Kuber Ventures, a fund investment platform offering simplified access to EIS/SEIS portfolios and funds has added three new high growth funds to its platform.
The addition of the growth funds follows last year’s budget announcement which doubled the investment limit. It also saw the rules tightened to prevent investment in low-risk companies, rather than the innovative, high growth companies the scheme was designed for.
Kuber and several of the platform’s leading fund managers recognise that between now and July is an ideal time for advisers to act. This is because there are a higher percentage of quality propositions available with a range of client benefits, including those with a significant Capital Gain..
The three new funds are the Startup Funding Club EIS Growth, the Centaur EIS fund, and Deepbridge Innovation SEIS.
Offering a generalist and a technology focus the funds have different micro-sector focuses.
Startup Funding Club EIS Growth Fund is a new fund from Enterprise Investment Partners and Startup Funding Club targeting outstanding scale-up investment opportunities. The intention is to invest in scaling companies in their ‘growth’ that have demonstrated a high level of business traction and have usually raised external investment before under SEIS and EIS. Many of the companies will have been known to the team for years through Startup Funding Club’s Angel Network meaning a solid and tested structure is already in place at the time of investment.
The CENTAUR Evergreen EIS Fund, managed by Ascension Ventures, will be setting out to bridge the equity gap between Seed (SEIS rounds) and Series A (GBP1.5 million + rounds), where Ascension believes there is a distinct lack of venture capital funding. CENTAUR’s key focus is online video & content, on Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR), music & sports, EdTech AdTech & Publishing, and Software as a Service (SaaS) & eCommerce.
Deepbridge Innovation SEIS offers investors an opportunity to secure potentially attractive returns by investing in a diversified portfolio of seed-stage innovation companies. It seeks to fund companies that possess an exciting new innovative approach to meet the existing and emerging requirements of both corporate and consumer markets. Investors are offered a diversified exposure to companies engaged in a variety of technologies, including energy and resource innovation, medtech, data analytics, robotics and AI amongst others.
The three funds are the latest to join the platform, following the new arrivals at the beginning of the year which have included amongst others: Par Syndicate EIS Fund, Deepbridge Life Sciences EIS, Velocity Consumer Technology EIS Fund, Symvan Technology SEIS Fund 3, and Atlantic Screen Media EIS.
The announcement brings the total number of tax efficient funds available on the Kuber platform to 31 comprises of 16 EIS, 10 SEIS, 4 BPR and 1 hybrid.
Kuber is also today announcing the appointment of Jenny Dalgarno as Sales Manager. Jenny has over 15 years Financial Services experience largely in sales and including time at Aviva, Selestia, The Hartford, and Partnership. Jenny’s role as Sales Manager is key within the Kuber team and she will work on developing the Kuber Ventures sales strategy and associated plans further.
Dermot Campbell, CEO at Kuber Ventures, says: “Adding these funds at this time of year is excellent. They are quality propositions and, this is an ideal time for Advisers to be making great choices and getting their client’s EIS business done early. Advisers with clients who have a significant Capital Gain, or a payment on an account due in July as well as those who wanted to make pensions contributions in the last tax year and couldn’t or even experienced a one off spike in Income Tax last year, should act now to make sure their clients are invested as soon as possible.”
Martin Sherwood, Founding Partner – Enterprise Investment Partners, says: “We are delighted to have the Startup Funding Club EIS Growth Fund on the Kuber platform. We have been long term supporters of the Kuber platform and following the recent changes in the EIS market place we believe that Enterprise Investment Partners and Kuber are well placed to serve the new EIS landscape that is ahead of us. The Startup Funding Club EIS Growth Fund offers investors the opportunity to invest in the early stage investment market and specifically companies in their “growth” phase, ie businesses that have recently come out of the “start-up” phase by demonstrating significant commercial traction and fast growth with potential for further capital appreciation.”
