UK impact investor Fortunis Capital has reported a 373 per cent increase in the value of their science and tech-based fund over the last 18 months.
The Fortunis UK Impact Investment VC Fund, which invests in innovative science and tech companies that are solving global problems, surged from GBP56.5million in September 2019 to GBP211.2million at the end of February 2021, according to independent valuations conducted by one of the world’s leading accountancy firms.
This achievement puts the Fortunis UK Impact Investment VC Fund into the top 5 per cent of VCs according to statistics from 2020 (TechCrunch): 50 per cent of VC funds return less than 1x; only 5 per cent, return multiples of more than 3x.
Fortunis Chief Operations Officer Justin MacRae says: “Our growth is driven by our success in identifying innovative solutions to global challenges enabled through science and tech. By their very nature, these all have realisable potential to scale globally and make a profound and positive impact on our economy, society and environment
“In selecting only 0.07 per cent of applicants from around the world to join the portfolio, the Fortunis deal flow team set the very foundations for the valuation uplift.”
The Fortunis portfolio includes innovative businesses in fintech, biotech, greentech and healthtech, illustrated by the fintech product Borofree (a brand name of Karma), whose app is disrupting the payday loan market by keeping employees of UK businesses out of debt with interest-free, zero-fee salary advances to spend with retailers across the UK.
Fortunis, a signatory to the UK Treasury’s Investing in Women Code, has funded the femtech Clementine, a wellness app that is empowering women to believe they can achieve anything, through reducing anxiety and building confidence.
Fortunis Capital are signatories to the Impact Principles, alongside the World Bank and the IFC: these are applied at both the fund manager level and the level of the investee companies, in order to actively monitor and manage impact goals.
Sir Andrew Ross, Head of Impact, says: “We were proud to be the 101st global signatory of the Impact Principles. Impact investing is all about measurable outcomes; about changing society for the better while returning outstanding commercial results. Impact governance sits at the very core of all our business processes, throughout the life-cycles of each of our investees.”
The analysis by the team at Fortunis, validated independently, predicts there is a further GBP3 billion of uplift to realise in the current portfolio over the course of the fund’s five-year life.
