Vala Capital, the UK venture capital firm, is looking to shake-up fees in the EIS industry with the launch of its ground-breaking EIS fund.  

This 4th episode of Series 3 of The GrowthInvest Adviser Hour explores the wider drivers behind the growing popularity of “alternatives”, 

EIS & VCT specialist Calculus Capital has invested £2.5m in fintech company Essentia Analytics (see photo), a leading provider of behavioural data analytics and consulting for professional investors. The investment by Calculus will be used to further develop Essentia’s services as it scales its client base of investment management institutions around the world. 

London-based Newable Private Investing (NPI) has announced the launch of its first evergreen fund. With an initial raise of £10 million in the first year, the Newable Scaleup Fund 3 addresses the investment gap between seed stage and Series A, targeting high-growth early-stage companies that have moved from concept to a working business model but don’t yet have the numbers to attract VC or private equity money.

NPI aims to invest in seven to ten such businesses operating in knowledge-intensive industries through the EIS fund, with particular emphasis on the specialist areas of electronics, automation, medtech, and spacetech. 

Foresight Group has invested £1.5 million from the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund into Open Bionics Limited.

The investment has been made alongside an identical commitment from Downing LLP and Ananda Impact Ventures of £1.5m each and Rathbone Nominees to complete the £4.66m round.

Open Bionics is an award-winning designer, manufacturer and supplier of bionic limbs with ambitions to become a market leader in a range of bespoke prostheses and assistive technologies and a global supplier of prosthetic and orthotic products and services.  Based in Bristol, the Company was founded just four years ago by CEO Joel Gibbard and COO Samantha Payne, since when the team has grown to 23

iDefigo Group Ltd, which offers IoT (Internet of Things) solutions for the surveillance industry, has raised £1.5m as part of their latest round. This is the Unicorn Ascension Fund’s second deal over the course of one month. UAF has participated in this round as a co-investor with other early stage investors including Ascension Ventures, which is also one of the partners in UAF.

3 years on from saving the business from Administration in a £7.5m deal, Seneca backed Foodpack Limited, the St Helen’s based specialist food manufacturing and packaging business, has been sold to Integrated Packaging Services Ltd (“IPS”).

This is the latest exit from Seneca’s EIS growth capital investment team and delivers a net tax free return of c.3.3x for their investors.

Tim Murphy of Seneca, who was a Director of Foodpack throughout the investment, commented:

Making a success of a business bought out of Administration is notoriously difficult and involves many highs and lows along the way. Bringing Foodpack back from the brink and turning it into a high quality operation has been a great result for our Investors and all stakeholders, not least the 150 colleagues who work in the business but also the wider community of St Helens that benefits from those jobs being secured.  

VCT & EIS Investor Forum sponsor CHF Entertainment has announced that superstar singer-songwriter, Gary Barlow is spreading festive cheer this winter season, by joining Jason Manford and the voice cast of hit pre-school animation, ‘Daisy & Ollie’, for a special musical Christmas episode, set to air on Cartoonito in December 2018.

The Take That front man has been animated by the team at CHF Entertainment and will star as himself in the magical episode ‘What’s so great about Christmas anyway?’, singing a song written by Jason Manford and the team.

The Christmas special is brimming with music and fun, and follows ‘Daisy’s Daddy’ (voiced by Jason Manford), a musician and single father, as he is asked to write a Christmas single for the world famous pop star, Gary Barlow, who’ll be performing it at the town Christmas concert.

Experience and interact with the latest developments in robotics technology at this year's VCT & EIS Investor Forum on the 30th November in London.  At our 'Invested Investor EXPO' at the Forum we will be showcasing six companies, backed by specialists robotics investors Britbots, who are at the forefront of the UKs robotics sector.  

The Real Lettings Property Fund² (RLPF²), managed by social impact investment company Resonance and homelessness charity St Mungo’s, has received further investments of £15m each from the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Westminster. The Fund purchases homes around the capital for people affected by homelessness, helping them move on with their lives and into independent living. 

The RLPF² is the second fund from Resonance that is building a residential property portfolio in Greater London.  There is a third Fund, the National Homelessness Property Fund, which purchases homes elsewhere across the UK.  With this latest investment the Resonance homelessness funds under management have now grown to more than £190m providing almost 789 homes nationwide, housing thousands of people who are homeless or vulnerable to homelessness over the life of the Funds.

CEO of Private investment house IW Capital, Luke Davis, comments on the introduction of a new EIS fund that focuses on knowledge intensive SMEs.