Manchester-based venture capital firm Praetura Ventures has appointed a previous Apple executive, a former Team GB swimmer and a CTO as partners.
The trio of new partners at Praetura are Lee Forster, Colin Greene and Andy Barrow. All three also join Praetura’s board.
Before Praetura, Greene worked at Apple for twelve years, holding various roles including the senior director of consumer retail for the US. Greene will manage Praetura’s growth platform.
Speaking to UKTN, Greene, said: “Having been at a company which was once famously described by Steve Jobs as the biggest startup on the planet, I’ve picked up lessons from the highs and lows of trying to build something incredible.”
Forster used to swim for Team GB and founded the supplement subscription service Neat Nutrition in 2015. He will manage Praetura’s health and life sciences investments.
Meanwhile, Barrow was the CTO of cloud business ANS before its sale to Inflexion. He held that role for more than 15 years and began at Praetura last year as an operational partner. Barrow will be in charge of new investment opportunities for tech startups and scaling portfolio companies.
“Between them, they boast a colossal amount of experience across tech, health and the wider life sciences space, and I am incredibly excited to be working with them as partners,” said David Foreman, managing partner at Praetura Ventures.
In addition to the new partners, the VC firm has made Sim Singh-Landa its investment director and appointed Tom Hardman as portfolio director.
In 2022, Praetura Ventures launched its £20m life sciences fund to invest in startups based in Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Warrington.
Greene added: “Having worked in the US, Japan and South Korea, I’m also looking forward to sharing what I’ve learnt about how business is done in other global markets, which aligns with the companies in our portfolio that are planning to scale internationally.”
According to Praetura, last year it invested £30m and grew its portfolio to 33 firms. Among them were Modern Milkman and Placed.