Augmentum Fintech looks to raise £28m for more investments

The investor says it has £120m worth of deals available in its near-term pipeline.

Listed fintech investor Augmentum Fintech this morning launched details of a share placement to raise an additional £28m of capital.

The fund’s raise will be used to invest in deals from Augmentum’s near-term pipeline of opportunities, which it says includes £120m worth of qualified investments.

“The trend towards a digital economy has accelerated as a result of the change in life and work routines over the past year. The fintech sector has been a beneficiary of this acceleration,” said chairman Neil England on the announcement.

“Augmentum is unique as a fintech specialist with a closed end structure offering patient capital to companies as they scale-up. We are well positioned in the sector with strong access to dealflow and our near term pipeline continues to grow.”

As well as an institutional placing, Augmentum will also open up the new shares (offered at 120p, a 6.3 per cent discount to the closing price on Friday) to retail investors via an offering on PrimaryBid.

Along with the offering, Augmentum also published an update on its existing portfolio of 18 fintech, with Interactive Investor having grown revenues 62 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2020 and Tide having passed 4 per cent market share of business banking with 250,000 SME customers.

“We are pleased with the performance of our portfolio and the adaptability and resilience of our individual portfolio companies over an unprecedented period,” said portfolio manager Tim Levene. 

“Whilst the pandemic has introduced opportunities and challenges across the individual portfolio companies, overall the portfolio has been tracking our operational and financial expectations since the Annual Results were published in July and we look forward to continued progress in the future.”