Two funds managed by specialist alternative asset manager Gresham House, Mobeus Income & Growth VCT and The Income & Growth VCT, have launched a £70m share offer with an over-allotment option of £20m.

The new funds raised will provide further liquidity for the trusts to take advantage of new investment opportunities across a range of early-stage UK businesses and enable additional support for existing portfolio companies.

The move follows the success of the Mobeus VCTs’ fundraising in 2022, with the VCTs raising a record £45m in the first 24 hours of the offer and £76m in total.

So far, the Mobeus VCTs have consistently outperformed the market, ranking in the top quartiles for VCTs over both five and 10 years to 30 June. The funds were launched in the 2000s and have combined net assets of £343m with an existing portfolio of 50 companies.

The Gresham House VCT leadership team is supported by more than 50 people including 30 investment professionals. Together, they manage £804m across the Mobeus and Baronsmead VCTs.

“Through strategic adaptation and a focus on technological evolution to develop new, and to disrupt existing markets, our portfolio companies have generally shown outstanding resilience and are well positioned for meaningful growth as macroeconomic sentiment improves,” said managing director and CIO, private equity at Gresham House, and manager of the Mobeus VCTs, Trevor Hope.

“This share offer comes at a pivotal moment for SMEs, with sectors such as healthcare, retail and business services facing a new era of technological transformation. Fuelled by the rise of artificial intelligence, we have identified an array of promising new businesses that can benefit from our support and expertise to accelerate their growth.”

The share offer follows a period of significant activity for the Mobeus VCTs, which have closed a series of new deals in recent months.

This includes a £6.3m investment into unstructured data governance and cyber incident management leaders ActiveNav and Actfore, and an £8.5m investment into open banking and open finance software provider, Ozone API.

Hope added: “This share offer presents a compelling chance for both new and existing investors to support the next wave of UK businesses at the forefront of this transformation whilst benefitting from the attractive tax reliefs of investing in VCTs.”

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