Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky to launch new VC fund that will “disrupt” the venture world

The billionaire co-founder of super app Revolut Nik Storonsky is branching out to launch his own venture fund powered by artificial intelligence.

Storonsky, alongside other investors, is driving around $200m into Quantum Light Capital, according to Forbes, which is set to compete with “legacy” capital investors.

The company, currently in stealth mode, describes itself as “the investment firm built as a technology company by a team of tech unicorn founders, quant traders, AI scientists and engineers”.

Before founding the UK’s most valuable fintech alongside Vladyslav Yatsenko in 2015, Storonsky worked as an equity derivatives trader at Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse where he used machine learning to identify promising Series B and C startups.

“Based on my experience as an entrepreneur for the last eight years I found VCs’ product pretty frustrating,” Storonsky told Forbes.

“In the bad times no one wants to invest, in the good times they all want to invest — so the lessons were that VCs are pretty unstable and there is some element of crowd mentality.”

Storonsky has previously made angel investments in Swedish fintech Tink, and French digital health company Alan.

With a team of six data scientists and engineers who have spent a year looking for fast-growing startups, Storonsky is seeking to differentiate Quantum Light from other VCs by using technology and systematic strategies to identify companies to invest in.

The company is also looking to hire a data engineer, senior data engineer/head of data platform and senior investment associate/principal all listed in London but remotely.

The decision engine, Aleph, will use millions of data points on tens of thousands of companies to “consistently select the most successful companies and outperform the market”.

Quantum Light claims that only 3 per cent of funds are making good use of the alternative data available.

“I personally believe in having a model without having human judgment,” he continued. 

“Different people have different opinions, and this is how you end up with this crowd mentality.”

Storonsky plans to hire a CEO to head up the fund, saying that exposure to the fund, alongside his angel investments, help him run Revolut, which is currently valued at $33bn after he helped raise $1.8bn to build it.

“I get all this new information about tech trends, who is doing what, this is actually my edge compared to traditional banking CEOs who are not part of the ecosystem,” he said.

The move follows his jump to opening a family office last October, and follows other fintech founders in moving to new ventures.

The Revolut founder joins the likes of Monzo’sTom Blomfield,Wise’s Taavet Hinrikus, complyAdvantage’s Charles Delingpole,LendInvest’s Christain Faes and Checkout.com’s Guillaume Pousaz — who also opened up his own family office in Switzerland last year — who have become fairly prolific angel investors.

Looking to set itself apart from other VCs, Quantum Light says it is using technology to “disrupt” the world of venture and growth equity. 

“The industry is still stuck in the 20th century, operating in a completely different way from the technology companies it tries to support,” the website says. 

“Leveraging our experience building a hyper-growing decacorn and a background in quantitative trading, we are building the investment firm of tomorrow. A firm with a product DNA and a heavily data-driven investment strategy.”

Having built and tested the first version of the platform and decision engine, we will have to wait and see what comes from the Revolut CEO when the new company emerges from stealth to shake up the venture capital world. 

Revolut did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.