River Capital is delighted to announce the appointment of Martin Sutton as a Venture Partner following the recent launch of its dedicated artificial intelligence fund, fund: AI, the first of its kind in the North.
Martin joins River Capital, having spent the previous six years at Manchester-based AI business PEAK.
As one of the first team members to join Peak in 2016, Martin held positions including Commercial Director, Business Development Director, and Chief Revenue Officer, where he led the global customer organisation and was responsible for sales, customer success and the data science teams.
Prior to Peak Martin spent 20 years working in high growth teams at global tech firms such as Sun Microsystems, Hitachi Data Systems, Fujitsu and Dell EMC.
As Venture Partner, Martin will work with the fund: AI leadership team in enabling early-stage, data focussed businesses to achieve their full potential, raise the fund profile and help consolidate an already healthy pipeline of fund: AI investment prospects.
River Capital is seeking to capitalise on the untapped AI prospects within the North and will look to invest in c 15 AI-driven businesses over the next five years.
Investments are expected to range from £500,000 to £2,000,000 and will focus on two broad categories of AI SMEs. The first comprises businesses seeking capital to accelerate their growth or build out AI platforms. The second includes companies with untapped data sets who wish to use it to create data IP and to go on an AI machine learning or data science journey.
Martin Sutton said:
“This is a dream role for me at River Capital as I’m passionate about helping early-stage AI and data focussed businesses to achieve their full potential.
Coupled with the fact that fund: AI has a laser focus on Northern businesses made this a no brainer for me, as I’ve always believed we have amazing tech firms in the North but they are sometimes overlooked and underserved compared to their London peers.
With fund: AI, and the highly experienced team at River Capital I’m looking forward to addressing the imbalance and making this a thing of the past.
River Capital CEO Mark Borzomato said:
“We are thrilled to welcome Martin to the River Capital team in a Venture Partner capacity following the recent launch of fund: AI, hot on the heels of our recent rebranding and subsequent launch of the Business Growth Loan Fund.
Martin brings extensive knowledge of the AI landscape within the North, and his knowledge of the region’s ecosystem and extensive contacts will ensure we maximise the fund’s full potential.
The AI Machine, Learning and Data Science industry presents fantastic investment opportunities, and securing Martin’s services is a real coup as we look to capitalise upon this.”