One of the UK’s most high-profile venture capitalists, Jon Moulton had a humble upbringing in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent as the son of a pottery worker and a housewife. He proudly recalls that his dad was the last independent master engraver in Cobridge.
A pupil at Mill Hill then Hanley High School he struggled with his health including surviving TB that went undiagnosed for years and aplastic anaemia that had a 92% fatality rate at that time.
Given his early ill health it is perhaps no coincidence that Jon has gone on to be a trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation and has his own medical research charity.
The Jon Moulton Charity Trust was set up in 2018 to continue the work of his previous charity, J P Moulton Charitable Foundation which was established in 2004. The principal aim of the charity is to fund non-commercial clinical trials to make clinical advances and promote the relief of suffering.
The charity has funded more than 150 clinical trials which have been selected based on high quality science with the potential to have a direct benefit to patients. The trials have been conducted in a wide range of therapy areas including respiratory, women's health, oncology, cardiovascular, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, several rare diseases, COPD, paediatrics and the funded trials are usually interventional. The Foundation has also entered into several joint ventures with other medical charities to help support larger trials.
Jon initially studied chemistry and biochemistry at Aberystwyth University, staying for just one term. After a short spell working for a building society in Leek he went to Lancaster University to study chemistry.
Upon graduating he trained in accountancy with Coopers & Lybrand in Liverpool which included a time working in the US which he says was a formative period for him.
After leaving accounting Jon formed his own business leveraging company buyouts in the US.
He was managing partner of Schroder Ventures from 1985 to 1994, where investments included Parker Pens and Sheffield Forgemasters. He then did a spell at Apax Partners before founding venture capital firm Alchemy in 1997.
Jon has earned a reputation for being outspoken. He has spoken out against what he considers the favourable tax treatment of private equity. In July 2007 he gave evidence to a Treasury Select Committee of the House of Commons enquiring into the private equity industry, when he accused private equity firms of abusing a generous tax regime. Later that year he criticised the accountancy profession for a loss of integrity in due diligence work on private equity buyouts.
Jon resigned from Alchemy in September 2009 saying that he disagreed with plans by other partners to turn Alchemy into a specialist financial services firm. He apologised to investors for making ‘too many investment and people errors’ and said that he will do investment again ‘but better, hence the name Better Capital.
Jon set up Better Capital at the end of 2009, making its first investment in February 2010 when it acquired Gardner from Carlyle Group. The fund made nine investments, including a management buyout of the UK arm of Reader's Digest in a £13 million deal with the company's administrator, Moore Stephens and purchased the luxury motor yacht manufacturer Fairline Boats at a cost of approximately £35 million. Better Capital raised a second fund in 2012 which made six investments: City Link, Everest, iNTERTAIN, Jaeger, Northern Aerospace and SPOT.
Jon is an active private investor and a director of numerous public and private companies. He is currently Chairman of finnCap, The International Stock Exchange and Anti-Microbial Research Limited. Other personal investments include: Ashmore, Funding Circle, The Guernsey Pub Company, Manolete Partners and Atom Bank. Jon Moulton is a member of the Board of the Corporate Finance Faculty of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and is a director of the think tank The Centre for Policy Studies.
The Award of Honorary Doctor of Science is bestowed upon Jon in recognition of his phenomenal success as an entrepreneur and as one of the UK’s most prolific, distinguished and high-profile venture capitalists with a long-standing reputation for turning floundering businesses’ fortunes around and making multi-million-pound investments and acquisitions through private equity management.
The award also acknowledges his passion to support start-up companies as an angel investor and considerable charity work through the Jon Moulton Charity Trust, funding non-commercial clinical trials in a wide range of therapy areas including respiratory, women’s health, oncology, cardiovascular, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, several rare diseases, COPD, paediatrics and COVID-19 with the aim to make clinical advances and promote the relief of suffering.