Early in his career, Richard Green learned that he was a starter, not a finisher. Since then he has co-founded Smallworld and Ubisense, led more than 20 M&A deals and invested with Cambridge Angels since the network began. Here he talks about chairing ambitious spin-outs, why founders should plan their exit early, and why he’d rather back a team with fire in its belly than follow the herd.
Can you give us a bit of background about yourself?
I trained and qualified as a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and, after industrially sponsored postgraduate work at Loughborough University, arrived in Cambridge as a programmer in the fast-growing computer-aided design industry. My colleagues soon discovered I was much better at presenting our work to customers than at writing code that worked! An early lesson was that I was a starter, not a finisher.
The company I worked for, CIS, was acquired by a Boston-headquartered company in the early 1980s, which was in turn acquired by Prime Computer in 1988. By then I had moved into international sales and marketing and was part of the integration effort. That gave us the chance to spot a gap in the market. With seed funding from the original founders of CIS, we founded Smallworld to sell GIS to network operators around the world. We listed Smallworld on NASDAQ in 1996 and sold it to General Electric in the summer of 2000.
After only 18 months in GE's M&A department, I realised I was better suited to early-stage companies than late-stage ones. Around that time I became reacquainted with David Cleevely and got to know Robert Sansom, Sherry Coutu, David Gammon and John Snyder, just as Cambridge Angels was being formed.
How long have you been angel investing, and what led you to join Cambridge Angels?
I've been investing since Cambridge Angels was formed. I felt in good company, alongside people who had similar experiences to mine as well as people from completely different backgrounds.
I learnt early on that I was much better as an investor-operator than as a passive investor, and that shaped my early decisions. My next venture was co-founding Ubisense with Andy Hopper and a team from his Computer Lab. We funded it through my former colleagues, Cambridge Angels and a bootstrapped services business we acquired in Germany and the US in 2002. We listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2010 and sold the Ubisense business to Investcorp in 2016. The remaining business was renamed IQGeo and was sold to KKR in 2024.
Can you give a couple of examples of companies you're involved with that you're particularly excited about?
While I was Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge Enterprise, I was lucky enough to meet some astonishing founders. I'm a seed investor in, and Chair of, Nyobolt, which develops high-power integrated energy solutions. It was co-founded by Professor Clare Grey, CSO and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, and Sai Shivareddy, one of her PhD students and now CEO. Sai is tremendously ambitious and talented. He has built a world-class team, spotted early niche markets and taken the business to tens of millions in quarterly revenue, profitability and a billion-dollar valuation, with much more still to come.
I also chair Corrosion Radar, a spin-out from Cranfield led by a very ambitious international founding team. It has landed the world's largest oil and gas company as both a strategic customer and an investor and is approaching double-digit millions in revenue. It is a few steps behind Nyobolt, but well on the way to dominating a large niche market.
Others include Deepform, where I was a seed investor and the first Chair, which is now in production at a large automotive OEM; and PinePeak, a more recent spin-out from the Whittle Laboratory that I seed-invested in and chair, which has just won an XPRIZE (which tackles the world’s most urgent and complex challenges - those too daunting or risky for others to attempt) as well as its first customer contracts.
Do you have a sector focus, and if so, why?
My experience, contacts and network are in the industrial and enterprise space, covering both hardware and software solutions to customer problems. That's where I'm probably most useful, or at least where I think I should be!
How do you tend to get involved with your investments?
I often take on chair roles, and I have recently stepped in to run a company on an interim basis. I see investor, chair and operator as a continuum rather than separate roles. Alignment among all stakeholders is critical, and having occupied each role helps me understand all the perspectives that matter.
You have led more than 20 M&A transactions. What advice would you give founders thinking about exits?
If exit is the goal, think it through early. Understand the universe of possible acquirers and how they think. It often takes longer than you might expect to adjust the business and become visible enough to be meaningful to them.
What have you learnt about being an angel investor since you started?
It comes down to whether you believe the team can do what it takes. Do they have fire in their belly, and do they understand how they will make money? Of course, that's a very individual perspective. I'm not very good at following the herd!
Is there anything else you would like to mention?
We all know the impact cancer can have on individuals, their families, friends and colleagues. Many of us have lost family members, friends and colleagues to it. Continuing to fund the fantastic work of Cancer Research UK, and turning that research into results, saves lives. I would like to raise awareness of the second in our series of lectures on Tuesday 24th November, 6-8pm at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. Reserve your place here.