The logic is simple: you can be as thorough as you like with your due diligence or portfolio strategies – in the end, none of this will help you to reach attractive investment returns if your process is flawed from the very beginning. If the selection process was carried out poorly, then you will most probably either lose some money or lose a lot of money. You will lose some money if you find out in the course of due diligence that your target is not really a target. You may lose a lot of money, however, if you find out after the investment has been made that your portfolio company is unlikely to succeed. Thus, the process of deal sourcing and the screening process are of utmost importance. Let’s get started!

Chapter 5 opens with a White House ceremony in which the President of the United States presented five astronauts with the Lloyd’s Silver Medal for Meritorious Service in 1984. The British Ambassador deemed the ceremony ‘a brilliant stroke of public relations genius’ by Lloyd’s after it had successfully commissioned a space odyssey – at a cost of $180m – to rei two rogue space satellites. The event exemplified Lloyd’s pioneering spirit and leading edge in world insurance, signified it was a major force in the United States and hinted at Lloyd’s influence with government. This chapter’s ethnographic approach highlights tensions between tradition and modernity at Lloyd’s and show how beliefs, meanings and historic memory impacted modern business practices. Lloyd’s skilfully navigated Thatcherism, demanding government support and recruiting from government on the one hand and resisting government interventions on the other. Relationships with the British Embassy and the UK Treasury were successfully exploited when Lloyd’s strove to retain beneficial trading arrangements with the US to the relative detriment of US domestic companies. State intervention in, and protection of, markets extended to the ‘Reconstruction and Renewal’ of Lloyd’s in the 1990s, which amounted to an early example of a networked rescue package for an institution too big to fail. Challenging vested interests and ending restrictive practices is a hallmark of neoliberalism long associated with Thatcherism. Yet, by demonstrating government pragmatism, classical forms of governance, and the failure to disrupt privileged interests and restrictive practices, this chapter disrupts traditional understandings of Thatcherism and neoliberalism.

This chapter traces the Bank’s concerns and detailed planning, both in its own capacity and as tasked by the Government, throughout the Stock Exchange reform period. Overwhelming evidence that reforms emanated from the Government and Bank challenge the notion that the Big Bang was the ‘unintended consequence’ of government action and, indeed, the Bank’s official position, designed to carry the market, that reforms were practitioner-led. In the face of change, the Bank’s overriding aim was to maintain a central stock market, controlled and regulated by the authorities. Ensuring the Stock Exchange built and controlled the market’s electronic hardware and software was a means to this end, and guarded against fragmented, unruly markets. Ultimately, prudential regulation was sacrosanct whereas precise trading arrangements and even foreign ownership of firms were not. Control of the central market outweighed later stated objectives of attracting international capital and strengthening London as a world financial centre. Indeed, it was only after reforms had been agreed in principle that the Bank turned its attention to the impact of international capital and foreign competition on the City. An evolving awareness of the likely impact of reforms on British firms, stark choices and interventions to protect British interests show that then, far from embracing international capitalism, the Bank sought to protect national interests, often imperceptibly through the exercise of soft power. In the end, protectionism proved insufficient, but revealing intent challenges the ‘death of gentlemanly capitalism’ thesis which claims the authorities betrayed the City by not protecting it.

This chapter addresses ESG (environmental, social, and governance) requirements as they affect privately held investments. ESG has a complex and lengthy history in financial markets, stretching back to 2004, when the UN Global Compact published a report titled Who Cares Wins.

This landmark report called for the ‘better inclusion of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions’ as investors, companies, regulators, and policymakers sought to grapple with a changing world shaped by a looming climate crisis, rampant social issues, and structural economic concerns.

This chapter explores deep tech investing, a field gaining traction for its pivotal role in developing pioneering academic research into impactful, widely adopted technologies responsible for driving social change, such as the microwave, RNA vaccines, mobile phones, and batteries.

Deep tech companies are characterized by extended periods of development due to the complex nature of their R&D efforts, often resulting in highly defensible differentiation of their product or service. A relevant aspect for both deep tech founders and investors that we will address is a checklist of possible business model challenges that need to be anticipated.