Investments
67Portfolio Exits
5Funds
2About Early Stage Partners
ESP Early Stage Partners was formed in 2001 with the intent to invest in Midwest technology companies that would be attractive early stage venture capital investment opportunities. The firm currently has $98 million in capital under management. In 2009, Early Stage Partners opened a Michigan office in Ann Arbor. Early Stage Partners is a member of the Ohio Venture Association and the Michigan Venture Capital Association.
Latest Early Stage Partners News
Dec 23, 2019
Submitted 23/12/2019 - 10:40am genesis, an international capital markets software firm has held the closing of its second capital raise, securing USD1.8 million of investment in a round that was led by Illuminate Financial Management, a UK-based capital markets venture capital firm and Tribeca Early Stage Partners, a New York venture group. genesis has now raised USD5 million since its first external capital injection in November 2018. The new funding will be invested in further development of genesis platform’s core technology, sales and marketing to cement genesis’ position as the ‘low-code’ platform for capital markets software development. Across the entire capital markets industry, firms are under continuous pressure to digitise manual and repetitive business processes, as well as address a swathe of industry challenges. These range from meeting wide-reaching regulatory requirements, to the limitations of incumbent vendors and software methodology processes, all while finding ways to increase revenue and reduce operational cost. The genesis platform is a Low-Code Application Platform, built specifically for capital markets, that enables the rapid creation of products and solutions without having to write substantial lines of code. Infrastructure management is minimised and the genesis platform ultimately democratises product design as the coding required is radically reduced, making the development of solutions much faster and much simpler. A unique proposition for the financial services industry, genesis Low-Code Application Platform is the only platform capable of supporting the requirements of capital markets, by building solutions that are highly resilient, scalable and performant. A growing suite of products to serve a wide range of functional areas have already been built, implemented and deployed on genesis’ Low-Code Application Platform— ranging from a new interest rate pricing product, to a credit risk insurance syndicate loan marketplace through to wealth management portfolio structuring and workflow products. Commenting on the funding, Mark Beeston, Managing Partner and Founder of Illuminate Financial Management, says: “Since Illuminate invested in late 2018 genesis has really emerged as the leading provider in the low-code, pro-code movement within capital markets. We see genesis as the industry key to enabling digitisation and the innovation it supports. We are pleased to further support their journey.” Tribeca Early Stage Partners, a US network of entrepreneurs and business leaders with deep domain expertise in institutional finance and enterprise technology joined the investment round. Nick Ogurtsov, Partner at Tribeca Early Stage Partners, adds: “From the first time we met genesis, we felt the real potential to fundamentally re-define the very standards of software development within capital markets. This is exactly what we see genesis doing today, with its low-code platform that creates dramatically faster time-to-market at a much lower cost than traditional software development methods." “We are delighted by the continued investment and support of Illuminate Financial and Tribeca Early Stage Partners. Their investment puts us in a really strong position to continue to grow and lead a critical effort to make low-code application development prevalent across capital markets.” says Stephen Murphy, CEO of genesis. “Low-code has been used widely outside the industry to create applications at speed, and at a drastically reduced cost, although to date these platforms have not been built to support capital markets. We are excited by what we have already achieved both in creating new solutions and products, improving existing solutions and now look forward to bringing genesis Low-Code Application Platform to the capital markets community en masse.” Author Profile
Early Stage Partners Investments
67 Investments
Early Stage Partners has made 67 investments. Their latest investment was in Family Care Path as part of their Series A on July 7, 2019.

Early Stage Partners Investments Activity

Date | Round | Company | Amount | New? | Co-Investors | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
7/26/2019 | Series A | Family Care Path | $0.8M | Yes | 2 | |
9/21/2017 | Unattributed VC - III | Pixel Velocity | $4.34M | Yes | 3 | |
2/8/2017 | Series B | HistoSonics | $8.26M | No | 2 | |
4/13/2016 | Series D | |||||
9/3/2015 | Series D |
Date | 7/26/2019 | 9/21/2017 | 2/8/2017 | 4/13/2016 | 9/3/2015 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Round | Series A | Unattributed VC - III | Series B | Series D | Series D |
Company | Family Care Path | Pixel Velocity | HistoSonics | ||
Amount | $0.8M | $4.34M | $8.26M | ||
New? | Yes | Yes | No | ||
Co-Investors | |||||
Sources | 2 | 3 | 2 |
Early Stage Partners Portfolio Exits
5 Portfolio Exits
Early Stage Partners has 5 portfolio exits. Their latest portfolio exit was Amplifinity on August 20, 2019.
Date | Exit | Companies | Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model. | Acquirer | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
8/20/2019 | Acquired | 1 | |||
Date | 8/20/2019 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Exit | Acquired | ||||
Companies | |||||
Valuation | |||||
Acquirer | |||||
Sources | 1 |
Early Stage Partners Fund History
2 Fund Histories
Early Stage Partners has 2 funds, including Early Stage Partners II LP.
Closing Date | Fund | Fund Type | Status | Amount | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
5/11/2010 | Early Stage Partners II LP | Early-Stage Venture Capital | Closed | $55M | 1 |
9/13/2002 | Early Stage Partners I LP |
Closing Date | 5/11/2010 | 9/13/2002 |
---|---|---|
Fund | Early Stage Partners II LP | Early Stage Partners I LP |
Fund Type | Early-Stage Venture Capital | |
Status | Closed | |
Amount | $55M | |
Sources | 1 |
Early Stage Partners Team
4 Team Members
Early Stage Partners has 4 team members, including current Managing Director, Michael Bunker.
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