Damien Lane
Co-Founder & Partner @ Episode 1
London, United Kingdom
Damien Lane is a seed investor at Episode 1 in London focused on SaaS and Software. Damien Lane has spent the last 20 years investing in private companies, both in Private Equity where he was a partner with Electra Partners, then at Octopus Ventures where he was a senior member of the investment team. Having made a number of angel investments, Damien co-founded Episode 1 with Simon and Adrian in 2012. While at Episode 1,Damien has led investments in Carwow, Scurri, Touch Surgery, Attest and Zipcube and loves working with early stage teams of entrepreneurs; helping them develop their early stage startup into a fast growth enterprises capable of raising more funding from later stage investors. When he is not trying to help businesses to implement an optimal approach to growth, Damien can mostly be found running around Hampstead Heath or the Coastal paths of Great Britain. Having trained obsessively to run a 2:52 Marathon in 2015, he is now trying to dip below 2:50, in the spirit of continuous improvement. Damien has an MBA from Cambridge University and a Masters degree in PE from Oxford University.
- Total investments:
- 38
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 37%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Damien Lane invests in
Stages Damien Lane invests in
Countries Damien Lane invests in
Round sizes
Round size
- Seed
- $459k–$3.1M
- Pre-Seed
- $660k–$1M
- Series A
- $3.2M–$16M
Investment Focus
Industry
- SaaS 6 (16%)
- Software 6 (16%)
- Health Care 6 (16%)
- Information Technology 5 (13%)
- Real Estate 4 (11%)
Stage
- Seed 17 (45%)
- Pre-Seed 4 (11%)
- Series A 4 (11%)
- Angel 3 (8%)
- Series B 1 (3%)
Country
- United Kingdom 17 (45%)
- United States 3 (8%)
- Ireland 2 (5%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
Surgery Hero
|
Sapien Health is on a mission to help people everywhere on their journey to a healthier life. Our Digital Clinic for Surgery helps people prepare their mind and body for surgery through sustainable lifestyle changes. It’s the only digital care platform for surgery that provides people with expert human support and personalised health managementstrategies to optimise preparation and accelerate recovery. | $2.6M / Seed / Nov 15, 2022 | |
Surgery Hero
|
Surgery Hero is the world’s first digital prehabilitation clinic - helping people prepare for and recover from surgery at home. Optimising body and mind prior to surgery lowers the risk of surgical complications and accelerates recovery. | $2.4M / Seed / Nov 15, 2022 | |
Narchie
|
Buy. Sell. Discover homeware. The social marketplace app for decor enthusiasts to connect. | $660.5K / Pre-Seed / Jul 31, 2021 | |
Scurri
|
Scurri is helping on-line merchants manage their parcel carriers. Its cloud based, easy to install software enables merchants to simplify their processes, saving cost and time, allowing the merchant to focus on growing their business.E Commerce is growing rapidly as more and more consumers choose the convenience and simplicity of doing theirshopping on-line. Numerous platforms have developed that help even the smallest merchants to develop an attractive and effective front end proposition to attract customers, wherever they may be. For these merchants, success can be a wonderful thing, as orders flood in and revenues grow. But life can become stressful when they start trying to cope with fulfilment and learning how to scale, trying to integrate with several carriers for domestic or international sales, for small packets or large.Scurri takes away that complexity and offers a single interface to create labels, choose the best carrier and make the delivery process simpler, allowing the merchant to focus on growing their business. | $9.6M / Jun 15, 2021 | |
|
Scurri
|
Scurri is helping on-line merchants manage their parcel carriers. Its cloud based, easy to install software enables merchants to simplify their processes, saving cost and time, allowing the merchant to focus on growing their business.E Commerce is growing rapidly as more and more consumers choose the convenience and simplicity of doing theirshopping on-line. Numerous platforms have developed that help even the smallest merchants to develop an attractive and effective front end proposition to attract customers, wherever they may be. For these merchants, success can be a wonderful thing, as orders flood in and revenues grow. But life can become stressful when they start trying to cope with fulfilment and learning how to scale, trying to integrate with several carriers for domestic or international sales, for small packets or large.Scurri takes away that complexity and offers a single interface to create labels, choose the best carrier and make the delivery process simpler, allowing the merchant to focus on growing their business. | $10.9M / Series A / Jun 15, 2021 | |
Supercede
|
Supercede is an independent reinsurance technology company that supports, rather than disintermediates, the traditional tripartite value chain. We offer a digital ecosystem for all reinsurance industry stakeholders to let them show what they can really do, unhindered by the burden of manual admin. Our product is a powerful, Lloyd’s-recognised,data-centric, global trading platform designed specifically for the reinsurance community of cedents, brokers and reinsurers. It offers the leading outwards analytics solution, in an intuitive placement platform, with access to a global reinsurance network.Supercede supports networking and collaboration, with group chat threads, rapid file sharing, and workflow tools linked to every placement. We help optimise the reinsurance lifecycle, from capturing single-entry, actuarial-grade data, to doing the deal, to driving on-going administration. If you haven’t met us yet, come and find us on www.supercede.com. We are a team of industry experts, technologists and strategists changing reinsurance for the better, for everyone. | $2.6M / Seed / Sep 28, 2020 | |
|
Scurri
|
Scurri is helping on-line merchants manage their parcel carriers. Its cloud based, easy to install software enables merchants to simplify their processes, saving cost and time, allowing the merchant to focus on growing their business.E Commerce is growing rapidly as more and more consumers choose the convenience and simplicity of doing theirshopping on-line. Numerous platforms have developed that help even the smallest merchants to develop an attractive and effective front end proposition to attract customers, wherever they may be. For these merchants, success can be a wonderful thing, as orders flood in and revenues grow. But life can become stressful when they start trying to cope with fulfilment and learning how to scale, trying to integrate with several carriers for domestic or international sales, for small packets or large.Scurri takes away that complexity and offers a single interface to create labels, choose the best carrier and make the delivery process simpler, allowing the merchant to focus on growing their business. | $1.7M / Venture - Series Unknown / Jun 30, 2020 | |
|
IVO
|
Platform to allow media owners to deepen advertiser engagement, increase profitability and commercialise ad solutions with ease. | Seed / Nov 27, 2019 | |
Clustermarket
|
Clustermarket is the world’s leading operating system for life-sciences laboratories. Our goal is to bring the management of research into the digital age, democratise access to expensive equipment and services and ultimately to enable life sciences innovators to get ideas to market faster than ever before. Our award-winning lab management software(previously known as Bookkit) and revolutionary marketplace helps labs to manage, connect and share resources. | $1.1M / Angel / Nov 01, 2019 | |
Carwow
|
Carwow is the smart way to choose and buy a new car. The company helps to connect car buyers to car dealers to make the process as efficient and cost effective as possible, while enabling consumers to interact with an official dealer throughout the transaction process. The company's dealer partners sell more cars in the showroom alone, whilereducing cost inefficiencies and improving stock turnover.Carwow was founded on 2013 and is headquartered in London, England. | $32.7M / Corporate Round / Aug 05, 2019 | |
| See all 38 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Episode 1
Episode1 Ventures is a London based venture capital fund set up to invest in early-stage technology companies based in the UK.It was created with a mixture of public and private money, including backing from a number of entrepreneurs including Alex Chesterman of Zoopla Property Group. It is one of the UK Government's Enterprise Capital Funds– set up to support fund managers who invest in small, high-growth businesses. The £12.5 million of private investment was matched with £25 million of public money.Episode 1 Ventures invests in seed and Series A rounds of up to £2m in software-driven businesses with the potential to transform industries. They’ve been entrepreneurs theirselves so provide a frank and fast approach to investing and they like to play a very hands-on supportive role in growing the businesses they back. They look for entrepreneurs with relevant experience ambitious to change their sector. They like to see that they can hire world-class talent and delegate to them effectively, and that they really know the customers and understand the problem. They also like entrepreneurs that are data-driven. But above all they like people with passion and ambition, that can execute at speed and overcome significant hurdles along the way.They are building a portfolio of companies that are using software technology to disrupt their chosen marketplaces. It is a diverse group across a range of industries, but with two common themes – a great founder and a big market. They also like to invest once a company has launched their product and has some clients they can reference. Revenues are usually from zero to £50k per month when they first invest.They like to play an active role in helping the companies that they invest in, at least until their companies have secured one or more later financing rounds. They want to help entrepreneurs turn their early stage ventures into fast growing companies built to grow into significant and valuable entities. They see every investment as a partnership. Indeed, they share their office with a number of portfolio companies so they work very closely with them.
Episode 1 Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Simon Murdoch
Managing Partner
|
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Adrian Lloyd
Partner
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Damien Lane
Co-Founder & Partner
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Hector Mason
Partner
|
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Leah Martin
Marketing, Communications & Events Manager
|
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FAQ
What does Damien Lane invest in?
Damien Lane invests primarily in SaaS, Software and Health Care startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 38 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United Kingdom. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is Damien Lane's check size?
Damien Lane typically joins rounds of $459k–$3.1M at Seed, $660k–$1M at Pre-Seed and $3.2M–$16M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Damien Lane participates in.
When did Damien Lane last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Damien Lane closed in Nov 2022. Shizune tracks 38 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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