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In a union of the private and public markets, leading equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs is offering its investors the opportunity to invest in the £100 million initial public offering [“IPO”] of Augmentum Fintech plc, the first Main Market IPO that Seedrs investors have had access to. Investors responded enthusiastically to Seedrs’ offer, surpassing the initial £500,000 target that Seedrs set for its portion of the IPO in the first 24 hours.
Augmentum is a newly established closed-end investment company whose investment adviser is top fintech VC Augmentum Capital. It will invest in fast growing private fintech businesses based predominantly in the UK and wider Europe. These investments will be in early stage (but not seed stage) businesses with high growth potential in scalable sectors with disruptive technologies in the banking, insurance and asset management sectors, as well as other cross-industry propositions.
The company announced its intention to float last week, with a target issue size of 100 million shares of £1 each. Investment trust RIT Capital Partners, which is chaired by Jacob Rothschild, and was the sole backer of Augmentum Capital’s first fund, will invest £10 million, and the management team will invest £2.7 million.
Concurrently with the IPO, the company will acquire an initial portfolio of five fintech investments with an aggregate valuation of approximately £33.3 million as at 31 December 2017. The portfolio comprises an investment in Seedrs itself, as well as in Zopa, Interactive Investor, BullionVault and SRL Global. Tim Levene, who is Managing Partner of Augmentum Capital, is also a Seedrs board director.
Tim Levene, co-founder and principal of Augmentum Capital, the fund’s investment adviser, commented: “The UK and Europe are well-placed to capitalise on the ongoing disruption of the financial services sector, where we are surrounded by some of the most innovative fintech businesses like Seedrs. The Augmentum Fintech team is well networked with investment and operational expertise as well as a successful and established track record, offering investors targeted exposure to a sector with huge growth potential that is difficult to access. We expect to drive value creation from our investment and deliver attractive long-term value to investors.
As an investor and passionate supporter of Seedrs, we are pleased that we are able to offer their investors access to the new fund. We believe it offers attractive risk-adjusted returns through a highly curated portfolio of high calibre fintech companies.”
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