Stephen Johnson

Fund Principal

About

Growing up I always liked computers but based on my (flawed) logic at the time of thinking Computer Science was too specific, I studied Information Management with Business at Loughborough University. As part of this I spent a year with E.on Energy predominantly writing SQL whilst learning what having a real job was like.

After graduating I spent a couple of years in business change consulting at Capgemini, before spending the rest of the first phase of my career in and around data engineering. Initially this was building ETL data pipelines and data warehouses at software start-up Kalido, and latterly in a consulting capacity leading the technical delivery of various data pipeline/data warehouse builds at companies like Dixons Carphone and Sky.

Having tracked many of the venture backed companies that exploded through the late 2010s, in 2018 I switched track across to venture capital and joined the Northern VCT funds, initially investing with a focus on B2B software & AI. Since joining the fund, I have been fortunate to work with some exceptional teams across 14 companies including Semble, Naitive, Moonshot, Synthesized, Optellum, Voxpopme, Enate and Risk Ledger.

I now head up the later stage fund at Mercia Ventures, continuing to primarily focus on investments in software & AI across both B2B and healthcare settings at the series A stage.

I have been fortunate to work with some exceptional teams across 14 companies
Why we invested

Why we invested: Naitive