Coming soon
In August 2025 the boards of the three Albion VCTs announced their intention to launch a new combined offer for subscription for the 2025/26 tax year – to raise £60 million with an over-allotment facility of £30 million. Details are expected to be published in October 2025.
You will be able to download documents and apply online here.
The Albion VCTs are overseen by Albion Capital, a well-resourced investment manager which has been investing in technology and scale-up companies for over 20 years led by experienced managing partner Will Fraser-Allen.
Until recently the team managed six VCTs, now merged into three: Albion Enterprise VCT (AAEV), Albion Technology & General VCT (AATG), and Albion Crown VCT (CRWN).
All three VCTs target an annual dividend of 5% of NAV, with each targeting two payments a year in a different month. Dividends are variable and not guaranteed.
Together, the three VCTs have net assets of over £700 million (June 2024) and give investors exposure to a portfolio of around 65 companies. The portfolio has a bias toward growth capital investments in the fintech, software and healthcare sectors, as well as a small legacy portfolio of income-generating renewable energy investments.
Over the five years to 30 June 2025, the three Albion VCTs have produced NAV total returns (including dividends reinvested) ranging from 32.0% to 50.8%. Past performance is not a guide to the future.
- Seeking to raise up to £50 million in aggregate, with £30 million of overallotment facilities
- Target dividend of 5% of NAV per annum – variable and not guaranteed
- Available only for this tax year (2024/25)
- Minimum investment £6,000 (£2,000 per VCT)
- Please note the offer is close to capacity and applications may be returned
Important: The information on this website is for experienced investors. It is not a personal recommendation to invest. If you’re unsure, please seek advice. Investments are for the long term. They are high risk and illiquid and can fall as well as rise in value: you could lose all the money you invest.
The manager
The Albion VCTs have been managed by Albion Capital Group LLP (“Albion”). Albion has been managing VCTs for over 20 years and has £1 billion of assets under management, of which around £700 million in its VCTs.
The 20-strong investment team is led by managing partner Will Fraser-Allen, an experienced technology investor, who joined Albion in 2001.
The team contains a mix of specialist healthcare, financial technology and software investors as well as platform staff who help portfolio companies with operational issues such as hiring, governance and corporate finance. An example is Partner Jane Reddin, an experienced talent director previously of EQT and Balderton Capital. Jane works with founders to build senior teams and assist with leadership development and organisational scaling.
Managing partner Will Fraser-Allen is keen to encourage equity participation within the business to help retain and attract talent. Out of 55 employees, 18 are now partners, 13 of whom sit within the investment team.
Investment strategy
Since 2015, the Albion VCTs have focused purely on growth opportunities with a bias towards healthcare technology – particularly the digitalisation of healthcare – financial technology, digital risk, and AI & Data stack sectors. The investment team looks for B2B businesses with a unique offering, operating in fast-growing markets specifically companies the manager believes have reached an inflection point and require additional funding to accelerate growth.
The VCTs will invest across a range of maturity stages: early stage, growth, and scale up, depending on turnover. It is expected most companies will have turnover greater than £1 million, with a small proportion of earlier-stage ventures. Albion believes diversification across sectors, size, and maturity of the businesses can help build ‘all-weather portfolios’.
Portfolio overview
The three Albion VCTs have net assets of over £700 million (June 2024): mostly newer growth investments, with a smaller portion in legacy asset-backed investments and cash.
Asset breakdown (% of NAV)
| Asset-based companies | Growth companies | Cash and deposits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AAEV | 6% | 74% | 20% |
| AATG | 13% | 67% | 20% |
| CRWN | 11% | 69% | 20% |
Source: Albion Capital, 30 June 2024.
The combined portfolio includes around 65 unquoted companies, most of which have some degree of co-investment across the VCTs. The sector breakdown of the combined portfolio is shown below; however, percentages will vary between the individual trusts.
Combined portfolio sector breakdown (%)
Source: Albion Capital, 30 June 2024.
The combined Albion VCT portfolio is concentrated, with the top three holdings accounting for 26.9% of net assets. The VCTs’ largest holding, Quantexa, is valued at £125.5 million or around 17% of total NAV (June 2024).
Strong performance from the VCTs’ largest holdings has resulted in 76% of the portfolio being invested in businesses generating revenues in excess of £5 million.
Combined portfolio breakdown by revenue (%)
Source: Albion Capital, 30 June 2024.
Portfolio example: largest holding
Quantexa
Big-data analytics firm Quantexa uses artificial intelligence to uncover hidden relationships and emerging risks, helping financial institutions spot and prevent fraud. Today, Quantexa’s Decision Intelligence technology is used in over 70 countries by blue-chip banks (including BNY Mellon, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, and Danske Bank), insurers and government organisations.
In its latest full-year results to March 2023, Quantexa reported revenues of £57.9 million, up from £17.5 million in March 2020, and £5 million in 2018. This growth has attracted significant fundraising interest. Most recently, in April 2023, Quantexa raised $129 million in a round led by Singapore’s GIC fund, alongside Warburg Pincus and Dawn Capital. The funding round valued the business at $1.8 billion.
Albion first participated in a £2.7 million funding round in 2017, just a year after the company was founded, and has since provided several follow-on investments. In October 2023 the VCT sold part of its stake for £9.4 million. Despite that, Quantexa remains the largest holding within the combined portfolio.
The combined VCT stake is currently valued at £125.5 million on an investment cost of £9.9 million. It accounts for around 17.0% of net assets (June 2024) across the three VCTs. Past performance is not a guide to the future.
Portfolio example: recent investment
trumpet
trumpet was founded in 2021 by the team that built and exited DesignMyNight, a successful hospitality booking platform.
trumpet is a B2B sales platform, created to address the issues the founder experienced when selling their previous venture to hospitality businesses. Trumpet streamlines the back and forth typical of a sales process into centralised, personalised and trackable ‘digital sales rooms’ including sales demos, contracts. content, timelines and communications. trumpet can cut sales cycles by 28%, increase new contracts by 13% and reduce onboarding time by 34%.
The platform has repeatedly won awards from B2B SaaS review site G2 and now has more than 10,000+ users and 250 customers including Cognism, Booking.com subsidiary OpenTable and Sky Media.
Albion first invested as part of a £5 million round that valued the business at £22.6 million.
Exit track record
In the three years to September 2024, the Albion VCTs received over £132 million in exit proceeds.
The most notable exit was the sale of Egress Software Technologies in July 2024 realising proceeds of over £60 million (detailed below). Other sales include Credit Kudos (£15.5 million), MyMeds&Me (£13.3 million), Phrasee (12.2 million) and Ophelos (£6.6 million), as well as the sale of a portion of the VCTs’ stake in Quantexa for £9.4 million.
Example of recent exit
Egress Software Technologies
Egress was founded in 2007 as a dedicated email security business. Its first product focused on email encryption, then developed into a suite of products to reduce the cybersecurity risks caused by human error when working with emails.
Today its product line includes software to protect against phishing attacks, enable secure document sharing, and analytical tools to identify key cyber risks. In the 12 months to December 2023, the company reported sales of £33.6 million.
Albion first backed the business in 2014, when the company had just 12 employees, as part of a £2.2 million Series A round, and followed on in 2017 and 2018. The company was sold to security specialist KnowBe4 in July 2024, returning over 7x cost.
Example of previous failure: Oxensis
Oxensis is a deep tech business which developed high-pressure and high-temperature sensors for use in aerospace. Despite investing £5.8 million over 15 years, it took longer for the company to gain commercial traction than Albion expected.
Albion introduced a specialist strategic investor, who was, however, unable to continue to support the sizeable funding requirements of the business in a form compatible with the VCT structure. As a result, Albion had to step back from the investment, selling its equity to the strategic investor for a nominal sum.
Performance and dividends
Over five years to June 2025, the Albion VCTs have produced NAV total returns (including dividends reinvested) ranging from 32.0% to 50.8% of starting NAV. Past performance is not a guide to the future. Note, we show VCT returns over a five-year period as a minimum, where possible. Where a VCT has followed the same investment strategy for longer, we also show returns over 10 years.
The three VCTs aim to pay half-yearly dividends (each calculated as 2.5% of the most recently announced NAV) twice a year, each in a different month. So, an investment in all three VCTs could potentially generate a bi-monthly income stream throughout the year – dividends are variable and not guaranteed.
Over the five years to June 2025, the three Albion VCTs have paid total dividends per share of between 35.2% and 40.0% of starting NAV.
NAV and cumulative dividends per share over five years (p)
Source: Morningstar. Past performance is no guide to the future. Dividends are variable and not guaranteed. The bar chart shows net asset value and cumulative dividends per share for the period 31/12/2019 – 30/06/2025.
Dividend payments in the calendar year
Source: Morningstar. Past performance is no guide to the future. Dividends are variable and not guaranteed. The bar chart shows dividends per share paid in each calendar year.
Dividend yield history (% of starting NAV)
| AAEV | AATG | CRWN | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 4.8% | 13.3% | 11.0% |
| 2021 | 4.9% | 5.4% | 10.1% |
| 2022 | 4.9% | 4.9% | 5.0% |
| 2023 | 5.2% | 5.1% | 5.1% |
| 2024 | 15.9% | 5.1% | 5.1% |
| YTD | 2.8% | 2.5% | 2.5% |
Source: Morningstar. Dividend yields are based on the dividends paid over the period divided by the starting NAV of the VCT in each period. Past performance is no guide to the future.
Dividend Reinvestment Scheme (DRIS)
The VCTs operate a dividend reinvestment scheme that allows shareholders to reinvest future cash dividend payments in new shares if desired. As these are new shares they should be eligible for tax relief (you will need to claim this on your tax return or directly with HMRC) and the shares will count towards the VCT annual subscription limit.
Share buy-back policy
The boards intend to buy back shares at up to a 5% discount to the prevailing net asset value. This is not guaranteed – please see the offer documents for details.
Discount history
VCT shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange. Similar to investment trusts, the share price can fluctuate and can be different from the VCT’s net asset value (NAV), i.e. the value of the VCT’s underlying investments. The difference between the share price of a VCT, and its net asset value per share, is called a discount.
Based on data from Morningstar, the average discount to NAV as at 31 June 2025 was -4.8%. Over the previous five years the average discount to NAV was -5.4%.
The discount history is based on the closing share price of the VCT at the end of each month, divided by the latest net asset value at the time. Past performance is not a guide to the future. Investors looking to sell their VCT shares may get a better price using the VCTs’ share buyback facilities, although this is not guaranteed.
Risks – important
This, like all investments available through Wealth Club, is only for experienced investors happy to make their own investment decisions without advice.
VCTs are high-risk so should only form part of a balanced portfolio and you should not invest money you cannot afford to lose. They also tend to be illiquid and hard to sell and value. Before you invest, please carefully read the Risks and Commitments and the offer documents to ensure you fully understand the risks.
To retain the tax benefits, VCTs should be held for at least five years. If you sell VCT shares and reinvest in new shares of the same VCT (including any mergers) within six months, tax relief can be restricted. Tax rules can change and benefits depend on circumstances.
Charges and savings
A summary of the main charges and savings is shown below. The net initial charge shown includes the Wealth Club saving and any early bird discount. The investment may have additional charges and expenses: please see the provider documents including the Key Information Document for more details, offer price and share allotment calculation methodology.
Please note, capacity – for the offer or any early bird savings – can be reached early, and we may not be notified of this by the VCT in real time.
|
Full initial charge |
3% |
|
Early bird discount |
– |
|
Wealth Club initial saving |
– |
|
Existing investor discount |
– |
|
Net initial charge through Wealth Club (new investors) |
3% |
|
Net initial charge through Wealth Club (existing investors) |
3% |
|
Annual charge |
2.0% |
|
Annual administration charge |
See offer documents |
|
Performance fee |
15-20% |
|
Annual rebate (for three years) |
0.10% |
More detail on the charges
The full initial charge shown in the table above is before any savings and discounts; the net initial charge is after available savings and discounts. When you invest through us, Wealth Club will receive commission each year (up to 0.4%). Commission is paid by the product provider so there is no additional charge to you.
The annual management charge paid to the managers is 2.0%. There is a performance fee of between 15%–20% above a hurdle rate, please see the providers documents for details.
Annual rebate when you invest through Wealth Club
The Albion VCTs include an annual rebate for Wealth Club investors, payable for the first three years.
This is a rebate of our renewal commission and should be equivalent to a percentage (shown in the table above) of your subscription. Terms and conditions apply.
Deadlines
- Deadline for final 2024/25 allotment: 3 April 2025 (2pm)
Our view
The Albion VCTs have been investing in fast-growing UK businesses since 2015, with a particular emphasis on the fintech, software & technology and healthcare sectors (69% of net assets), and have built a reputation for backing some of the UK’s brightest startups.
The VCTs have experienced strong recent performance. The VCTs’ largest holding, Quantexa has enjoyed several large markups following third-party funding and the VCTs have received £132 million of exit proceeds in the last three years – most notably from the sale of cybersecurity company Egress for 7x cost in summer 2024 (see above). Past performance is not a guide to the future.
The recent decision to merge the six Albion VCTs into three is expected to save investors across all VCTs £1.5 million a year while also simplifying the Albion offer substantially.
In our view, the ability to access a growing portfolio of technology and healthcare businesses – combined with the potential for a regular income stream – makes this an offer worth considering. Investors should form their own view.
This financial promotion has been communicated and approved by Wealth Club Ltd on 6 January 2025
Wealth Club aims to make it easier for experienced investors to find information on – and apply for – investments. You should base your investment decision on the offer documents and ensure you have read and fully understand them before investing. The information on this webpage is a marketing communication. It is not advice or a personal or research recommendation to buy any of the investments mentioned, nor does it include any opinion as to the present or future value or price of these investments. It does not satisfy legal requirements promoting investment research independence and is thus not subject to prohibitions on dealing ahead of its dissemination.