The London private equity firm that has an ex-Goldman Sachs partner to thank
There are few investments that you could realistically call 'the deal of the century' but a pre-seed investment in digibank Revolut is a serious contender. VC firm Balderton Capital did just that in 2015, turning a £1m investment into billions, and there's one person in particular that it has to thank.
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The FT reported this week that Tim Bunting, a former Goldman Sachs partner, sourced the Revolut investment for Balderton. Balderton joined the VC back in 2007 after 18 years at Goldman, where he was most notably vice chairman of its European business, Goldman Sachs International.
Bunting participated in other Balderton successes too. Balderton's website says he was involved in a 2014 series B investment in payments fintech GoCardless at an undisclosed valuation; it ballooned in value to $2.1bn in 2022 but was recently acquired by another fintech, Mollie, for ~$1.1bn.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps given his successes, Bunting has retired from Balderton. Bunting was one of the partners in Balderton's LLP between 2007 and 2021, which meant he was a part of its seemingly lucrative profit sharing scheme. Accounts via Companies House show that, in 2015, (the year Balderton invested in Revolut) it paid an average of £945k each to its seven members via profit sharing. The highest paid member, presumably managing partner Bernard Liautaud, earned £2.7m that year, which meant the average pay for partners excluding him was closer to £656k. In 2021, Bunting's last year as a partner, Balderton paid an average of £1.43m to its members, excluding the highest paid one.
Bunting and Balderton Capital did not respond to a request for comment.
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