Your boss is a clever person. They must be. They have a superyacht, for goodness’ sake. And you know how expensive they are in the upkeep. So, where does a clever person like your boss get the money from to keep their yacht running?

Partly, it’ll come from venture capital investments. Money put into start ups your boss and/or their advisers like the look of. Investments that promise high returns… if they come off. That’s the nature of venture capital. Either the investment pays out handsomely or you lose your investment. It’s binary. 1 or 0. No in between.

That’s why your boss invests in a portfolio of venture capital. They know the losses will be made good by the wins, which can be very profitable indeed. Sometimes spectacularly so.

Want some insider info?

Most yachties can’t get into venture capital. Typically, you have to stump up hundreds of thousands to get in the door. That’s too much money and too much risk.

But what if there were a true insider’s way into venture capital for regular crew, allowing them to invest in affordable chunks of a promising start up? That would be good, wouldn’t it?

UK-based Harwell Capital does exactly that. They find rising tech companies and organise venture capital funding rounds made up of £25,000 stakes. They aim to get their money out within 5 years with high returns. Their track record is excellent.

Here are some of the investments on the Harwell books at the moment:

Genesis Technical Systems has tech that can use old, existing copper wire telephone lines to deliver super-fast broadband of up to 400 Mbps. The company is now doing field trials (it’s past the lab trials stage) with 3 big telecoms carriers in the US. A big step towards unlocking the US market and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

Speak, an innovative tech company that unlocks hitherto unused capabilities of your smartphone, has just been asked by Brightstar (the global leader for mobile services) for a worldwide contract rather than just one for the UK. A sign of promise? You bet.

Scredible, which has proprietary artificial intelligence tech for the online education sector, signed new agreements in February with American Express (Amex) and Canon, for a combined value of £225,000 per annum. Negotiations
with HSBC and Old Mutual are also at an advanced stage, meaning Scredible is already exceeding projection targets.

Muso has tech that protects against online piracy. This month they signed a significant new contract initially valued at €277,100 per annum, to provide content protection and audience data analytics services to FIEG (The Italian Federation of Newspaper and Periodical Publishers). This partnership has already opened a door to a larger Italian organisation AIE, who are currently trialling the platform.

Each of these Harwell investments has the potential to pay out big. Or fall flat on its face. But doesn’t just reading about the potential get your heart beating?

Here’s the really useful thing for you to know. We’re on the inside with Harwell. They’re our partners. That means that if you want to be on the inside (if you want to invest in the kind of thing your boss does), we can get you in. We can help you build your own venture capital portfolio.

Is this something you’d like to talk about? Maybe have a look at the next Harwell that comes along? Let us know. We’ll talk you through these investments. And make sure they are right for you. We can get you in, but it’s not necessarily where you need to be. Let’s find out, though: info@yfsol.com.