Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. These are high-risk investments and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong.

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Risk summary for non-readily realisable securities which are shares:

Due to the potential for losses, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) considers this investment to be high risk.

Last updated: 01 July 2026

What are the key risks?
  1. 1. You could lose all the money you invest

    If the business you invest in fails, you are likely to lose 100% of the money you invested. Most start-up businesses fail.

  2. 2. You are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong

    Protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), in relation to claims against failed regulated firms, does not cover poor investment performance.

    Try the FSCS Investment Protection Checker

    or use this URL link:

    www.fscs.org.uk/check/investment-protection-checker.


    Protection from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) does not cover poor investment performance. If you have a complaint against an FCA-regulated firm, FOS may be able to consider it.

    Learn more about this service from the following Financial Ombudsman Service Protection

    or use this URL link:

    www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers.

  3. 3. You won’t get your money back quickly

    Even if the business you invest in is successful, it may take several years to get your money back. You are unlikely to be able to sell your investment early.

    The most likely way to get your money back is if the business is bought by another business or lists its shares on an exchange such as the London Stock Exchange. These events are not common.

    If you are investing in a start-up business, you should not expect to get your money back through dividends. Start-up businesses rarely pay these.

  4. 4. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

    Putting all your money into a single business or type of investment, for example, is risky. Spreading your money across different investments makes you less dependent on anyone to do well.

    A good rule of thumb is not to invest more than 10% of your money in high-risk investments.

    Read more at the FCA InvestSmart Guide

    or use this URL link:

    www.fca.org.uk/investsmart/5-questions-ask-you-invest

    5. The value of your investment can be reduced

    Putting all your money into a single business or type of investment, for example, is risky. Spreading your money across different investments makes you less dependent on anyone to do well.

    The percentage of the business that you own will decrease if the business issues more shares. This could mean that the value of your investment reduces, depending on how much the business grows. Most start-up businesses issue multiple rounds of shares.

    These new shares could have additional rights that your shares don’t have, such as the right to receive a fixed dividend, which could further reduce your chances of getting a return on your investment.

    If you are interested in learning more about how to protect yourself, visit the FCA website:

    FCA InvestSmart

    or use this URL link:

    www.fca.org.uk/investsmart.

    Please find the PDF version of the Risk Summary.

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Every deck read. Every score explained.

DealsFlow scores every company that reaches you against your fund's own past decisions, and shows its working. Your partners still decide.

 

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What you get

Every inbound deck read, scored and ranked.

Calibrated to your decisions, not a generic benchmark.

Partner-ready briefs instead of an inbox.

Every score traceable back to its reasoning.

Your data stays yours.

From inbox to investment committee.

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1 SCREENING

Decks, founder notes, referrals and market context arrive in one structured entry point rather than four inboxes and a shared drive.

Your fit rules run first, filtering by thesis, geography, stage and ticket size before partner attention is spent on anything. What remains is scored against twenty to forty weighted features drawn from your own history.

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“I no longer wonder what was in the decks we never got to.”

Sam Kremer, British Design Fund

2 Partner Review

The companies that survive screening arrive with summary notes, diligence prompts and comparable outcomes, in the same format every time, so partners compare like with like.

Every score shows its feature contribution: what drove it up, what held it down. There is no black box and no unexplained recommendation, which matters when an investment committee asks why a company was promoted or dropped.

The platform ranks and explains. Your partners decide. That division is deliberate and it does not move.

3 Portfolio Monitoring

Screening is only the first half. Once a company is in the portfolio, DealsFlow aggregates data from your holdings into a single operating view, rather than a quarterly scramble across a dozen sources.


Early warning signals surface while there is still time to act, and the same records feed your investor reporting cycle.

DealsFlow is a Sapphire product, built by the Sapphire team and developed with British Design Fund, Velocity Capital and The SideBySide Partnership. It is charged separately from Sapphire's fund management fees.

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“Sapphire has been the cornerstone of our investment operations." Mark Pearson, Fuel Ventures

property funds

Set up a property fund with Sapphire. Sapphire will collaborate with you in setting up the traditional "LP/GP" structure for a property fund. LPs are the limited partners who invest in the fund, and the GP is the General Partner.

In addition to this, Sapphire is authorised to manage & operate Exempt Property/ Exempt Property Unit Trust ("EPUT") structure. 

An indirect property investment means that the investor subscribes to shares in a company that, in turn, invests in properties. Through property funds, investors, therefore, have the opportunity to invest relatively small amounts in large-volume properties by way of professional fund companies. 

The machine screens. You still decide.

Who Does What

The first question everyone asks is whether they are handing judgement to an algorithm. The straight answer: no. DealsFlow does the reading and the ranking. Every investment decision stays where it belongs.

1 Screening

DealsFlow reads every inbound deck, applies your fit rules, and scores each company against twenty to forty weighted features drawn from your own decisions.

2 Judgement

The platform ranks and explains. It does not decide, recommend a commitment, or replace an investment committee.

3 Evidence

Each score carries an audit trail showing the reasoning, the sources and the model version used, so any decision can be reconstructed months later.

How it works

The second question everyone asks is how it learns what you want.

 

1 A conversation. Fifteen minutes to understand your thesis, your stage and how much comes in.

2 Calibration. We train the model on your own memos, decisions and outcomes, so it reflects your investment style rather than a market average.

3 Capture. Decks, referrals and founder notes arrive in one structured entry point.

4 Screening. Your fit rules run first, then every remaining company is scored and explained.

5 Review. The strongest opportunities reach your partners with briefs, comparables and visible reasoning.

6 Learning. Every outcome feeds back, so the process sharpens with each memo and each decision.

Roughly three per cent of inbound companies reach partner review, depending on how tightly you set your rules. The rest are dealt with consistently, and you can see why.

Funds that helped build it.

DealsFlow was developed with British Design Fund, Velocity Capital and The Side by Side Partnership, all of which had the same problem and none of which was satisfied with the tools that existed. It is used across a number of the funds Sapphire manages and is available to funds we do not.

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Start with a conversation.

Fifteen minutes with Ming Ze Tang, who leads DealsFlow. Bring your thesis and a sense of how much comes in, and we will show you what the platform would do with it, and what it would cost.

 

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