The three partners behind the fund – Simon Murdoch, Damien Lane and Adrian Lloyd – are experienced entrepreneurs and investors, and have been through every stage of the start-up process, from inception to initial public offering.
It was created with a mixture of public and private money, including backing from Alex Chesterman of Zoopla Property Group.
[2] The government's Business Secretary Vince Cable endorsed the launch of the fund, saying it 'will target a serious gap in the equity market for high-growth small firms'.
[citation needed] The team at Episode 1 made early investments in a number of technology businesses including Betfair (which is now listed on the London Stock Exchange and has a market cap of over £1.3 billion), LoveFilm (which was sold to Amazon.com in 2011), Natural Motion (which was sold to Zynga in 2014), ScanSafe (which was sold to Cisco Systems in 2009), Shazam and Zoopla (which is also listed on the London Stock Exchange).
[4] Two of the three partners – Simon Murdoch and Damien Lane – previously worked at Octopus Investments.