Foresight Group LLP today announced the launch of a new prospectus for the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund and that the fund is now open for investment again.
The Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund is a collaboration between Foresight Group, the £8.7 billion specialist asset manager, and Williams Advanced Engineering (“WAE”), a technology and engineering business originally spun out of Williams Formula 1. The concept of the collaboration is that by working together Foresight and WAE can deliver better results for investors than would be the case if either company were working individually.
The FWT EIS Fund provides investors with the opportunity to invest into a portfolio of early-stage companies with high growth potential, developing innovative technologies across a range of sectors with a focus on hardware technology and industrial software.
The FWT EIS Fund, originally launched in late 2016, has invested into 30 companies across a variety of sectors, and has made follow-on investments into 11 of those companies. The FWT EIS Fund recently announced its first exit, the successful sale of portfolio company Codeplay to a US corporate buyer which, when completed, will deliver a 15.7x return to investors. A number of other companies within the portfolio such as Refeyn and Salvalco have made good progress since the initial investments were made.
Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) is a core pillar of Foresight’s investment process. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are overlaid onto Foresight’s five-principle framework to help companies understand their potential impact and help them determine improvement that is measured and intentional.
Foresight-managed Venture Capital Trusts and Enterprise Investment Schemes now have over 24,000 shareholders with some £420m invested. Only 30 companies have received investment from the FWT EIS Fund, clearly illustrating the high standards set by the team and its investment process.
Andrew Bloxam, Director at Foresight, said: “As the UK economy begins to move past the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, small businesses will increasingly rely on schemes such as EIS to benefit from the economic recovery and fuel growth over the coming years. We are proud of the way that the FWT EIS strategy has evolved over the last 5 years from a new and unproven strategy to one which is well established in the market and beginning to deliver exits to its investors.”
Matthew Burke, Head of Technology Ventures at WAE, added: “Foresight Williams Technology’s offering is as unique today as it was when the EIS Fund launched in 2016. The combination of Foresight’s investment experience and WAE’s prowess in technology commercialisation has enabled FWT to build an attractive portfolio which is now generating returns for its investors.”
