01 — Return
Commercial performance
Risk-adjusted returns from durable businesses and productive assets. The commercial case is the first gate, not the last.
Approach
Investor and operator — the second half matters.
Beyond capital we bring governance, sector expertise and people who have run the business in front of us. Four tests, one standard, and a process where the order is the argument.
The mandate
Four tests every investment has to pass.
All four, not three. Fail one and we say so in week one, not month four.
02 — Capability
UK capability
Sectors where long capital unlocks science, infrastructure and industrial capacity that would otherwise stall — or leave.
03 — Place
Regional growth
Skilled jobs, supply chains, regeneration. Weighted hard toward everywhere that is not London and the South East.
04 — Horizon
Enduring platforms
Operating capability that outlives us. Not passive exposure that leaves nothing behind.
Our view
Britain rarely runs out of ideas. It runs out of patience — usually somewhere between the prototype and the second factory.
The research is strong. The engineering is strong. The patience is what runs out — through consenting, through a first-of-a-kind build, through a decade-long offtake.
So assets get sold the moment they turn interesting. Teams get bought out from abroad. Value that should have compounded here compounds somewhere else. Not dramatic — just a reasonable decision by an investor whose fund ends before the asset matures.
Our answer is structural, not sentimental. Dedicated vehicles instead of a fixed-life fund, so no exit clock sets the strategy. Operators on the boards. A British base because it pays — proximity to a cluster, a regulator, a workforce, a grid connection — not because it flatters.
And a straight trade. Patient capital is not cheap capital. Own something for ten years and you underwrite it ten times harder on day one.
How Nebula operates
Central capital discipline. Sector-led execution.
Capital enters at group level under a single standard, reaches the four sector businesses, and lands in the structures that hold the asset. Accountability moves down with it; the standard does not.
01
Group
One standard, centrally held: capital allocation, investment approval, risk and governance. Nothing is signed off by the people who found it.
02
Platforms
Capital reaches the four sector businesses. Each runs its own strategy, origination and delivery, with its own management and advisers.
03
Vehicles
And down into the structures that actually hold the asset — alongside management teams and partners, where accountability finally lands.
The structure preserves clear accountability without over-centralising day-to-day decisions — and lets Nebula assemble the right mix of capital, technical expertise and operating leadership for each opportunity.
From first call to tenth year
How an opportunity moves through Nebula.
Six stages, and the order matters. We settle how a thing will be owned before spending money deciding whether to own it.
01
First conversation
Before anything formal
No NDA. No data room. No deck. Tell us what you are building, what money alone cannot fix, and what has to be true in ten years. Most conversations end here — and we say so in week one, not month four.
No NDA required
Typically one meeting
Answer either way
02
Screening
The four tests
Four tests, all of them. We also settle which platform owns the relationship and which specialist reads the file — a chemist, an aerospace CFO, a banker. Never a generalist.
Mandate fit
Platform assigned
Specialist adviser engaged
03
Structuring
Deciding how it should be held
Shape before spend. Which vehicle holds it, who else belongs on the register, what management keeps, where decision rights sit. Co-investment, joint venture, regional rights, project financing — tailored, never templated.
Vehicle and ownership
Decision rights defined
Partners identified
04
Diligence
Where the work is
Commercial, technical, legal, regulatory — run by sector specialists, not one panel firm applied to everything. Consenting, certification and grid risk get priced explicitly. Where there is a partner, risk goes to whoever can actually carry it.
Sector-specific advisers
Shared with partners
Risk allocated, not averaged
05
Approval
One standard, centrally applied
Group approves, deliberately separated from the platform that found the deal. The people who source it do not sign it off. Same standard for a reactor, a factory or a clinical programme.
Group investment approval
Origination separate from sign-off
Consistent across platforms
06
Ownership
The long part
Where patient capital either means something or does not. Board seats, support for the team already there, follow-on capital ready so phase two is not a fresh fundraise. Good outcomes are usually quieter than the model.
Board and operating support
Follow-on capital available
Held through cycles
Ten years is not the risk. It is the point.
If you are building something that needs an owner rather than a counterparty, we would like to hear about it.