Par Equity
Par Equity is an Edinburgh-based venture capital firm, founded in 2008, that backs early-stage technology companies across the North of the UK. In June 2025 it merged with Manchester's Praetura Ventures to form the £670m PXN Group. As of 2026 Par Equity has backed 2 water companies, from burst-pipe repair to graphene-membrane mineral recovery, rated Committed by (don't) Waste Water.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Par Equity has spent its whole life backing the half of Britain that London's venture money tends to skip. Founded in Edinburgh in 2008 by four partners, it puts early-stage cheques into technology companies across the North of the UK, Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland, pairing its own fund capital with a syndicate of angel investors it calls the Par Investor Network. The promise was never just the money; it was the operators it could put around the table.
Par Equity is now part of something a lot bigger. In June 2025 it merged with Manchester's Praetura Ventures to create PXN Group, a £670m investor built explicitly 'for the North', with 115 portfolio companies and offices in Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds and London. Founder Paul Munn stepped up to Executive Chair of the combined group, the venture arm now trades as PXN Ventures, and Par Equity keeps running its own funds inside it.
Par Equity does not run a water fund, and that is the frame for its water bets: two companies it backed early, both sitting where deep tech meets a hard resource problem. WaterCycle Technologies, a University of Manchester graphene spinout, pushes brine and waste streams through membranes to pull out battery-grade lithium and leave clean water behind. Kibosh makes a clamp a plumber can snap over a live, burst pipe to kill a leak on the spot, the unglamorous end of water that actually floods buildings.
Par Equity's water exposure is small and deliberate, a by-product of a technology thesis rather than a sector bet, but it lands squarely on the two places the water industry quietly loses the most money: recovering value from waste streams, and stopping the pipes from leaking. For a fund now wired into a much larger Northern platform, those are exactly the kind of industrial, IP-heavy companies its model was built to scale.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 2 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Par Equity invest in?
- Par Equity invests in early-stage, high-growth technology companies across the North of the UK, including Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland. It favours deep tech, climate tech, health technology and industrial software, and often anchors the rounds it joins, pairing its own fund capital with co-investment from its angel network, the Par Investor Network.
- Did Par Equity merge with Praetura Ventures?
- Yes. In June 2025 Par Equity merged with Manchester's Praetura Ventures to form PXN Group, a £670m investor for the North of the UK with 115 portfolio companies. Par Equity founder Paul Munn became Executive Chair, and the venture arm now operates as PXN Ventures, while Par Equity continues to manage its own funds inside the group.
- Who runs Par Equity?
- Par Equity was founded in Edinburgh in 2008 by Paul Munn, Paul Atkinson, Robert Higginson and Andrew Castell. Managing Partner Paul Munn leads the firm and now chairs the merged PXN Group. Founding partner Paul Atkinson, who chairs the Par Investor Network, championed Par Equity's burst-pipe investment Kibosh.
- Where is Par Equity based?
- Par Equity is headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, and invests across the North of the UK. Through its 2025 merger into PXN Group, its footprint now also spans Manchester, Leeds and London. The firm deliberately backs companies outside London and the South East, where most UK venture capital concentrates.
- Does Par Equity invest in water?
- Yes, selectively. Par Equity has backed 2 water companies: WaterCycle Technologies, which uses graphene membranes to recover battery-grade lithium and clean water from waste streams, and Kibosh, maker of rapid burst-pipe repair clamps. (don't) Waste Water rates Par Equity's water commitment Committed.