City veteran Martin Gilbert has vowed he will “never” sell his shares in fintech Revolut as he invests in a new fund aimed at buying stock from employees of fast-growing technology firms globally.
Gilbert, who is chair of London-based Revolut, is backing the LTC Invest fund V with two other entrepreneurs, contributing a combined $20mn, according to people familiar with the situation.
The fund will snap up stock in established tech companies from existing shareholders — such as fintech staff who took shares in their company — who are keen to sell, according to an investor presentation seen by the Financial Times.
But this could rule out highly valued companies such as Revolut, which secured a $45bn valuation at the end of last year, making it one of the most valuable fintech companies in Europe.
Gilbert told the FT in response: “I’ve no intention of ever selling my Revolut shares.”
Early Revolut investors and employees offloaded nearly $1bn worth of stock in a series of secondary share sales throughout the second half of last year. New buyers who sought exposure to the fintech included wealthy Goldman Sachs clients and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund Mubadala.
The presentation said that hundreds of billions of dollars “are locked in late stage technology companies” that had “fractured, multi-layered ownership”, with limited options for investors seeking to cash in their stake and exit.
The fund is being launched by the London Technology Club, a network of wealthy investors, entrepreneurs and institutions, with Gilbert’s backing, with a view to raising $250mn to invest. One of LTC Invest’s existing funds is a backer of Revolut.
LTC Invest, an offshoot of the technology club, is in the process of seeking regulatory approval as an investment manager for further fund launches, according to people familiar with the situation. Martin Gilbert will join the board of LTC Invest as chair of the investment committee, the people added.
The firm is led by Konstantin Sidorov, founder of the LTC network, and Denis Blank as chief investment officer. Blank reportedly left his job at Greek billionaire Maria Angelicoussis’s private investment firm in 2023 over a pay dispute, and formerly worked at Hermitage Capital, the investment fund co-founded by Bill Browder. Blank declined to comment.
According to LTC Invest’s presentation, start-ups backed by venture capital, rather than private equity, lack “any meaningful secondary market specialist buyers,” making it difficult for existing investors to exit.
It said that while firms backed by private equity companies were generally majority owned by one investor, companies backed by venture capital were usually owned by dozens, if not hundreds, of individual investors, who had their own need to sell stock at certain points.
The presentation noted that this “mismatch of supply of secondary shares and lack of dedicated capital” has created an opportunity to buy shares in late-stage technology companies at “distressed valuations”.