Octopus Investment has announced a £10 million over allotment facility for its current AIM VCTs fundraise.  Octopus has rapidly reached the initial £20 million target* within just seven weeks and is now offering a further £10 million of fundraising capacity to meet investor demand.

Mobeus has realised its investment in Lightwork Design to Siemens PLM Software, a business of Siemens AG, the global conglomerate focusing on electrification, automation and digitalization.

Lightwork Design provides photo realistic rendering and collaborative virtual reality design review software which will enhance Siemens’ 3D data visualisation capabilities.

Mobeus originally invested £1.9m in the management buyout of Lightwork Design and Machineworks, a group of two companies known together as VSI Limited, in 2006. VSI was demerged in 2011 and Machineworks was divested to Dr Johannes Heidenhain GmbH, the large German machine tooling and encoder group, in 2014.

Downing Ventures has committed £4.2 million of funding to Rated People Limited, to help the company accelerate growth by investing in marketing and sales and continue driving innovation in its product offering.

Rated People is an online home services marketplace that aims to connect homeowners with high quality local tradespeople. The company offers access to more than 50,000 tradespeople, representing over 30 trades, and covering the whole of the UK.  It is free for homeowners to post jobs on the platform. Trades customers pay a subscription fee, along with transactional revenues to access the marketplace and provide quotes for homeowners’ jobs. Its annual membership offering reflects the company’s ongoing commitment to helping tradespeople run successful businesses, providing trades businesses with inbuilt features that help them stay organised and track the work they’re doing. Annual membership also provides trades businesses with access to over 200 personal and business discounts to cut costs on everything from tools at Jewson, to fuel and free mobile phone insurance.

Judy Naake, the founder of St Tropez Tan and all round successful businesswoman, has been announced as a keynote speaker at this year's VCT & EIS Investor Fourm on 30th November in London.

Octopus Investments, part of Octopus Group and the largest provider of venture capital trusts (‘VCTs’) in the UK, today announces it has opened fundraising for Octopus Titan VCT (Titan).

Octopus is targeting another £120 million fundraise for its flagship VCT. This follows last year’s record breaking fundraise when Titan raised a total of £200 million.  If fully subscribed, the total fund size could rise to over £800 AUM, providing significant capital for investment in early stage businesses across the UK.

Seneca Partners, the award winning specialist SME finance business, has completed a successful first close for its recently launched VCT offering, Seneca Growth Capital VCT, amid high demand from investors.  The VCT offering was launched in May and having already reached its initial fundraise target, the first £3.1m allotment of shares took place on 23 August 2018.  On the same day the VCT’s name was changed to Seneca Growth Capital VCT and Seneca was appointed as investment manager.

Will Fraser-Allen, deputy managing partner at Albion Capital, comments on this year's VCT fundraising prospects.

NVM has invested £2.75 million of growth capital (with the balance of the £3.2m funding round provided by existing investors and private individuals) into Reading-based pharmaceutical company Ridge Pharma Limited (“Ridge”). Ridge is an emerging UK pharmaceutical business set to commercialise their first product in late 2018, with further launches thereafter.   Ridge was founded on the belief that consistently offering medicines with distinct benefits and clear value is at the heart of a rewarding and sustainable business.

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The Greater Manchester Loan Fund, managed by Maven Capital Partners, has completed its 32^nd deal investing £500,000 in Manchester-based LOFT Interiors a leading supplier in furniture solutions for the broad residential property sector. Funding will be used to support the continued development of LOFT’s operations, product, and team, to facilitate growth opportunities in existing and new markets. With over 80 staff already operating from LOFT’s offices in Manchester and London, the investment is expected to create eight new jobs in the region.

Octopus Investments, part of Octopus Group and the largest provider of venture capital trusts (VCTs) in the UK, has announced the launch of a £20 million joint fundraise for its two Alternative Investment Market (AIM) VCTs.

Calculus Capital, the award-winning Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Venture Capital Trust (VCT) specialist, has invested £2m in Oxford BioTherapeutics (OBT), a clinical-stage oncology company that is developing next-generation cancer treatments. OBT has a strong pipeline of ‘immune-oncology’ (IO) therapies that are intended to provide more targeted, specialised treatment strategies for patients by recruiting the body’s immune system to recognise and attack cancer cells.