Albion Capital, the leading independent investment manager, has completed the sale of its stake in full fibre broadband operator G.Network to the Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited (USS) and Cube Infrastructure Managers (Cube), generating a 3.8x return for its venture capital trust (VCT) investors.

Pembroke VCT, the venture capital trust focused on building the consumer brands of tomorrow, has successfully exited its investment in Pasta Evangelists, which delivers restaurant-quality pasta direct to customers by post. The innovative meal kit business has agreed a deal whereby Italian firm, Barilla Group, will acquire a majority stake. The value of the deal is undisclosed.  

Fast-growing consumer insights business Vypr plans to strengthen its sales and marketing operations as it invests in its team and expands into new sectors and overseas markets following a £2.5m growth capital investment backed by YFM Equity Partners (YFM) through its British Smaller Companies VCTs.

Albion Capital is seeking to raise up to £45 million through top up offers for five of its venture capital trusts.

NVM Private Equity has sold its stake in Agilitas IT Solutions Limited to the international private equity investor Perwyn, providing NVM funds with an 8.4x return. 

Gresham House Ventures, a growth equity investor specialised in scaling businesses driven by technology, customer insight or service excellence, and Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active private equity managers, have invested in growing e-commerce deals business RevLifter.

YFM Equity Partners has boosted its growing portfolio of high-growth technology businesses with an investment into award-winning marketing automation platform, Force24.

Force24 is a cloud-based marketing automation platform that allows an in-house marketing manager to deliver personalised marketing campaigns with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration. The platform is already trusted by a number of  household brands including Michelin, Tarmac and BBC Children in Need, to deliver over 900 million marketing emails so far this year, and the business saw turnover leap by 40% from 2018 to 2019, with revenues expected to reach over £3.5m this year despite the economic impact of the global pandemic.

Maven Capital Partners has realised its VCT investment in Edinburgh-based Symphonic Software (Symphonic) through a sale to PING Identity, a NYSE listed company which delivers Intelligent Identity solutions for enterprise. The exit from Symphonic, Maven’s fourth VCT realisation of 2020, has delivered an impressive 2.9x money multiple return and 90% IRR for investors.

Pembroke VCT, the venture capital trust focused on building the brands of tomorrow, has made an initial investment of £1 million into Smartify, the app named by New Scientist as the ‘Shazam and Spotify for art’.

Smartify, founded in 2015 by four friends; Anna Lowe, Thanos Kokkiniotis, Nick Mueller and Ron Rijmoet, helps people make meaningful connections with art whilst providing museums with next generation digital technology.

Foresight Group and Williams Advanced Engineering have announced an investment of £1.05m into AudioScenic, which is developing immersive 3D audio technology for loudspeaker systems that will revolutionise the way users experience sound. 

The funding from the Foresight Williams Technology EIS and VCT funds is part of a £1.58m funding round alongside existing investor IP Group, which will enable the company to further commercialise its products and hire additional staff.

Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active private equity managers in the UK, has invested £2 million in MirrorWeb, a leading tech firm that enables organisations to capture, archive and monitor web-based content for digital oversight and regulatory compliance. The transaction has been funded by Maven’s managed VCTs and represents Maven’s tenth VCT investment in 2020.

Manchester-based MirrorWeb has developed a cloud-based SaaS platform that helps organisations create accurate and immutable records of online communications, ensuring they meet compliance obligations and information of cultural or historical value is never lost.

Pembroke VCT has made an initial investment of £2 million into Eave, a UK-based tech start-up which has developed a unique hearing protection system for construction workers.