RICHARD GRIFFITHS, the founder of investment bank Evolution, has raised £30m to set up a new vehicle.

The former sheep farmer — who left Evolution in October — has invested £10m of his own money in the new vehicle, Ora Capital Partners. High-net-worth individuals and institutions are understood to have invested a further £20m.

The vehicle will take proprietary stakes in both private and quoted business, where Griffiths believes he can generate returns.

David Norwood, the chairman of IP2IPO, has agreed to be a non-executive director of the firm. Norwood’s involvement suggests that the firm will focus on technology investments.

Griffiths has already recruited James Ede-Golightly — a City analyst who previously worked at Merrill Lynch and more recently on the special situations desk at Commerzbank — to work for Ora, which will be based in Chelsea.

Alongside Alex Snow, Griffiths transformed Evolution from a fringe broker worth a few million pounds into one of the City’s most active players, worth almost £400m.

Evolution will announce full-year results this week and City analysts expect the firm to make a pre-tax profit of up to £32m. In 2005, Evolution raised £640m for 22 clients.

But despite his success, Griffiths has been at times a controversial character. He has found himself at the centre of regulatory investigations on a number of occasions, but has always been cleared of wrongdoing.

Having left school at 16, he had a brief stint as a sheep farmer before becoming a stockbroker.

He formed Evolution in 2001 with Snow, a fellow rugby player and CSFB broker.

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