James Wise

Partner

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Executive assistant

James Wise

Partner

Overview

James has been a venture investor for 15 years, becoming a Partner at Balderton in 2016. He invests across geographies and stages with a specific focus on applications and models in AI, energy, and health. He works with multiple portfolio companies, including Convergence (acquired by Salesforce), Sophia Genetics (Nasdaq-listed $SOPH), GoCardless (acquired by Mollie), Depop (acquired by Etsy), Writer, Tibber, Quantum Systems, and has been involved in the sale and IPO of over a dozen companies.

Prior to joining Balderton, James helped launch and run one of the UK’s first social venture funds. He has worked with entrepreneurs and businesses in Europe and Africa and as a consultant with McKinsey & Company.

James is also the Chair of the UK Government’s Sovereign AI fund, where he supports on strategy for critical infrastructure for AI and is a member of the investment committee for Christ Church, Oxford.

Board positions

Munich, Germany

Avi Medical

Elevating the patient experience by combining technology with a human touch.

  • Series B in 2022
London, UK

Convergence

Personal AI assistants that learn, adapt, and remember, handling tasks so you focus on what matters.

  • Pre-seed in 2024
  • Acquired by Salesforce in 2025
Berlin, Germany

Deepset

Helping users scale their data more quickly, easily and at scale.

  • Series A 2023
Munich, Germany

Demodesk

Intelligent meeting platform for online sales.

  • Series A in 2020
Munich, Germany

Kaia Health

Clinically validated digital therapeutics

  • Series A in 2018
Freibourg, Germany

Prior Labs

State of the art AI model for tabular data.

  • Pre-seed in 2025
London, UK

Sava

Building preventative, personalised, precision health monitoring at scale.

  • Seed in 2024
Førde, Norway

Tibber

Using digital technology to make electricity consumption smarter

  • Series B in 2020
Berlin, Germany

trawa

Renewable commercial and industrial energy supplier.

  • Seed in 2024

Related investments

London, UK

Depop

Peer-to-peer social shopping platform and app that allows creative entrepreneurs to build a social shopping network.

  • Seed in 2012
  • Acquired by Etsy in 2021
Copenhagen, Denmark

Forecast

AI-native Project & Resource Management platform

  • Series A in 2021
  • Acquired by Accelo in 2025
London, UK

GoCardless

The easiest way for businesses to collect recurring payments.

  • Series B in 2014
  • Acquired by Mollie in 2025
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Hubs

The world's largest network of 3D manufacturing services.

  • Series A in 2014
  • Acquired by Protolabs in 2021
London, UK

Pusher

Real-time APIs that power communication and collaboration apps all over the world.

  • Series A in 2018
  • Acquired by MessageBird 2020
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Reson8

Hyper-customised automatic speech recognition.

  • Pre-seed in 2026
Paris, France

Sketchfab

Platform to publish, share, and discover 3D content online and in VR.

  • Series A in 2013
  • Acquired by Epic Games in 2021
Lausanne, Switzerland

Sophia Genetics

Democratising data-driven medicine.

  • Series B in 2017
  • IPO on NASDAQ in 2021

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