Firstminute Capital Research
Investment Thesis
Firstminute capital is a $500M AUM seed-stage venture fund founded in 2017 by Brent Hoberman (co-founder of lastminute.com and Made.com) and Spencer Crawley. The firm's stated mission is to be "the home of magnetic ambition" — backing founders whose passion, expertise and maverick thinking attracts top-tier talent who queue up to join the mission. Firstminute positions itself as more than a cheque: it leans on a deep operator and founder community (Founders Forum, Founders Factory) to give portfolio companies access to talent, customer introductions and Series A connections from day one. The firm is explicitly generalist but has built particular depth in vertical AI applications, deep tech, and enterprise software, and describes its role as being the founder's "first call, fiercest champion, and long-term partner on the journey from idea to impact."
Sector Focus
Firstminute is sector agnostic by design but its stated areas of depth, based on team specializations and portfolio composition, span:
- Applied and infrastructure AI / vertical AI applications
- Deep tech, embodied AI, robotics, and industrial automation
- Developer tools and open-source infrastructure
- FinTech and payments infrastructure
- HealthTech and AI-native clinical/administrative tools
- Enterprise software / SaaS
- Climate tech
- Defence and frontier science (via deep tech coverage)
Stage Focus
Firstminute's mandate is strictly Pre-Seed and Seed. The firm states "no stage is too early" and aims to be the first institutional cheque into a company, typically targeting roughly 10% ownership.
Check Size
Typical ticket size is £1M–£3M (roughly $1.25M–$3.75M), deployed at pre-seed or seed.
Lead Tendency
Firstminute frequently leads or co-leads at seed (e.g. Mistral AI, R2 Robotics, Rootline, Capi Money, Corvera), and continues to participate in later follow-on rounds of existing portfolio companies (e.g. Unleash Series B, Frontier Health seed, Intropy seed, Neno seed) alongside new lead investors as the company scales past its earliest round.
Recent Activity
The fund is actively deploying. Since 2025 it has backed or followed on into Neno (€6.6M seed, Aug 2026, alongside AlleyCorp), Intropy (US$11M seed, Jul 2026, led by Felix Capital), Frontier Health ($16M seed, Jun 2026, led by Atomico), and Unleash ($35M Series B, Mar 2026, led by One Peak). The team also published a steady cadence of public "Bullet Thesis" essays and an annual tech-predictions post through 2025-2026, and Adriana Vitagliano and Lorcan Delaney are actively deploying into deep tech, robotics, defence, and applied-AI names such as R2 Robotics, Enact, Minerva, Zymbly (YC W26), and Rectify.
Portfolio Highlights
Firstminute has backed 170+ portfolio companies and states its founders include 130+ unicorn founder backers and that the firm itself has backed 11-12 unicorns at seed, including Wayve (autonomous driving, raised a $1.05B Series C in 2024), Mistral AI (frontier open-source LLM lab), n8n (workflow automation), Storyblok (headless CMS), and Tessl. Notable exits/acquisitions in the portfolio include CyberMDX, Dadi, Floom, Futrli, HeadsUp, NuxtLabs, OTO Systems, Pensight, Quickwit, RightHub, Robocorp, Skew, Syrup, and Umamicart.
Team
- Brent Hoberman — Co-Founder & Managing Partner. Co-founded lastminute.com (sold to Sabre for $1.1bn) and Made.com (IPO'd at $1.1bn valuation); also co-founded Founders Factory and Founders Forum. Awarded a CBE for services to entrepreneurship; has backed nine unicorns at seed personally.
- Spencer Crawley — Co-Founder & Managing Partner. Runs day-to-day management of the firm; ex-Goldman Sachs (Moscow FICC) and DMC Partners; board member at Generation Home and director at NYSE-listed Tailwind International.
- Lina Wenner — Partner, runs the Berlin satellite office covering DACH and the Nordics; portfolio spans health tech, gaming, B2B SaaS, and verticalised AI/ML (Clockwork Labs, EngFlow, Taktile, Xata, Infraspeak, Lindus Health). Ex-BCG.
- Adriana Vitagliano — Partner leading deep tech: embodied AI, industrial tech, frontier science, and defence. Ex-Lakestar, ex-Creator Fund, ex-Diffblue. Works with R2 Robotics, Enact, Minerva, Intropy, Zymbly, Dayhoff Labs, Rectify.
- Lorcan Delaney — Partner leading applied/infrastructure AI, developer tools, fintech, and industrial automation. Ex-Morgan Stanley Technology Investment Banking. Has led investments into Mistral, R2 Robotics, Rootline, Capi Money, Lupa, ClaimSorted, and others.
- Michael Stothard — Partner leading B2B AI (vertical and horizontal), AI infrastructure, consumer/prosumer, and French coverage. Ex-Financial Times foreign correspondent and founding editor of Sifted.eu. Works with Mistral, AMI Labs, Granola, Alecto, Vocca, Maihem, Claimsorted, Nabla, Layla, Teero, Unleash, Mondoo, Revyze, Typology.
- Min Nolan — Chief Operations Officer
- Tim Brierley — Chief Financial Officer
- Ben McCloskey — Financial Controller
- Anaïs Benazet — Head of Community and Events
- Abby Hughes — Operations Manager
- Steve Crossan — Venture Partner
Decision Process
Firstminute operates as a partnership model with a small deal team of named partners (Wenner, Vitagliano, Delaney, Stothard) each owning specific sector coverage, alongside the two managing partners/co-founders who oversee firm strategy and day-to-day operations.
Founder Preferences
Firstminute explicitly seeks "talent magnets" — founders whose passion, expertise, and maverick thinking attract top-tier talent to their mission. Founder testimonials repeatedly emphasize the firm's speed of response (cited as under 5 minutes), willingness to make bold introductions, and hands-on help with cap table restructuring, hiring, and Series A fundraising.
Geographic Focus
Primary focus is the UK and continental Europe, where the firm leads investments to offer boots-on-the-ground support, with a Berlin satellite office covering DACH/Nordics and dedicated French coverage. The firm also selectively backs the best founders in the US and rest-of-world when warranted by a strong founder-first thesis, and roughly a third of the current portfolio is US or RoW-headquartered.