Having had some time to reflect on the impact of the pandemic, I’m overwhelmed by the strength and resilience that the entrepreneurs we work with and our team have shown in these last months.

With our focus on deep tech, Amadeus has been able to stay positive and keep investing, backing 6 new companies and supporting 8 follow-ons in businesses whose services we expect to play a part in the economic recovery. We’ve even welcomed two new partners, Ed Kliphuis and Kai Schmitz, focused respectively on scale up capital in Europe and growth capital in Latin America, and promoted two new partners in our Early Stage team – Amelia Armour and Pierre Socha.

Our longstanding interest in healthtech and AI led us to invest in QUIBIM, a medtech company using machine learning and image processing to create digital biomarkers used by hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and R&D centres to measure changes in the body produced by diseases or treatments. QUIBIM has recently developed a CT-scan app for Covid-19.

Covid-19 has cemented a permanent shift to e-commerce and online services for many businesses. This has led to strong performance in our on-line education company, Descomplica in Brazil, as well as in the health space through Doctify and Baby2Body. We’ve backed Brytlyt, the world’s most advanced GPU accelerated database, 1000x faster than legacy systems, which allows multibillion row datasets to be queried in seconds, revolutionising analytics in sectors such as telcos, retail and finance. We’ve made further investments in Sprout.ai, the insurtech company tackling fraud with AI, and Ravelin, whose fraud and payments solutions are supporting B2C platforms such as Deliveroo and Just Eat.

In keeping with our continued interest in supporting certain UNPRI guidelines – and in particular the environment – we are excited about new portfolio company Xampla’s microplastic replacement products. Derived from pea protein, they can help end the scourge of plastic pollution.

We’ve achieved successful exits under challenging conditions from Forescout, the cybersecurity firm, Tobii, the world leader in eye tracking, and IndiaMART, the online B2B marketplace whose team delivered exceptional financial results despite lockdown in India. We’ve also stepped up to support companies that have been hit hard, including Travelstart, the leading online travel company in Africa, which reacted quickly and flexibly to a significant drop in bookings.

Having held our first virtual investor meeting, we’ve found ourselves getting used to remote working. It’s no replacement for meeting in person and I, for one, am looking forward to – quite literally – pressing the flesh when that becomes possible again. Thankfully, we’ve been spared (so far) from any serious Covid-19 infections and are now preparing for an eventual return to the office, with both Cambridge and London available for essential, intermittent visits and opening more formally as soon as government guidance supports it.

I hope you are all able to find a way to take an enjoyable break over the summer and take advantage of the general easing in a safe way.