British Patient Capital – Full Year Results for the period ending 31 March 2019

British Patient Capital establishes itself as a major player in UK venture and venture growth markets: Investing in 12 funds with £334m of new commitments in its first year

Catherine Lewis La Torre, CEO, British Patient Capital, said:

“In our first year, British Patient Capital committed a total of £334m to 12 venture and venture growth capital funds. Together with the seed portfolio acquired, our total portfolio consisted of 31 fund investments at the end of the financial year, representing total commitments approaching £600m. These funds had invested in 322 underlying businesses at financial year end. This activity establishes British Patient Capital as the largest domestic investor in venture and venture growth capital in the UK.

“The UK provides a fertile ground for innovative companies to thrive but lack of access to patient capital has prevented many of these companies from scaling up and fulfilling their full commercial potential. British Patient Capital will facilitate greater availability of long-term finance to help build the UK’s innovation economy.

“By demonstrating to the market that a long-term patient capital investment strategy can achieve attractive returns, we aim to encourage more investors to make allocations to this asset class.”

Key highlights:

In its first financial year, British Patient Capital has delivered strongly against its business plan:

Achieving an attractive rate of return for the UK taxpayer

• The total portfolio Internal Rate of Return stood at 13.3%.
• Gross return on capital employed was 8.2%.

Helping address the funding gap as companies scale up

• British Patient Capital acquired a seed portfolio of investments from British Business Investments in July 2018.
• We made 12 new commitments with a total value of £334m in 2018/19 financial year.
• Total number of portfolio commitments was 31 and the total value of portfolio commitments was almost £600m.
• Notable transactions during the year include:
  • £30m cornerstone investment in listed venture capital firm, Draper Esprit
  • £33m cornerstone investment in IQ Capital Fund III to back early-stage deep tech businesses
  • £50m investment in the Dawn Capital Opportunities Fund to further support its highest potential businesses
• Portfolio funds have invested in 322 underlying companies.
• Seven themes feature in our portfolio of underlying companies, including AI and big data (25%), digitisation (18%), life sciences and digital health (15%) and the future of finance (13%).

Working with institutional investors to unlock additional patient capital

• We signed our first £250m investment management mandate with the Nuclear Liabilities Fund. Signposting and providing access to venture and venture growth capital investment as an asset class for institutional investors is a key objective.