Ascension has spent the past 7 years building a UK Seed VC where the start-ups / founders that Ascension back sit at the centre of everything, through: low and transparent fees, providing a strong support infrastructure (the creation of a mentor network and frequent ecosystem events), treating them with humility, honesty, conviction, speed, and integrity in all interactions. Ascension believes that building such an ecosystem will attract the best start-ups, co-investment deal-flow, and therefore deliver the highest returns for its investors.
Ascension has achieved four realisations since inception and 45+ businesses are valued at >200%. The FBD EIS fund coinvests with the Fair by Design institutional fund which is backed by Big Society Capital, Comic Relief, Nationwide Building Society and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It typically invests in 8-12 companies a year with a core focus on businesses which aim to alleviate the Poverty Premium (the extra price of being poor).
In addition to capital, Ascension provides a bi-annual industry leading impact report, which measures the total Poverty Premium reduction per portfolio company.
Key Investment Features:
The Fund focuses on companies raising their pre-Series A funding round and bridges the equity gap between Seed (SEIS round) and Series A (institutional round), what Ascension terms ‘Seed+’.
When making an investment decision, Ascension carries out ‘lived experience’ work, measuring the efficacy of the product to ensure it can be utilised by all. The Fund co-invests alongside the institutional FBD fund and focuses specifically on businesses which aim to alleviate the Poverty Premium (the extra cost of being poor).
The sectors include:
Energy
Digital Inclusion
Health
Finance
Insurance
Transport
The Poverty Premium is defined as the extra cost that households on low incomes incur when purchasing the same essential goods and services as households on higher incomes. For example, there are increased costs to credit to those on lower incomes: not only are they more likely to be charged high interest on credit, they are more likely to take out payday loans and credit card bills with inherently high interest rate
