Techstart Ventures

Techstart Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm founded in 2014 and based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that backs the most ambitious entrepreneurial founding teams across Northern Ireland and Scotland. It invests from inception to pre-seed stage, writing first cheques of up to £750k with capacity for follow-on, and looks for exceptional founders pursuing uncapped global opportunities from a base in either region, willing to lead rounds. The firm manages around £50m of equity funds alongside a £4.5m proof-of-concept grant fund; in Scotland it runs the Scottish Growth Scheme Techstart Ventures Equity Finance LP, financed with support from the Scottish Government and the European Regional Development Fund, building on its earlier track record of backing 44 seed-stage technology companies in Northern Ireland. Techstart is unusually open to cold inbound and places heavy weight on founder references from companies it has already backed. Its team of roughly ten includes partners Mark Hogarth, Hal Wilson and Jamie Andrews, spanning venture investing, biotech and technology commercialization, and investment strategy. Across its funds it has backed roughly 118 companies over more than a decade, averaging seven to eight new investments a year across software, SaaS, enterprise software, fintech and biotech. Notable portfolio companies include Cloudsmith, a Belfast-founded cloud-native software supply chain security and package management platform; Raylo, a gadget lease-and-reuse fintech; and Neurovalens. A recent portfolio exit was Loveelectric, acquired by Perkbox in December 2025. By anchoring itself in Northern Ireland and Scotland and backing founders from inception, Techstart fuels two underserved regional ecosystems.