FAQ

What is Embryo's selection criteria?

Stage: We invest in transformative companies at the seed and pre-seed stages, focusing on high-conviction opportunities across the future of health, cities, and living. Our interests span market verticals in consumer, industry, and healthcare sectors, targeting products at various phases—from pre-launch to launched (pre-revenue) and revenue-generating stages.

Geography: We focus on the UK market. In exceptional cases, we will consider opportunities worldwide.

Investment Themes: The future of Health, Cities and Living.

Sector: Our core verticals across the themes of the future Health, Cities and Living spans a broad range of industries in which we invest. We focus on Consumer, Materials, Healthcare and Life Sciences and Frontier Tech.

As VC markets increasingly focus on software opportunities—approximately 30% of total UK venture funding is directed towards Fintech alone —we remain committed to the strong potential of hardware in shaping the future. We believe that not all major global challenges in our cities and ways of living can be solved through an app, nor can every form of diagnosis and treatment across health verticals be effectively delivered through standalone software solutions. With robust experience and expertise in R&D and physical product development, the Embryo team possesses a deep understanding of the needs of founders operating in R&D and IP-intensive hardware companies and is well-positioned to support them.

We do not invest in the industry categories of Energy & Utilities, Real Estate or Telecoms & Media, and we utilise negative or exclusionary screening of companies engaged in activities deemed unethical within sub-categories across the industries that we invest in.

Founders: We team with mission-driven and globally ambitious founders. We look for laser focused strategy and strong competitive advantage in the operational team, technology and timing.

Investment: At Embryo Ventures we back ventures on a case by case basis as a first investor or alongside institutional investors. As we are not currently operating as a venture capital fund we have no time constraints for capital deployment and our operating model allows us to move with unique speed and agility.

SEIS/EIS: We participate in SEIS/EIS eligible opportunities where applicable for UK-based startups.

What is seed stage?

We define seed stage as any funding pre-Series A.

What is the process following pitch deck submission?

A disciplined investment process coupled with a focus on relationships guides our due-diligence approach, allowing us to make investments fast and founder friendly. Our process means that we can deploy capital exceptionally fast.

If we are interested we will contact you directly for an introductory face-to-face meeting or call to dive deeper into your business proposition and establish our fit as an investor.

Due to the volume of opportunities we are presented with, unfortunately we cannot provide feedback to individual ventures pitching to us.

How shall I submit my pitch?

Please submit your materials via our: pitch portal