Investor Spotlight

Through our investor spotlight series, we’re revealing exclusive insights and advice from the UK’s most brilliant minds in investment as our way to support founders and young businesses to succeed.

Next up in our investor series, we had the privilege of speaking with Dominic McGregor, founding partner of his own investing firm Fearless Adventures and co-founder and former COO of SocialChain, as well as the finalist of last year’s Great British Entrepreneur Awards & Community Investor of the Year award. Having built, scaled and sold his own businesses to impressive exits in the multiple millions, Dom is passionate about using his expertise, experience and capital to empower promising entrepreneurs.

Dom’s first big move was founding the Social Chain in 2014 with his co-founder Steven Barlett. Born as a passion project to bring students together, he grew the startup into a network of social media communities across platforms, millions of followers strong. Reaching heights like €200 million in yearly revenue and advising household brands like Coca-Cola, Amazon, Uber, Twitch and Superdry, Dom led the company to a successful IPO in Frankfurt. The digital marketing business has recently been sold for nearly £8 million. In addition to his knack for investing across a variety of sectors, Dom is also a passionate advocate for the mental health of young people and an inspiring speaker about his sobriety journey.

We asked Dom how he started his investing journey. We picked his brains on his most successful exit and of course, what sectors he has his eye on this year.

Dom described his thirst for more, despite the growing success of the Social Chain, from partnering with SMEs to eventually the world’s most recognisable brands: “What I saw was that although the cheque size was getting bigger with retainers and bigger brands like TikTok, Amazon, Coca-Cola – that actually disenfranchised me a little bit because the impact we could have on one product and one market wasn't going to move the needle for the share price, and we were also not really having a major impact on people who needed a major impact. The work was great, it was commercially fantastic, but it felt empty,” he said.

His interest in helping support businesses to reach their growth potential through deploying capital then set off his investing career, partnering with companies like Sourceful, Pinter, Patchwork Health, Shipster and more.

When it comes to his most successful exit, Dom named Lottie, a business born during the pandemic which helps families and retirees find the UK's best care homes and retirement communities. “I was an early investor in Lottie, which is a great, great business, which just raised £120 million valuation and I came in at £3 million seed, first round. So that's been my favorite business and best exit.”

In terms of his investing ethos, Dom believes founders are best placed to lead their companies and considers his own role as an investor to be advisory by helping the business to create value. “The key thing is we'll never run anyone's business because the founders are best at that. It's about taking the very solvable issues off their plates, supporting them in those areas and allowing them to maximise the places where they can have the most value,” Dom said.

So, what will Dom be looking to invest in this year? “The sectors that most excite me are female founded businesses, northern-based businesses and undervalued areas like consumer goods,” he revealed.

As he continues to build out an impressive portfolio at Fearless Adventures this year, Dom will undoubtedly grow more up-and-coming companies towards the peak of their value. We’re looking forward to following his success in 2024 and beyond.