Built Ventures

Jordan Waring, the firm's Founder and Managing Partner, runs all investment decisions. He built and sold a Liverpool-based SaaS company before establishing the firm, and that operating history directly shapes his underwriting criteria. The firm does not maintain an investment committee with external members or limited partner advisors.

Origination relies heavily on Waring's personal network of founders and operators in the North of England, supplemented by his role as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Liverpool's Management School. This gives the firm a proprietary window into companies emerging from the university ecosystem and the regional startup community before they appear on the radar of larger London-based funds.

It operates in a hybrid space between the two. Technically an asset manager deploying personal capital from a founder exit, Built Ventures does not raise external limited partner funds. In practice, it functions like a concentrated micro-VC, writing first-cheque equity and convertible-note rounds into early-stage technology companies.

The firm targets pre-seed and seed-stage rounds, with cheque sizes typically ranging between £100,000 and £500,000. Waring leads rounds and takes board or observer seats when the structure warrants it. The firm rarely follows on into later-stage institutional rounds beyond a pro-rata allocation.

Sector focus is deliberately narrow: enterprise software, applied artificial intelligence and machine learning, and fintech infrastructure. Geographically, the firm concentrates almost entirely on the Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds corridor, occasionally extending into other Northern cities but avoiding London and the broader Southeast unless a strong syndicate partner, typically a founder Waring backed early and relocated, creates a bridge.

Yes, but selectively. The firm often serves as the first institutional capital into a company and then syndicates subsequent rounds to London-based venture funds. CultureAI is an example — Built Ventures participated at an early stage before the company raised from larger venture capital firms. Waring does not join blind-pool fund commitments or participate in club deals unless they center on a company he already knows through direct relationships.

Padoq, a community-platform business, exited to a US-based strategic acquirer, representing one of Built Ventures' realized returns. The firm's active portfolio includes companies like CultureAI, which has since attracted follow-on funding from name-brand London venture funds. The firm does not publicly disclose a full track record or return multiples.