Voucher code millionaire raising £30m for e-commerce start-ups

The fund will target businesses dealing with front end development, platforms, payments including anything with a transaction

People work at computers in TechHub in Shoreditch, an office space for technology start-up entrepreneurs (Getty Images)

He made £55 million from the sale of a discount website that collected voucher codes. Now Mark Pearson is raising £30 million to invest in e-commerce start-ups.

Pearson said high net worth individuals and family offices have already pledge 25% of cash for the first venture capital fund of Fuel.Ventures. The fund will target businesses dealing with "front end development, platforms, payments" and "anything with a transaction".

34-year-old Pearson said: "I’ve managed to make a lot of money for myself but the chance to do that on a bigger scale really excited me."

The former Claridges chef made a fortune setting up MyVoucherCodes.co.uk in 2006. The website collates discount codes and was sold to mobile payment firm Monitise last year for £55 million.

Mr Pearson, who has appeared on Channel 4’s programme The Secret Millionaire, has since invested his technology businesses such as Ve Interactive, an e-commerce conversion specialist recently valued at over £1 billion.

Fuel.Ventures will invest between £50,000 and £1 million in early stage start-ups, who will then work out of Fuel’s Soho offices.

Pearson said: “I always find that in the first year and a half start-ups need the most attention, that’s when it can go wrong. I like to be close to the ground to help them tackle the problems they’ve got. Once they’ve got to a stage where they’ve got reasonable size and reasonable revenue, that’s when the companies tend to fly off down the road.”

He added: “It’s a nice way to do things because everyone has similar challenges.”