Foresight Technology VCT – FWT shares

The Foresight Technology VCT is the only VCT to focus exclusively on early-stage deep tech businesses.

It started as a collaboration between Foresight Ventures and sector specialist Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), now owned by Fortescue.

The partnership goes back to 2015 and has led to investments of over £76 million in 37 deep tech companies across both the VCT and EIS fund. Examples include Oxford University spinout Refeyn and audio technology business Audioscenic (detailed below).

In the five years to September 2025, it achieved a NAV total return of -4.7%. Past performance is not a guide to the future.

• Seeking to raise £15 million with a £10 million overallotment facility
• The VCT does not specify a dividend target
• Minimum investment £5,000

The trust is managed by the 12-strong Foresight Ventures team, part of Foresight Group.

Foresight Group has over £12.1 billion of assets under management, of which £700 million is in the Foresight VCTs and EIS funds (March 2024).

The team is headed by Andrew Bloxham who joined Foresight in 2018 and has led the strategy for the last five years. They are supported by the wider Foresight Private Equity team which comprises more than 50 investment professionals.

In 2015, Foresight started collaborating with Williams Advanced Engineering (‘WAE’), a precision engineering company spun out of the highly successful Williams Formula One Team. In 2022, Australian green technology, energy and metals company Fortescue acquired WAE.

Fortescue, the VCT’s Technical Adviser, brings significant experience in technology assessment, IP evaluation and new product launches. This means they often lead on deal sourcing and due diligence pre-investment, while supporting portfolio companies with engineering projects, strategy workshops and technical collaborations.

The VCT aims to invest in IP-rich companies with innovative and disruptive technologies and the potential to address a large market opportunity.

Investee companies must demonstrate that their technology offers an “order of magnitude” improvement in terms of performance or cost compared to the status quo. This reflects Foresight’s experience that early-stage companies without a track record need to show they are at least 10 times better, faster, or cheaper to successfully displace incumbents.

Given the long development timeframes inherent in deep tech investing, the team tries to avoid highly capital-intensive models. Instead, it prefers companies commercialising and licensing IP, since this strategy should allow them to scale more efficiently.

While the fund is sector agnostic, investments are often aligned with one of the following eight deep tech themes:

• Internet of Things & Sensors
• Autonomous Systems
• Advanced Materials & Nanotechnology
• Next Generation Interfaces
• Factory Automation
• Future of Computing
• Industrial AI
• Scientific Instrumentation

The VCT has net assets of £34.8 million (September 2024) and a portfolio of 32 companies. Its portfolio is concentrated, with the top ten holdings accounting for 46.5% of NAV.

In the six months to September 2024 the Foresight Technology VCT invested £4.2 million into five existing portfolio companies and four new companies. New investments included encryption software developer Cavero Quantum, Lifelight (detailed below), AI training and evaluation provider Bitfount, and Illumion, a developer of battery assessment tools.

Exit track record

While the VCT has yet to record an exit, Foresight Technology EIS (which invests in the same type of companies) has seen two positive realisations: Codeplay (15.9x return on cost) and Flusso (3x return on cost). Past performance is not a guide to the future.

As is to be expected when investing in smaller companies, not all investments work out, and failures tend to come before exits. Mirico is one example of a Foresight Technology VCT investment that has been marked down to zero.

Mirico was a climate tech company providing ultra-high sensitivity gas detection and quantification services.

The VCT first invested in the company in July 2022, investing a total of £262,000. This has subsequently been written down to zero. Foresight has not provided any further information to Wealth Club on the circumstances of this markdown.

There is no dividend reinvestment scheme.

The company aims to operate a buy-back policy at a 10% discount to net asset value for the first five years after the VCT launched (with the intention to narrow this to 5% thereafter). This is not guaranteed - please see the offer documents for details.

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 discount to NAV as at 30 September 2025 was -4.9%. 

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.

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.

This is a new VCT share class and while the fund is small there will be limited diversification and while the VCT hopes to start dividend payments “as soon as possible” this may still be some years away.

This financial promotion has been communicated and approved by Wealth Club Ltd on 22 April 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.