Shackleton Ventures

About Shackleton Ventures

Shackleton Ventures is a specialist venture-capital secondaries and direct-secondary investor headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The firm was founded in 2006 and has been operating for nearly two decades, building one of the longer-tenured venture-secondaries franchises in Europe (formerly known as Strathdon Secondaries). The brand draws on the legacy of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, reflected in fund and operational naming such as the Victoria Fund. The firm has made 75 investments to date with portfolio outcomes including two IPOs and 23 acquisitions and over 25 profitable exits, indicating a mature DPI-positive realisation profile. Shackleton currently manages four fund vehicles including Shackleton Secondaries II, SS3, Shackleton Secondaries Victoria and the Victoria Fund. Publicly disclosed assets under management are not stated; estimated platform committed capital sits in the €200 to €300 million range as of December 2024. Shackleton is FCA-authorised with Shackleton Finance Limited acting as the regulated investment manager. The team is intentionally low-profile, drawn from venture, private equity and corporate-finance backgrounds.

Investment thesis

Shackleton Ventures pursues a direct venture secondaries and development-capital strategy buying existing holdings from investors seeking liquidity and frequently providing new funding for companies alongside the secondary purchase, combining single-asset and tail-end LP-secondary buyouts with structured primary co-investment. Sector focus targets companies with potential to accelerate the energy transition, enhance human health or deliver impact through digital transformation, translating to clean-tech and energy-transition, healthcare and medical technology, and enterprise software and digital transformation as the three sector pillars. Geography centres on the UK and Europe with selective US and global exposure. Ticket sizes are typically in the USD 10 to 50 million range per transaction, sized to acquire meaningful stakes (often 5 to 25 percent ownership) in growth-stage and late-venture companies. The firm specialises in markets where team members have experience as investors and entrepreneurs, underscoring an operator-led diligence model. The limited partner base is understood to include UK pension funds, endowments, family offices and high-net-worth investors who value the liquidity and J-curve mitigation properties of a secondaries strategy. Value creation rests on liquidity provision to selling LPs, structured primary capital alongside the secondary and operator-led portfolio support.

Recent activity

Recent investments include Panintelligence in enterprise software and business intelligence (Series B participation, July 2025), Ioniq in fintech and digital banking (2024), IoLight in medical technology and portable microscopy with AI, Mentor Group in enterprise software and sales transformation, Nandi Proteins in food technology and protein functionality and Gorilla Technologies in edge AI and computer vision. Recent exits include Zeotap in customer data platform (2025), Asfordby Haulage and Storage in logistics (2023), Stuarts Properties in commercial property (2023), PAIR Finance in fintech and collections technology (2022), IRT Surveys in housing services and building technology (2022), Tissuemed in medical technology (2021), Exterity in IPTV and digital signage software (2021) and OmPrompt in AI-based SaaS and supply-chain (2021). Detailed buyer names and multiple data available on Pro at €29/month.