Albion Capital has completed the top-up offers across its six venture capital trusts (VCTs).
The £80 million raised will be deployed in a pipeline of new opportunities and to help accelerate growth within the existing portfolio of around 60 businesses.
Albion Capital believes the patient capital provided by VCTs allows early-stage companies to innovate and contribute to the broader UK economy, particularly through job creation.
The companies supported by the six Albion VCTs currently employ approximately 5,000 people; the 15 largest healthcare and technology companies grew their combined forecasted revenue by 63% to a total of over £275m in the last year.
This fundraise, supported by both existing and new shareholders, will enable Albion Capital to continue investing across its portfolio of high-growth software, healthcare (including health tech) and mission critical tech enabled services.
“VCTs play an important role bringing British innovation to life and supporting entrepreneurs on their growth journey,” said managing partner Will Fraser-Allen.
“This results in positive economic and social benefits for the UK and valuable returns for patient VCT investors. This has been recently demonstrated by one of our companies, Quantexa, completing a funding round at a £1.4bn valuation.
“Given the ongoing global economic and geopolitical challenges, we believe that the funding provided by VCTs is more important than ever and this well supported fundraise makes it possible to continue backing talented entrepreneurs to accelerate growth.”
The Albion Capital VCTs reported an average annual return of 8.4% p.a. over the 10 years to 30th September 2022, 9% p.a. over 5 years and 6.3% p.a. over 3 years excluding tax relief.
All six VCTs have an annual dividend target of around 5% of net asset value.
Established in 1996, Albion Capital has over 20 years of experience investing specifically in early- stage technology companies.