New 5.8x exit for Fuel Ventures: Arbolus – expert-insights marketplace disrupting a slow-moving global industry
Don't invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more.
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Due to the potential for losses, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) considers this investment to be high risk.
What are the key risks?
- 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.
- 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 here.
- 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 FOS protection here.
- 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.
- 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 any one to do well.
- A good rule of thumb is not to invest more than 10% of your money in high-risk investments.
- The value of your investment can be reduced
- 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’s website here.
In March 2025, Fuel Ventures announced its profitable partial exit of Arbolus – a global marketplace that connects experts with clients that are looking for insight into an industry, product, or company.
Fuel first invested in Arbolus in 2019 through its Scale-up EIS Fund, and subsequently through its Follow-on EIS Fund in 2020 and 2023 – a total of £3.7 million. Wealth Club investors in these EIS funds will have had the company in their portfolios.
The exit from the earlier investments generated proceeds of £6.9 million delivering a realised return of up to 5.8x for EIS investors (individual investors’ returns will vary). The remaining holding is valued at £6.7 million. Past performance is not a guide to the future, there have also been failures.
This is the fifth exit for the Fuel EIS funds, which have so far returned a total of £40 million to investors.
How is Arbolus’s technology disrupting an outdated multibillion industry? Why did Fuel invest? How does Fuel look to add value to portfolio companies? How could you invest in similar companies through Fuel’s EIS funds?
Important: The information on this website is for experienced investors. It is not a personal recommendation to invest. If you’re unsure, please seek advice. These investments are for the long term. They are high risk and can fall as well as rise in value: you could lose all the money you invest. Tax rules can change and benefits depend on circumstances.
What problem does Arbolus address?
Arbolus has created AI tools to modernise the largely analog “expert network” industry. Its platform connects experts in a particular field to businesses looking for that particular expertise.
For instance, a financial services company looking to expand into a new territory might want to speak to an expert, e.g. the former CEO of a local business in the same industry.
Finding the right expert could be invaluable to those seeking strategic insights or carrying out research and due diligence – and the global market for this is currently worth an estimated $2.3 billion.
Usually, however, the service is provided by brokerage firms and the process requires users to phone various recommended experts in turn, to find the right fit – potentially ending up with many hour-long calls that bring little value.
Arbolus’s solution
Seeing that the issue could be solved with AI, Sam Glasswell and Will Leeming founded Arbolus in 2018 – the two entrepreneurs already had previous experience of helping scale a $1 billion company.
The team has created an AI-powered platform that serves as a marketplace to make it easier for businesses and the right subject-matter experts to find each other.
Arbolus’s products include AI assistant ArbolusGPT and Canopy video Q&A. Canopy lets clients create a video, setting out their questions to be posed to several potential experts – no need make appointments and spend an hour on the phone with each individually. The video answers are automatically transcribed and shareable. If a client wishes to dive deeper on an answer, they can then call the specific expert. The set up, meanwhile, allows a global community of subject-matter experts to monetise their expertise flexibly and conveniently.
Arbolus has grown to a team of around 200 globally – with offices in London, New York, Barcelona and Delhi – and hundreds of clients worldwide.
I’d say that Canopy allowed us to quickly test our hypothesis early in our due diligence process. By spending about 3 hours in total, we were able to get decent answers to our main questions. This would otherwise probably take 2-3 days of desktop research.
Why did Fuel invest, and how does Fuel’s founder aim to add value?
Fuel believes Arbolus is a prime example of the kind of company it seeks.
Fuel targets early-stage digital businesses with the potential to scale globally, operating in three key areas Fuel knows well: marketplaces, platforms and software as a service. Fuel considers such businesses attractive for their scalability, low costs per unit sold, and growth that in theory is limited only by market demand.
Central to Fuel’s investment strategy is the active role its founder Mark Pearson takes in helping to grow the businesses and maximise the potential value on exit.
Mark is himself a successful entrepreneur-turned-investor. He is best known for having grown and sold online voucher code business MyVoucherCodes for reportedly £55 million as part of parent company Marko Media. Whilst running MyVoucherCodes, Mark made personal investments in nine technology and software businesses – his experience with these early-stage businesses led him to found Fuel Ventures in 2014.
How to invest in similar companies – Fuel Scale-up EIS
Experienced investors can get exposure to companies like Arbolus (albeit not Arbolus itself) by investing in the Fuel Ventures Scale-up EIS Fund. The Fuel Ventures Follow-on EIS Fund is currently closed.
The next deadline is 30 June 2025, targeting deployment over 12-15 months (not guaranteed).
- Target return: 10x over 10 years – not guaranteed
- Deployment into at least five companies
- Minimum investment: £20,000 – you can apply online
See Fuel Ventures Follow-on EIS Fund's performance
Performance per £100 invested in each tax year
Source: Fuel Ventures, as at 22 January 2025. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The chart shows realised returns (where share proceeds have been returned to investors as cash) and unrealised returns (where cash has not yet been returned and the value of the investments is based on the manager’s own valuation methodology). There is no ready market for unlisted shares. The figures shown are net of all fees and do not include any income tax relief or loss relief.
See Fuel Ventures Scale-Up EIS Fund's performance
Performance per £100 invested in each tax year
Source: Fuel Ventures, as at 22 January 2025. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The chart shows realised returns (where share proceeds have been returned to investors as cash) and unrealised returns (where cash has not yet been returned and the value of the investments is based on the manager’s own valuation methodology). There is no ready market for unlisted shares. The figures shown are net of all fees and do not include any income tax relief or loss relief.
Wealth Club aims to make it easier for experienced investors to find information on – and apply for – investments. You should base your investment decision on the offer documents and ensure you have read and fully understand them before investing. The information on this webpage is a marketing communication. It is not advice or a personal or research recommendation to buy any of the investments mentioned, nor does it include any opinion as to the present or future value or price of these investments. It does not satisfy legal requirements promoting investment research independence and is thus not subject to prohibitions on dealing ahead of its dissemination.
Alex Davies
Chief Executive
Alex was a board director at Hargreaves Lansdown, where he worked for 15 years. He was responsible for building Hargreaves Lansdown into the biggest direct-to-consumer SIPP provider in the UK with more than 150,000 clients and over £12 billion under management. He is a keen investor with a portfolio of shares, funds, student property, EIS and VCT investments.