47. How partnering with Williams enables deeptech investing with Andy Bloxam of Foresight

The partnership between Foresight and Williams Advanced Engineering is unique in the EIS and VCT space. Andy Bloxam manages this area for Foresight and he gives us an insight into this unique relationship.

We start off by discussing how the relationship came about, and how it works in practice. We dig into how it has evolved over time, how Foresight and Williams balance their relative strengths and its set up to avoid a extractive relationship.

Given the emphasis on deeptech, we also discuss investing in hardware. We talk about the evolving landscape, how technology is affecting lead times and the challenges of testing markets and first customers in this area. Finally, Andy gives one of the most innovative ideas to improve the EIS and VCT market that we have had on the podcast!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-bloxam/

Foresight website: https://www.foresightgroup.eu/

Foresight Williams website: https://www.foresightwilliams.co.uk/

Suggested book:

Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen

Bio

Andy Bloxam

Director, Private Equity, Foresight Group

Andy joined Foresight’s Private Equity team in 2018 and is a Director in the London office. His primary responsibility is sourcing, making and managing investments on behalf of the Foresight Williams Technology EIS and VCT funds.

Prior to joining Foresight, Andy spent more than 15 years advising and investing in early-stage UK technology companies. Most recently he was a Director at Committed Capital, a tech-focused private equity and advisory firm. Prior to that, he was an Associate at Strata Partners, a tech-focused corporate finance advisor, and previously an investment banking analyst at JPMorgan, as part of the tech M&A team.

Andy holds a BA in Economics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA with distinction from Surrey Business School.