Fife investment firm with Guinness world record cyclist on team gears up for funding drive

Eos Advisory, the Fife investment firm whose senior ranks include record-breaking endurance cyclist Mark Beaumont, is gearing up to invest millions of pounds in Scottish science and tech businesses after closing its latest funding round.

Jill Arnold, Anne Muir, Calum Keddie, Rob Halliday and Ana Stewart of Eos. Picture: Stewart Attwood

St Andrews-based Eos has also grown its headcount to 11 with a number of high-level executive appointments aimed at supporting the firm’s growing portfolio, which now totals 18 companies. Anne Muir joins the firm as director of portfolio from the University of Dundee, while Rob Halliday joins the investment outfit as investment director from SIS Ventures where he was a senior investment manager.

They join recent recruits Jill Arnold, the former head of SIS Ventures, who is now investment relationship director at Eos, and Calum Keddie, investment executive at Eos, who began his career on Rolls-Royce’s commercial graduate programme before taking up a financial analyst role with banking giant ING.

The hires come as Eos completes the third annual close of the Eos Innovation Fund (EIS), which is the cornerstone of the firm’s investment model, enabling it to invest £15 million to £20m million per annum at the seed stage. Eos, which invests into predominantly Scottish science and technology companies that are addressing key global issues, recently returned a double-digit return to investors from portfolio company Enough (previously 3F Bio), the first of two exits during the fourth quarter.

Beaumont, who is a partner at Eos, which was founded in 2014, said: “The Eos Innovation Fund has allowed us to work with individual investors, companies and family offices in a way we couldn’t when we only operated as an angel group. The concept of an annual subscription gives us far greater certainty in access to capital and allows our investors to have a long term stake in a portfolio of highly impactful and high potential companies, all focused on areas of sustainability and quality of life.”

The firm’s portfolio includes Bioliberty, Cumulus Oncology, Laverock Therapeutics and Novosound. In June, Eos announced that British Business Investments, a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, will commit up to £10m to the firm via its regional angels programme. The funding will be allocated to invest alongside Eos’s angel syndicate and EIS Innovation Fund.A purpose greater than winning is key to success - Mark Beaumont