The ProVen VCTs are two of the UK’s largest and longest-standing Enterprise Capital Trusts (VCTs). Launched within the early 2000s, the funds have been managed since their inception by Beringea, an award-winning, transatlantic enterprise capital agency.
Beringea’s staff of funding professionals convey many years of expertise in enterprise capital and personal fairness investing, and a various set of specialisms honed throughout careers in banking, consulting, start-ups, and fund administration.
As a shareholder within the ProVen VCTs, you’d be accessing diversified investments managed by an professional staff who assist to drive worth and progress throughout the portfolio. This scale and diversification is a gorgeous high quality of VCTs compared with different fashions of personal firm investing.
The Funding Committee
Beringea’s funding committee – which leads selections related to any funding made by the ProVen VCTs – has 4 members, with a complete mixed investing expertise of over 100 years. They arrive from a spread of backgrounds together with banking, consulting, operations, and personal fairness investing.
Malcolm Moss, Founding Associate
Over the past 30 years, Malcolm has led the expansion, improvement and administration of Beringea in each the UK and the US. He has additionally performed a key position in notable investments and exits together with the sale of Chargemaster to BP and Watchfinder to Richemont in 2018.
Stuart Veale, Managing Associate
Stuart has over 30 years of personal fairness funding expertise, and he has been part of the Beringea management staff for greater than 20 years. He at the moment sits on the board of Lumar, and he was beforehand a director of Contact Engine, Chess Dynamics, Third Bridge, Firefly Studying, InSkin Media and ResponseTap amongst others.
Karen McCormick, Chief Funding Officer
Karen has been part of the Beringea staff for greater than 15 years, and she or he leads the agency’s funding technique and operations within the UK. She has led a number of of Beringea’s most notable investments together with Monica Vinader, Watchfinder, Luxurious Promise, Fnatic, Blis, and EDITED.
Maria Wagner, Associate
Maria leads the funding staff within the UK, and she or he has been with the agency for greater than eight years. She at the moment sits on the boards of Learnerbly, Dealroom, Social Worth Portal, My 1st Years, YardLink, AccessPay, and Arctic Shores.
The Funding Workforce
Alongside the members of the Funding Committee, the Beringea funding staff has six members. They arrive from a spread of backgrounds together with funding banking, consulting, start-ups, and enterprise capital investing.
Harry Thomas, Portfolio Director
Harry leads on Beringea’s programme of assist for its portfolio, working carefully with management groups to faucet into the Beringea community of advisers and buyers, and he’s at the moment a director of CGHero, WiredScore, Archdesk, Commonplace, and Hygenica.
Emma Biasiolo, Funding Supervisor
Emma joined Beringea in February 2016 and is liable for funding sourcing, monetary modeling, trade analysis, deal execution, portfolio administration, and fundraising due diligence. Emma led the agency’s funding in Fortunate Saint and now sits on the board of the corporate, and she or he can also be a director of Plank {Hardware} and Papier.
Carrie Babcock, Funding Supervisor
Carrie is liable for sourcing and analysing new offers, due diligence on potential investments, managing deal execution processes, and monitoring and advising portfolio firms. Carrie led Beringea’s latest funding in Doctify and likewise at the moment sits on the boards of DeepStream and BeenThereDoneThat.
Luke Edis, Funding Supervisor
Luke is liable for sourcing and analysing new offers, due diligence on potential investments and monitoring portfolio firms. Luke led the agency’s funding in DASH Water and now sits on the board of the corporate – he’s additionally a director of LITTA.
Piotr Bukanski, Senior Funding Affiliate
Piotr is liable for sourcing and analysing new offers, due diligence on potential investments and monitoring and advising portfolio firms. Previous to becoming a member of Beringea, Piotr was an Affiliate within the EMEA Personal Capital Markets Workforce at Financial institution of America.
Jodie Miller, Senior Funding Affiliate
Jodie is liable for sourcing and analysing new offers, due diligence on potential investments and monitoring and advising portfolio firms. Previous to becoming a member of Beringea, Jodie was an Investor at Charlie Oscar, a specialist group of digital native manufacturers.
The Funding Course of
The skilled buyers within the Beringea staff play an lively position in shaping the efficiency of your funding, making certain that the method of discovering, backing, and scaling high-growth start-ups is delivered successfully.
At Beringea, there’s a rigorous course of for investing on behalf of the ProVen VCTs, which we now have laid out beneath.
Sourcing
Whereas the agency usually makes between 5-10 new investments a 12 months, Beringea yearly sources round 1,000 potential offers. These potential investments are generated by means of a spread of various sources:
- Inbound pitches: given Beringea’s substantial profile and the observe report of its senior staff, it’s typically approached immediately by firms searching for funding, usually for Sequence A funding.
- Introductions from trade contacts: angel buyers and start-up leaders typically join Beringea on to members of their community searching for funding.
- Company finance advisers: a proportion of Beringea’s deal circulate is generated by means of relationships with company finance advisers.
- Outbound origination: the Beringea staff additionally conducts a complete outbound origination programme spanning in-depth analysis of markets and tendencies, evaluation of on-line information sources and insights, and outreach to firms ensuing from these items of analysis.
- Occasions and conferences: Beringea hosts a spread of influential occasions all year long – for instance, Beringea chairs a community of greater than 250 VC companies centered on ESG – in addition to attending main tech conferences, which give an everyday supply of offers.
Upon sourcing these offers, the funding staff will conduct an preliminary assessment of the corporate and any fundraising supplies it is ready to present to grasp whether or not it presents a compelling funding alternative.
Administration presentation
As soon as the staff has constructed larger conviction concerning the potential of the deal, the administration staff will likely be invited to current to your entire Beringea funding staff, offering a possibility to be taught extra concerning the enterprise and ask questions of the management.
The Beringea staff will present suggestions on the corporate and supply opinions on whether or not to progress with the funding.
Funding memo
The staff main the deal will then produce a complete evaluation of the funding. This may usually function detailed monetary modelling, insights from area specialists and clients, rigorous industrial due diligence carried out by the Beringea staff, evaluation of the corporate’s addressable market, and an analysis of the potential returns that may very well be achieved.
This memo will likely be reviewed by the Beringea funding committee, who will vote on whether or not or to not with additional analysis of the funding. Opinions may also be offered by the boards of the ProVen VCTs, which embrace skilled entrepreneurs, buyers, operators, and company financiers.
Due diligence
Alongside inner evaluation carried out by the Beringea funding staff, third-party specialists may also usually conduct authorized due diligence, monetary due diligence, and know-how due diligence for any firms with extremely technical merchandise.
Having addressed any concerns that surfaced by means of this due diligence, the funding will likely be accomplished by the Beringea staff.
Portfolio administration
As soon as a part of the Beringea portfolio, firms will likely be supplied with important assist from the agency to assist the enterprise establish and harness industrial alternatives – from worldwide enlargement to new merchandise and industrial methods – in addition to overcoming any obstacles to scale that they could face.
Beringea may also usually appoint a member of the staff to sit down on the board of the portfolio firm as a director. The agency may also present firms with entry to the Beringea Scale-Up Academy, an annual programme of occasions and workshops for management groups, in addition to offering ad-hoc assist on recruitment, introductions to potential companions and purchasers, and connections with future buyers.
Exit
Having labored with the corporate to drive progress and enhancements in monetary efficiency, Beringea will work alongside the management staff to ship an exit for the ProVen VCTs. Whereas the VCTs are evergreen – which means that they don’t have a selected timeline for the disposal of investments – investments will are usually held for between 4 to 6 years.
Threat
Please be aware that an funding in a VCT entails threat and isn’t appropriate for everybody. Key dangers are outlined beneath:
- Capital in danger, chances are you’ll lose half or all your funding.
- VCT tax reliefs are topic to alter, probably retrospectively. Revenue tax reduction is simply out there to UK taxpayers, on quantities invested as much as a most of £200,000 per particular person, per tax 12 months, and is restricted to the quantity which reduces the investor’s revenue tax legal responsibility to nil.
- VCTs ought to be thought of as a long-term funding, in case you promote your funding inside 5 years you’ll have to repay the preliminary revenue tax reduction.
- VCTs put money into smaller firms which may fall or rise in worth rather more sharply than shares in bigger, extra established firms. They may also be tougher to promote.
Essential discover: Potential buyers ought to solely subscribe for shares within the VCTs on the idea of knowledge contained within the prospectuses permitted by the Monetary Conduct Authority and printed by the VCTs.
Be taught extra about investing within the ProVen VCTs right here.
* The ProVen VCTs offered a part of their holding in Monica Vinader in 2016. This determine pertains to the sale of the remaining holding in 2023. Together with the 2016 partial exit the blended return was 7.7x.
