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BVCA Awards

Celebrating excellence within private capital
Every year, the BVCA celebrates outstanding performance within our membership. Our awards recognise high growth leaders, our members’ outstanding commitment to responsible investment, and the best teams backed by private capital.

An overview of our awards can be found below.

Inspirational Women Award

Recognising High Growth Leaders

The BVCA has launched a new Inspirational Women award to recognise and celebrate the successes of leaders backed by private capital who have led and exited high growth businesses.

Born out of the government's 'Women-led high-growth enterprises taskforce', this award is designed to motivate and encourage the next generation of female entrepreneurs and will showcase the talent, best practice, dynamism and innovation that is emerging, providing another crucial layer of visibility for female-led, high growth ventures.

Submissions closed on Friday 12 July 2024. An independent judging panel comprising of past BVCA Chairs reviewed the submissions and presented the award at the BVCA Summit Main Conference on 12 September 2024.

2024 Winner
The BVCA were delighted to award Poppy Gustafsson OBE as the inaugural winner of the Inspirational Women Award, recognising high-growth leaders. Poppy is the Co-Founder and former Chief Executive Officer at Darktrace, who successfully demonstrated leading and twice-exiting high-growth private organisations, proving a role model for other female founders and entrepreneurs.

Learn more


Awards Criteria
  • The award recognises female founders and CEOs managing high growth private businesses.
  • The female leader's business will have received backing from private capital (BVCA members only).
  • For this award, a high growth business is defined as an enterprise which has an average annualised growth greater than 20% per annum, over a three-year period, measured by number of employees or turnover, with at least 10 employees in the baseline year.
  • The business should have been exited (through trade/IPO/PE). The timeframe for exited businesses should be within the past three years.
  • The nominees should not only have demonstrated their ability to build a high growth business, but should also be role models for other female founders/entrepreneurs/CEOs, and have demonstrated their commitment to mentoring/helping other female entrepreneurs.
Judges
  • Helen Steers
    Partner, Pantheon (Chair of the Judging Panel)
  • Kerry Baldwin
    Managing Partner, IQ Capital
  • Anne Glover
    Chief Executive and Co-founder, Amadeus Capital Partners
  • Cheryl Potter
    Non-Executive Director, Level 20 and Marks and Spencer

Excellence in ESG

The BVCA’s Excellence in ESG initiative celebrates firms from across the private capital ecosystem that have made an outstanding commitment to ESG principles. The initiative recognises the vital work our members are undertaking to embed responsible investment principles and practices, and provides a platform to demonstrate our industry’s commitment to ESG.

Categories:
  • GP (above £1bn AUM)
  • GP (below £1bn AUM)
  • LPs (all sizes)
  • Venture Capital (all sizes)
  • Portfolio company (backed by a BVCA member)

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Excellence in Impact

The BVCA’s Excellence in Impact initiative celebrates our members’ commitment to making an environmental and social impact, alongside making financial returns. The initiative aims to showcase best practice in impact investing, alongside the environmental and social solutions our members are facilitating through their portfolio companies.

Categories:
  • GP (specialising in impact investing strategies)
  • LPs (with an impact investing strategy)
  • Portfolio company (environmental impact)
  • Portfolio company (social impact)

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Vision – Leaders Driving Growth

BVCA Vision celebrates the best teams backed by private equity and venture capital, awarding portfolio companies and their investors.

These annual awards take into account growth, competitiveness, innovation, ESG and the challenges of the year, with a focus on the future and the sustainability of the business as well as past performance. In addition to the portfolio companies, this initiative also awards GPs to recognise the incredible support our members provide to their investee companies.

The themes for recognition include:
  • How companies remained competitive
  • How growth was achieved
  • Demonstrable innovation or agility
  • ESG commitment and progress

Learn more
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Get in touch with the BVCA via:

 +44 (0)20 7492 0400

 bvca@bvca.co.uk