Brexit, Trump, trade wars and some unusually violent bouts of market volatility – what a year that was for investors. It was quite a year for the VCT and EIS industry too, with many managers forced by new legislation to change their whole business model.
But, as we’ve said before, one of the advantages of investing in this part of the market is that our investee firms have a degree of immunity from the political and economic turmoil going on around them.
As for the new VCT and EIS rules, they just forced the wider industry to follow the same principles we have always held. In the two decades that have passed since Calculus launched the UK’s first approved EIS fund, our focus has been quite simple – to find and support great businesses with strong management teams that have the opportunity to scale up and generate attractive investor returns.
2018 was another award-winning year of hard work, with nearly 600 deals assessed and £18m invested.
Doing what we do best – some 2018 highlights:
January: Scancell, a biotech company developing immunotherapy treatments for cancer, in which Calculus is the largest institutional investor, began partnerships with Cancer Research UK and BioNTech and was shortlisted for the Cancer Research UK Grand Challenge award.
February: Invested £3m in Open Energy Market, an online platform that enables companies to secure deals with energy suppliers, tapping into the £20bn a year corporate energy market.
March: Two follow-on investments in portfolio companies Weedingtech and Quai completed.
April: Celebrated the four-year anniversary of our £5m investment in ActiveOps with the announcement that over that period the company’s revenues had grown by over 130%. The software company’s Workware technology manages and optimises team performance in real time, enhancing collaboration and improving productivity.
Calculus also hosted a CEO seminar with Weedingtech, for investors and advisers.
May: Additional investment in medical diagnostics business Mologic, alongside the Foresight Group.
June C4X win Best Technology Award at the European Mediscience Awards and Dr David Venables, CEO of synthetic biology company Synpromics, wins “2018 Scotland Disruptor” prize at the EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Inspiresport announce an exclusive partnership with Inter Milan football club.
July: Invested £2m in Cloudtrade, developers of software that enables companies to automatically process electronic documents, such as invoices and sales orders. The software is already in use by more than 200 companies and organisations, including the NHS.
Weedingtech announced a partnership with Spanish company Riversa, opening up the Spanish market.
August: £2m invested in clinical-stage oncology company Oxford Biotherapeutics, whose two unique development platforms are in use by leading pharmaceutical companies around the world in cancer treatment studies. Calculus CEO John Glencross asked to discuss Brexit impact on investors by BBC Newsnight.
September: Invested £1.6m, with a further commitment of £400,000 invested in December 2018, in biopharmaceutical company Arecor, which develops fast-acting diabetes treatments to improve the quality of life of the 425 million people around the world living with diabetes. Money Dashboard reaches its one million linked accounts milestone on its app.
October: Growing integrated marketing agency Once upon a time buys brand activation and shopper marketing agency Toucan to broaden its offering.
Calculus hosted their annual Investor Reception, bringing together portfolio companies and investors.
November: Synpromics ranked 12th in the Deloitte ‘UK Technology Fast 50’, based on revenue growth over the past four years.
Award-winning growth investment specialists
The year ended on a high for Calculus as it was named Best EIS Investment Manager in the Growth Investor Awards. The award reflected not only the success over the course of the year but also consistent excellence, given that it was the second year in three the award has been given to us.
In short, 2018 was another exciting year for Calculus, our portfolio companies and our investors. We reinforced our reputation for robust due diligence, culminating in some exciting additional investments within the overall Calculus portfolio.
This year Calculus celebrates its 20th birthday and we are focused on making it one of the most successful yet. It is already shaping up to be just that, with £20m of deals currently in the pipeline, three of which we already expect to close in the coming weeks. We are also eagerly awaiting the results of the independent portfolio company review we commissioned in the Autumn, which we hope to share shortly.
Our next CEO seminar event will be held in February with portfolio company, Every1Mobile. If you are interested in attending please get in touch with the Investor Relations team for further details.
We would like to thank our investors, their advisers, our portfolio companies and all our team here at Calculus – all four are vital ingredients in our ongoing success.