At Copilot Capital , our collaborative approach applies to everything - from our relationships with founders to how we work as a team. It’s how we make sure everyone in the business feels fully invested in our portfolio and growth strategy.

“From day one, it’s clear that the value you add to the team is quite significant. You’re expected to always express your opinion and contribute ideas” explains Rebecca Visciola, Software Growth Investor at Copilot.

A journey from investment banking to software investing

Italian-born and raised, Rebecca is the newest member of the Copilot team and found her ideal role in small-cap software investing following time spent in investment banking and large-cap.

She studied International Economics in Milan, followed by Finance and Private Equity at the London School of Economics in London, before jumping straight into a role at Credit Suisse covering private equity deals. However, she soon realised she craved more autonomy and input into investment decisions than was possible in a sell-side role.

“I've always been curious to go beyond the surface of an investment opportunity, while maintaining a big picture view, so I decided to move to the buy side to have a more active role” she explains.

That led to a role at Silver Lake, a global leader in technology investing, where Rebecca spent two years as part of the firm’s analyst programme, working with portfolio companies and on new opportunities. But she still felt the pull to work with founding teams, supporting them in making calculated bets and achieving major growth milestones.

“In large cap investing, you work alongside management teams, who are expert operators but with a different attachment to the company’s future and a different risk tolerance to founders. While this experience gave me the opportunity to see what the end-state of successful technology company looks like, I also realised that your space of action to drive growth narrows down. At that stage, companies have already undergone all their major challenges, from their product proposition for a specific ideal customer profile (ICP) to their go-to-market strategy. So, as an investor you can only add marginal value, mainly efficiency-related, to a mature elephant growing at a very steady rate.”

Finding the right fit at Copilot

When Rebecca heard about an opening at Copilot, the strategy - operating between VC/growth investors and mid-market private equity - was an immediate pull. She loved the focus on actively supporting founders via a concentrated portfolio, as well as the team's emphasis on personal relationships and professional growth.

“The whole recruitment process was unique. There was genuine emphasis on getting to know me as a person and making sure I was the right fit in terms of personability and ambitions. There is a real focus here on your individual success in terms of professional growth and career mentorship.”

Now an established part of the team, she’s seen first-hand the value of personal relationships and alignment in Copilot’s approach to investing, ensuring a transparent and productive partnership with founders.

“We have a very cohesive team, and that’s reflected in our approach when meeting founders; we want to feel mutually aligned on a personal level. We need to be partners in the journey, so when important decisions need to be made, we can collaborate very openly, in the good and bad times. We recognise that founders are the ones who have built a solid business around an exciting vision, often disrupting difficult industries. We strive to be humble and be there as copilots, not operators.”

Digging into highly technical businesses

Rebecca’s passion for supporting software businesses started at university where she was president of a society advising startups on business planning. Since then, she’s always been drawn to the idea of combining her interests in investing and technology.

“You need to be humble enough to be ignorant about everything” she says. “Software disrupts every single industry, every single category, so you need to start from first principles, question everything, and have the curiosity to go back to school and learn the basics.”

She is particularly interested in niche and highly technical software products, that usually show a real technical or data-driven advantage, which makes them more critical, embedded and less easily displaceable by generic AI advancements.

Adding value every day

“I could be travelling to Milan, Paris or Amsterdam to meet founders, investors or advisors. Or I could be reviewing opportunities in our London office, working with experts and my colleagues to build solid investment theses and constantly challenge them.”

Rebecca is also involved in proactively identifying and educating potential targets before they reach the size for Copilot to invest, so that prospective founders understand their options and how the company’s approach is different.

“We always try to educate founders about the opportunities that they have or will have on the table” she says.

She is also spearheading what the team has informally called the ‘Italian Practice’, reviewing investment opportunities in her home country.

“That speaks to how entrepreneurial and value-add you can be as part of the team. It's been a great experience to see how rewarding your actions can be.”

With Copilot now established on the private equity map, Rebecca believes the business is well-placed to capitalise on an improving deal-making climate in 2025 and beyond.

“We made three investments in 2024, in what many wouldn’t define as the best software investing climate.  We’ve had a positive reception so far and have a lot of momentum behind us, so we are confident that we have all foundations to grow even faster from here on.”