The Secret Investor on AI and pre-Budget chatter

PLUS: Bonus piece from Peter Walker with a Scottish angle on the Par Equity Praetura Ventures merger

Hello Rainmakers,

We have two pieces for you today. Secret Investor is back, with plenty to say on AI, and we are thrilled to publish the first feature for Rainmakers by Peter Walker, who joins us as editor for Scotland. Helpfully, Peter gives us the view from North of the Border on the Par Equity and Praetura merger.

Rainmakers subscribers get two unique pieces a week, but also full access to our back catalogue of investigations, scoops, and insights, including updates from The Secret Investor, interviews with entrepreneurs, and the leaders from VC and PE investors like Endless, and River Capital, Foresight, Mercia, Puma and LDC.

The Secret Investor returns

Here we are… issue number 10! Thanks for reading, I’ve heard one or two of our top investors here in the North are big fans… probably also safe to assume some of the not so top investors aren’t big fans, mind you...

There have been a number of movers and shakers over the last month or so since we last spoke. It’s fair to say the tension is building ahead of Rachel Reeves’s Budget tomorrow, particularly since she decided to warm the nation up with a rousing warning speech a week or two back. All in all, it’s been a very challenging listen over the last few weeks and months, and it was no surprise to me when I spoke to a wealth management contact of mine recently they explained that the main aspect of their role in recent months has been helping the wealthy pack their bags to move abroad. All pretty scary stuff I’d say.

Back to the specifics of the investment world, and on the global stage it feels as though all eyes are still on artificial intelligence, awaiting the impact on those industries likely to be impacted first / most. As far as I can see, there are a few categories that are already winning and investors are paying up in terms of value. Obviously those businesses with central / critical infrastructure (such as LLMs – large language models, such as Grok or OpenAI) are scooping the big money, but businesses with much narrower and simpler applications are also gaining traction.