Simon Acland: Author

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Simon Acland

Simon Acland’s book of venture capital advice for entrepreneurs, Angels, Dragons and Vultures, draws on the experience of his twenty year career in venture capital.

It is a guide for entrepreneurs to all aspects of venture capital: should you raise venture capital? How do you do it? How does the venture capitalist’s business model work? What should you look out for in the deal? How do you manage the relationship with your investor through to a successful exit?

Simon will be speaking about his book at the British Business Angels Association's annual dinner in Manchester on 13th July. See http://www.earlystageevents.co.uk/.

About Simon Acland

Simon Acland enjoyed a successful 20 year venture capital career. He was Managing Director of Quester, one of the UK’s most active early stage technology investors, when it was sold in 2007. Quester was honoured with many industry awards, including Venture Capital Investor of the Year, Early Stage/Seed Investor of the Year, Exit of the Year and Biotech Exit of the Year. Simon was a long-standing member of the British Venture Capital Association's Technology Committee, and acted as a Director of the British Business Angels’ Association. He has spoken at many industry conferences, such as SuperReturn, SuperInvestor, Red Herring and the UK Technology and Innovation Growth Forum. He has contributed to, and been quoted in, many trade journals and publications including Real Deals, the European Venture Capital Journal and Initiative Europe.

Simon started his working life in 1979 at Merchant Bank Kleinwort Benson. He soon found that established businesses bored him, and he joined the management team of a technology start-up which span out of Imperial College, London, to develop control systems for robots, machine tools and other flexible manufacturing systems.

Raising equity funding for that company gave Simon an insight into the arcane world of venture capital, and in 1986 he crossed over to the dark side to join a focused Information Technology Fund managed by the United Bank of Kuwait. In 1988 he joined Quester, and was instrumental in building it from £10 million to £250 million under management.

Simon has acted as Non-executive Director of over 20 companies in the Quester portfolio. The aggregate Internal Rate of Return generated by these investments is almost 40% per annum, and the average multiple on cost is nearly five times. He has been involved with many successful trade sales and flotations on the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, Easdaq and the Alternative Investment Market; two of the companies he backed entered the FTSE 250. He has also had failures and learned from them. He achieved his outstanding track record through the ups and downs of several economic cycles, including the volcanic eruption of the Internet in the late 1990’s and the ashes it left behind after 2000.

Simon is currently a director of two Venture Capital Trusts managed by Triple Point, Bond Fabrications and Plaxica, a biopolymer spin-out from Imperial College, London, on whose board he represents Carbon Trust Investment Partners and NESTA.