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Amadeus Capital Partners
Anne Glover and Hermann Hauser founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 as one of the first UK venture firms to invest exclusively in technology.
Amadeus Capital Partners
Anne Glover and Hermann Hauser founded Amadeus Capital Partners in 1997 as one of the first UK venture firms to invest exclusively in technology. The firm launched with a £50 million debut fund and has since raised over $1.3 billion across six flagship vehicles, most recently the Amadeus V fund in 2018. Hauser’s track record as a founder of Acorn Computers and his deep Cambridge ties gave the firm an early structural advantage in sourcing university spinouts — a pipeline that still defines much of its deal flow today. Amadeus invests from seed through late-stage venture across three thematic pillars it labels Intelligence, Human, and Planet. Intelligence covers AI, advanced computing, cybersecurity, and quantum technologies; Human spans biotech, medtech, and digital health; Planet addresses climate, energy, novel materials, and space utilisation. The portfolio ranges from foundational bets on speech recognition via Entropic in 1998 to recent post-quantum cryptography startup Sitehop in 2024 (per the firm, 2024). Confirmed positions include Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Paragraf, Healx, Riverlane, PolyAI, and Pimloc. In 2023, Amadeus launched the €80 million Amadeus APEX Technology Fund in partnership with APEX Ventures to target European deep-tech seed-stage companies, with a first close of €28 million and an initial investment in space-traffic startup OKAPI:Orbits (per the firm, 2023). The firm operates from offices in Cambridge, London, Oxford, Lausanne, and San Francisco. Amadeus has backed more than 200 companies and recorded 17 IPOs alongside exits to Apple, Broadcom, Illumina, Microsoft, and Worldpay. Its August 2025 milestone was the $1.5 billion acquisition of organ-preservation company OrganOx by Terumo, the largest UK medtech exit on record, realized through the Amadeus Royal Society Enterprise Fund (per the firm, August 2025). The firm actively manages firm-branded funds alongside the APEX co-venture, and maintains a venture partner network that includes Professor Steve Young, whose speech-technology company Entropic was acquired by Microsoft in 1999. What structurally differentiates Amadeus from generic European multi-stage VCs is its embedded architecture for converting academic research into commercial ventures. The firm’s outsized exposure to Cambridge and Oxford ecosystems is not opportunistic but architectural — Hauser’s legacy and the Royal Society Enterprise Fund link Amadeus to university IP pipelines long before standard institutional investors gain access. This model, combined with a fund family that spans pure deep-tech seed (APEX) and later-stage vehicles, lets Amadeus maintain a concentrated posture on frontier technology without diluting its focus across consumer or generalist SaaS.
General information
Firm type
Private Equity
Year founded
1997
AUM
>$1.3 billion raised (per Amadeus Capital Partners, 2026)
Location
Region
Europe
Country
United Kingdom
City
Cambridge
Corporate office
Suite 1 2nd Floor 2 Quayside, Cambridge CB5 8AB, United Kingdom
Additional offices
London, United Kingdom · Oxford, United Kingdom · Lausanne, Switzerland · San Francisco, United States
Principals
Anne Glover
Co-Founder
Hermann Hauser
Co-Founder
Steve Young
Venture Partner
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Amadeus Capital Partners?
Co-founders Anne Glover and Hermann Hauser set the strategic direction, with Glover operating as the firm's CEO. Investment decisions are executed by a partnership group that includes venture partners with deep technical and operating backgrounds — Professor Steve Young, a speech-recognition pioneer and former Cambridge academic, is a named venture partner. The firm has not publicly detailed its full investment committee structure.
How does Amadeus source its deep-tech deal flow?
Amadeus's sourcing model is anchored in the Cambridge and Oxford research ecosystems, leveraging Hermann Hauser's own legacy in Cambridge computing and the firm's Royal Society Enterprise Fund to access university spinouts early. Rather than relying on standard GP inbounds, the firm maintains structural proximity to academic IP through institutional relationships and on-the-ground offices in both university cities.
Is Amadeus a venture capital firm or does it operate more like a family-backed investment platform?
Amadeus is a pure venture capital firm — it manages limited-partner capital across multiple fund vehicles, not a single-family balance sheet. The firm has raised over $1.3 billion from institutional and private investors since 1997 across six flagship funds and a co-venture fund with APEX Ventures, but does not disclose its LP base.
What is the Amadeus APEX Technology Fund, and how does it fit into the overall strategy?
The Amadeus APEX Technology Fund is an €80 million seed-stage vehicle launched in 2023 in partnership with Austrian VC APEX Ventures to target European deep-tech startups. It held a first close of €28 million and made its first investment in space-tech company OKAPI:Orbits (per the firm, 2023). The fund extends Amadeus's reach into earlier-stage, frontier-technology deals while allowing the firm's core funds to focus on seed-to-growth stage investments in the same thematic areas.
Which sectors does Amadeus explicitly avoid?
Amadeus does not publish an explicit exclusion list, but its investment activity and public disclosures show it concentrates almost exclusively on deep technology — AI, quantum, biotech, advanced materials, and climate tech. The firm does not market a presence in consumer internet, enterprise SaaS outside of deep-tech infrastructure, or traditional financial services.
Does Amadeus maintain philanthropic structures, and how are they separated?
There is no evidence Amadeus operates a separate philanthropic foundation, but the Amadeus Royal Society Enterprise Fund functions as a commercially oriented vehicle with strong institutional overlay, linking the firm to the Royal Society's scientific network. It is not a charitable structure; it made one of the most significant medtech exits in UK history with OrganOx.
What is Amadeus's known posture on co-investments alongside external GPs?
Amadeus regularly co-invests alongside other venture firms. The £5 million seed round for post-quantum encryption company Sitehop was co-led by Amadeus in 2024 (per the firm, 2024). The APEX Technology Fund is by design a co-venture with APEX Ventures, and the firm's portfolio shows syndicated rounds across the UK and European deep-tech ecosystems, though it has not disclosed a formal co-investment policy for LPs.
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