly on their hands, though may appear to be active still. Ask what other deals they have done recently and are likely to do. In the UK worth talking to government funded VCs such as MMC, Northstar, NESTA and London Technology Fund
- Pricing will be lower. There’s a surprise!
- Look very carefully at the market your company addresses; how is this being affected. Be realistic and be prepared for very close scrutiny.
- Smart VCs will still invest and will look back on these carefully selected deals as pearls.
- Make the cash you have last longer and grab what funding you can get now; don’t worry so much about valuation. The next round may never be.
- While the general trend for UK VCs has been to move to later stage deals, this ought to be the time to invest in earlier stage companies at a lower valuation that can spend the next 12 months building the proposition ready for an upturn in the general market in 12 to 18 months.
- Remember, revenue is for vanity, profit for sanity, and certainly cash is now king.

Nick Kingsbury
10 November 2008

For further reading:
- GP Bullhound also produced an excellent report in April this year; click here)
- Go4Venture web site.
- Library House reports a similar trend - click here.,
- NVCA Report on Q3 2008

All trademarks acknowledged.

Copyright (c) Kingsbury Ventures Limited 2008

Security and Resilience Conference - 19/1/2009

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:57:07 +0000

For a copy of the presentation click Kingsbury-SITC-19Jan09.pdf.
(To download, right click, then save)

Global Security Challenge - Finals

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:00:11 +0000

LONDON, UK, 13 November 2008 – The judging is now over and the winner is ....
TRX Systems, a US based company with technology to track people and moving objects in closed spaces.
Nick Kingsbury was a panellist, discussing the funding market for early stage security technology companies. Other speakers included :
- Dr John Reid, former UK Home and Defence Secretary
- Christopher Darby, CEO InQTel
- Jeff David - Deputy Director, TSWG, U.S. Department of Defense
- Stephen Bonner - Group Head, Information Risk Management, Barclays
- Mike Chalfen - General Partner, Advent Venture Partners
- Dr. Alastair MacWillson - Global Managing Partner of Global Security Practice, Accenture
- Jon Wills - Security & Resilience Programmes Director, BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies

The purpose of this annual competition is to help young startups and ideas succeed in the security field. The winners of the this year's Challenge will receive $500,000 cash-grant to be used to further develop the startup company. The grant is sponsored by TSWG of US Government.
For more information see www.globalsecuritychallenge.com.