# Empee Capital

> Empee Capital is a VC fund in London backing SaaS, Artificial Intelligence and Fashion. See 3 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Total investments: 3
- Last investment: Nov 2025
- Lead investor: 33%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/michael-pennington-gumtree
- Website: https://x.com/penningtonm

Empee Capital is a founder-led seed VC firm investing in marketplaces, fintech and digital networks across the UK and Europe. Built from the operator experience of Gumtree and Slando, we help early-stage founders navigate liquidity, trust and scale.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| SaaS | 2 | 67% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 2 | 67% |
| Fashion | 1 | 33% |
| Blockchain | 1 | 33% |
| E-Commerce | 1 | 33% |

9 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pre-Seed | 2 | 67% |
| Seed | 1 | 33% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 67% |
| Germany | 1 | 33% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ClothCraze | HATCH CLOTHING is an AI-powered fashion commerce platform operated by CLOTH CRAZE LTD, a UK-registered company based in Bradford. The company builds AI tools and APIs for apparel brands, marketplaces, and independent designers, helping them deliver more personalized and confident online shopping experiences. HATCH’s platform includes FitRecommendation API, Virtual Try-On API, AI Styling Engine, and Catalog Intelligence API. These products help fashion commerce teams recommend accurate sizes, generate virtual try-on previews, build personalized outfit suggestions, enrich product catalogs, and reduce friction across the customer shopping journey. The company combines computer vision, product data, body-aware fit logic, and commerce workflows into modular APIs and storefront widgets. HATCH is designed for DTC fashion brands, multi-brand marketplaces, independent labels, omnichannel retailers, and sustainable fashion businesses looking to improve conversion, reduce returns, and automate merchandising workflows. | $577.9K | Pre-Seed | Nov 10, 2025 |  |
| CipherSphere | CIPHERSPHERE TECHNOLOGIES LTD is a UK-based technology company developing 3DCIPHER, an AI-native trust infrastructure platform for industrial 3D printing and regulated manufacturing. 3DCIPHER helps manufacturers protect and verify the full lifecycle of 3D-printed parts, from CAD file provenance and printer identity to production evidence,digital-twin certification, audit workflows, and long-term verification. The platform combines HSM-backed printer attestation, AI-based mesh watermarking, digital-twin certificates, audit-assistant workflows, and verification APIs for factory and enterprise systems. The company focuses on serving aerospace, defence, medical, dental, industrial OEM, security, and quality teams that require stronger provenance, anti-counterfeiting protection, audit readiness, and trusted evidence infrastructure for additive manufacturing workflows. | $2M | Seed | Jan 20, 2025 |  |
| FUEL | FUEL platform enable creators to launch, manage, and grow their NFT collection using a broad range of tools. | $1.7M | Pre-Seed | Mar 29, 2022 |  |

3 of 3 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [FinTech Collective](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/fintech-collective) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Notion Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/notion-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Seedcamp](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/seedcamp) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund
- [Everywhere Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/everywhere-ventures) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does Empee Capital invest in?

Empee Capital invests primarily in SaaS, Artificial Intelligence and Fashion startups, most often at Pre-Seed and Seed stage. Most of the 3 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United Kingdom. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did Empee Capital last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Empee Capital closed in Nov 2025. Shizune tracks 3 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.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co