West Hill Capital Research
Investment Thesis
West Hill Capital is a London-based private equity and venture capital firm, founded in 2013 by Robert Forbes Caie, David Hollidge and Mark Hickson as the direct-investment arm of West Hill Corporate Finance (founded 2003 by Alan Richards and Andrew Galloway). West Hill sources and structures capital raisings of roughly £1-30 million for high-growth UK and European technology and financial services businesses, drawing on a corporate finance network built over three decades that has advised on more than £20 billion of transactions, including the $1.7bn KKR-sponsored MBO of Willis and the £889m public-to-private acquisition of Brit Insurance. Rather than running a single blind-pool fund, West Hill operates a deal-by-deal EIS/SEIS syndication model: the firm identifies opportunities from its proprietary network, negotiates terms, produces an AIM-standard Private Offer Document, and syndicates the round to a base of institutional and private investors alongside its own principals, who invest personally on the same terms.
Sector Focus
West Hill is a sector generalist across technology and financial services rather than a single-vertical fund. Recurring themes in the portfolio include cybersecurity and data analytics (Humio, SafeToNet), digital health and medtech (TestCard, Visionable, Intelligent Lilli, Neurescue, TracInnovations, Ossiform, Norlase), climate and deep-tech hardware (Clean Power Hydrogen, Windar Photonics, Atlant3D Nanosystems, Algiecel, Unibio), fintech and financial infrastructure (Instinct Digital, Tiller, FreemarketFX, The Mortgage Lender, Quotall), specialty insurance and MGAs (SOBC Holdings, Pardus Underwriting, Coastal Marine Asia, Qlaims), and regtech/compliance software (Formalize, Whistleblower Software). Common selection criteria per the firm's own materials: innovative products with a genuine USP and global application, significant scalability, strong IP, credible management with skin in the game, recurring-revenue potential, and EIS-qualifying status.
Stage Focus & Check Size
West Hill typically writes checks of roughly £1-20 million (up to £30m per some deal descriptions), spanning seed/EIS rounds through growth and pre-IPO rounds. Investments are structured as equity, debt, or combined instruments, and the firm frequently reserves capital for follow-on rounds in existing portfolio companies.
Lead Tendency
Mixed. West Hill originates and structures many rounds itself (acting as lead), but also frequently co-invests alongside corporates and institutional investors such as Sumitomo, Aviva Ventures, Breed Reply, Hyundai Ventures, Baird Capital, BlackFin Capital Partners, and the European Investment Bank.
Recent Activity
The firm has been active through 2024-2025: Formalize raised a €30m round in November 2025 with a partial exit for early West Hill investors (6x return); Brown & Brown acquired portfolio company Pardus in October 2025, delivering a cash exit of up to 4x; SafeToNet partnered with HMD Global in March 2025 to embed its AI safety technology in smartphones; and Norlase raised €20m in venture debt from the EIB in February 2025.
Portfolio Highlights
Notable exits and markups include Humio (acquired by CrowdStrike for $400m, 17.5x return for West Hill investors), Clean Power Hydrogen (22.5x uplift at IPO), Unibio (30x uplift for early investors as SIIG invested $70m), Premium Credit (10x return), and Willis (KKR take-private, 10x+ return for investors in the underlying deal). Over the years the firm has deployed around £600m of capital across more than 60 companies.
Team & Decision Process
Investment decisions run through a partnership of six partners (three from the West Hill Capital VC side: Robert Forbes Caie, David Hollidge, Mark Hickson; three from West Hill Corporate Finance: Alan Richards, Andrew Galloway, Edward Williams), supported by a deal team of directors, associates and operations staff. Partners routinely take non-executive board seats or shareholder-representative roles in investee companies as part of the firm's monitoring and reporting process.
Founder Preferences
West Hill looks for management teams with a demonstrable track record, technical or IP differentiation, and meaningful personal financial commitment ("skin in the game"), often backing known or previously successful entrepreneurs.
Geographic Focus
Primarily the UK, with a meaningful share of the portfolio in continental Europe, especially Denmark (Norlase, TracInnovations, Ossiform, Whistleblower Software) and other Nordic/European deep-tech and medtech hubs.