# Vinay Solanki

> Vinay Solanki is a venture - series unknown investor at Channel 4 backing FinTech and Apps. See 17 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Channel 4](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/channel-2)
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Total investments: 17
- Last investment: Apr 2025
- Lead investor: 65%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinay-solanki-457955/

Vinay Solanki is a venture - series unknown investor at Channel 4 in London focused on FinTech and Apps. Vinay Solanki is currently Head of Channel 4's Commercial Growth Fund responsible for their “media for equity” investment activity on disruptive digital consumer businesses. The model is focused on providing high quality TV airtime in return for passive equity stakes in typically growth phase companies. Since joining in the Summer of 2015,Vinay has led 10 deals in total, including 6 equity investments in consumer businesses alongside Series A VCs (such as DN Capital, Mangrove Partners, Felix Capital, Octopus Ventures & Accel Partners, amongst others). Vinay is actively seeking interesting and high growth consumer facing companies that might benefit from access to UK TV airtime, and has an active pipeline for 2017. Vinay is a highly experienced strategic advisor in media, digital and consumer businesses with over 15 years’ experience. Prior to Channel 4, Vinay held either M&A, strategy and/or commercial business development positions at Getty Images, Liberty Global, Ingenious Media and Ernst & Young.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $1.3M–$7.4M |
| Series B | $6.5M–$15M |
| Venture - Series Unknown | $2.3M–$15M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FinTech | 4 | 24% |
| Apps | 3 | 18% |
| Mobile | 3 | 18% |
| E-Commerce | 3 | 18% |
| Financial Services | 3 | 18% |

44 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 5 | 29% |
| Series B | 4 | 24% |
| Seed | 3 | 18% |
| Series A | 2 | 12% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 6% |

6 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United Kingdom | 12 | 71% |
| Sweden | 1 | 6% |
| Australia | 1 | 6% |
| United States | 1 | 6% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sprive | Sprive is a UK based FinTech that helps homeowners pay off their mortgage faster and save interest. | $7.4M | Seed | Apr 28, 2025 |  |
| Layered Reality | Layered Reality is an entertainment company that uses a unique method to build experiences using three ‘layers’ of multimedia. Layered Reality combines digital tech (Virtual Reality, projection mapping, and volumetric holograms) together with live theatre (live actors, movie-scale sets, and special effects) plus real physical sensations (touch,temperature, smell, sound and music, physical movement, and taste) to create a unique immersive experience that is truly memorable. | $2.3M | Venture - Series Unknown | Aug 29, 2024 |  |
| Fy! | Fy is an e-commerce company that builds a mobile marketplace to shop online. It uses a combination of social content, machine learning, and a deep understanding of its products and suppliers to create a personalized experience for each shopper using the site and app. Fy was launched in 2017 driven by a mission to make the world of designdiscoverable, affordable, and instantly accessible through social commerce. | $3.8M | Venture - Series Unknown | Jul 04, 2024 |  |
| Airtasker | Airtasker is an online and mobile marketplace that connects people and businesses with local community members that can help around the home and office.Airtasker is a trusted community marketplace for people and businesses to outsource tasks, find local services, or hire flexible staff in minutes - online or via mobile.Whether it’s handymanwork, office admin, photography or anything else, you simply post a task for FREE and then choose from rated, verified, and reviewed people ready to work straight away. | $4.4M | Post-IPO Equity | Jun 08, 2023 |  |
| My Bespoke Room | My Bespoke Room is the world’s only double sided platform for both consumers & Interior Designers. We’re ranked as the UK’s No. 1 rated Interior Design professional on Houzz (out of 12,000+ providers) and are the most reviewed Interior Designer in the UK.Typically hiring an interior designer can cost hundreds, if not thousands of pounds. Atmybespokeroom.com we’re passionate that anyone can have a beautiful home, and it shouldn’t cost a fortune to get there. We remove the search hours to find the right products and pull a look together for our clients, that matches their brief and budget which they can shop in just one click.Clients are matched with one of our professional interior designers based on their style, preferences and lifestyle. We've sifted, sieved and sorted through the country’s best interior design talent to assemble our award-winning team. Clients choose one of our flat fee affordable packages and the design and shopping service takes around two to three weeks; it is all done through our online propriatory tech platform.For our designers, our SaaS solution (DesignPalPro) provides them with access to a 21st century cloud-based technology solution specifically designed to make their life as easy as possible. Designers can setup, run and grow their own businesses so that they can be more productive, earn more money, and ultimately have a more rewarding business.My Bespoke Room was acquired in June 2022 by Michael Bruce; Founder of Purple Bricks & Boomin |  | Venture - Series Unknown | May 23, 2023 |  |
| Cannaray | Cannaray is a leading European cannabis company stratifying medical THC and a CBD lifestyle brand.Cannaray CBD is the company’s flagship CBD wellness brand – founded to make CBD easy and accessible for millions of new people. Its product range includes CBD Oil Drops for day and night, Capsules, Gummies and Muscle Balm. All Cannaray CBD productsare formulated to be effective and enjoyable to use, triple-lab-tested for purity, and are packaged in the modern, bright, and optimistic Cannaray brand colours.Therismos is the company's medical division, which imports and distributes cannabis-based products for medical use (CBPM) across Europe. We strive to be the leading European full-service provider of medicinal cannabis through our innovative product solutions, valuable partnerships with strategic allies, and collaboration with world-class scientists and medical practitioners.We put patients at the heart of everything we do and aspire to improve their quality of life by offering access to the largest range and delivery routes of safe, reliable and high-quality CBPM, while ensuring medical practitioners have everything they need to fully support cannabis patients wherever they may be. | $13.1M | Series A | Apr 04, 2022 |  |
| WeAre8 | WeAre8 is a content sharing platform that assists brands to engage and manage influencers and customer relationships at scale. It is a marketplace that utilizes a powerful data engine to enable brands to sponsor and reward people for their time, creativity, and advocacy. WeAre8 was established in 2012 and is headquartered in New York. | $15M | Series B | Mar 17, 2022 |  |
| Lapse | Lapse is a social disposable camera app. The app lets close groups recreate the magic of old-school disposable cameras by taking 36 snaps to ‘rolls’ in private group chats. | $1.3M | Seed | Sep 30, 2021 |  |
| Strike | Strike is here to redefine the way you move home. After 200 years of high fees and pointless jargon, it’s time for a change. That’s why we’re changing what it means to be an estate agent. We make selling easy. And free. | $15.3M | Venture - Series Unknown | Jul 09, 2021 |  |
| Clim8 Invest | Clim8 Invest develops an app for sustainable investing so people can make an impact on climate change with their savings. Clim8 is a simple way to invest in a sustainable portfolio of carefully selected companies already making a positive impact on climate change.Clim8's mission is to move billions of pounds of investments into clean energyand truly green, sustainable companies. | $2.5M |  | Jun 02, 2021 |  |

10 of 17 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Greater Manchester Combined Authority](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/greater-manchester-combined-authority) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Aggregate Media](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/aggregate-media) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Ascension](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ascension-ventures-limited) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Alpha Blue Ocean](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/blue-ocean-advisors) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [CentreStone Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/centrestone-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Commercial Growth Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/commercial-growth-fund) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Channel 4

VC Fund · Belfast, United Kingdom

Channel 4 provides public broadcasting services via television. It is engaged in productions and broadcasting services across television, film, and digital media to deliver public service. Its broadcasts programs focusing on comedy, documentaries, drama, entertainment, food, history, films, music, animals, animation, art, design and literature,business and money, and other entertainment such as chat shows, children's shows,  and on lessential social values and skills for disability, education and learning, family and parenting, fashion and beauty, health and wellbeing, homes and gardens, lifestyle, news, current affairs and politics, quizzes and game shows, reality shows, religion and belief, science, nature and environment, sex and relationships, society and culture, and sports and games.Channel 4 provides was established in 1980 and is based in London, United Kingdom.

5 contacts available at Channel 4.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Alex Mahon | CEO | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alex-mahon |
| Ben de Pear | Head of Foreign News | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ben-de-pear |
| Vinay Solanki | Founder & Head | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/vinay-solanki |
| Fatima Dowlet | head of sales- Victoria Appleby | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/fatima-dowlet |
| Jonathan Lewis | Head of Digital and Partnership Innovation | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/jonathan-lewis-4 |

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## FAQ

### What does Vinay Solanki invest in?

Vinay Solanki invests primarily in FinTech, Apps and Mobile startups, most often at Venture - Series Unknown and Series B stage. Most of the 17 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 Vinay Solanki's check size?

Vinay Solanki typically joins rounds of $1.3M–$7.4M at Seed, $6.5M–$15M at Series B and $2.3M–$15M at Venture - Series Unknown. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Vinay Solanki participates in.

### When did Vinay Solanki last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Vinay Solanki closed in Apr 2025. Shizune tracks 17 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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