Frequently Asked Questions

What is Unilever Ventures?

Unilever Ventures is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create successful businesses. We provide venture capital funding and management skills to start-up businesses, and expansion capital to companies looking to accelerate growth. We focus on consumer-facing businesses across Europe and have investments in a number of new businesses, originating from both within Unilever and from external sources.

Where is Unilever Ventures located?

Unilever Ventures is located close to Piccadilly Circus in central London, United Kingdom. Our main focus is on UK businesses, but we will also consider opportunities with a European and North American element.

Are you an incubator?

No. There are elements of incubation, such as advice on strategy and business planning that we do provide (more so for Unilever led spin outs), but we invest most of our capital in businesses for which the concept is already proven and a management team is in place. We do not provide premises and interim management to our investees. Examples of our external investments include BrainJuicer and Dove Spa (Re-Aqua).

How does Unilever Ventures work?

The team at Unilever Ventures splits its time between working with existing portfolio companies to help deliver growth, and assessing new business opportunities. For the latter we are actively seeking opportunities that can deliver long term growth potential. These opportunities may wish to utilize brands or technologies from within Unilever, or may be stand-alone proposals with significant growth potential. Unilever Ventures can invest from €500K to €10m over the lifetime of any one particular investment.

How does Unilever Ventures work with proposals?

In order to start a dialogue we would like you to submit a short summary proposal outlining your business opportunity to us via this web site (Click on ‘Submit Proposal’ tab). If you do not already have a formal business proposal, please refer to our proposal template to see what level of information we require (click here to download).The key areas are outlined below:

1.       Description of the idea proposition

2.       Market opportunity

3.       Competition and competitive advantage

4.       Technical capability

5.       Financial projections

6.       Risks

7.       Team

8.       Timing

9.       Any synergy with Unilever

Please attach any other documentation that you think would help us in our review process.

We will normally contact you within a 1 -2 weeks following the submission to discuss how we might take it forward.

What services do Unilever Ventures offer?

Unilever Ventures can help businesses and entrepreneurs accelerate development of their opportunities. The key things we offer are:

1.       Cash investment

2.       Use of Unilever brands, technologies or infrastructure

3.       Coaching and support on success strategy and business development

4.       Help with recruitment and set-up, including office space and business support

5.       Access to financial and venture capital networks for further funding

Who is eligible to submit business ideas to Unilever Ventures?

We currently accept business proposal submissions from anyone except residents of the United States of America.