M AGAZINE
April 2021
N EWABLE
THREE REASONS WHY NEWABLE'S
SCALE-UP FUND SHOULD BE PART OF YOUR CLIENT’S EIS PORTFOLIO Alex Sullivan, managing director of GBI Magazine, sat down with Sanjeev Gordhan and Avantika Gupta from Newable Ventures to discuss what makes the business unique
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efore joining Newable in 2018, Sanjeev had his own client bank at a national wealth management firm and sat on an investment committee's EIS panel. Avantika joined the Newable Ventures team in 2019 with a background in life science commercialisation and investing. Together Sanjeev and Avantika helped share how they bring their perspectives to the table at Newable Ventures. Sanjeev approaches his role as Ventures director with financial advisers in mind. He acknowledges it can be difficult for advisers looking at EIS, especially when researching the underlying investments in a given fund. EIS helps unlisted companies, so it’s essential that advisers understand the investment decisions made by a fund manager. That's why Sanjeev thinks EIS fund managers have to make an extra effort to enhance transparency.
Sanjeev shared an example of the kind of transparency Newable has. Whenever Newable places an investment and it’s gone past the investment committee for approval, Newable sends out a vote call to all of their investors.
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Every £5,000 gets an investor a vote, and though it's not binding, it serves as a communication tool and a temperature gauger. In the vote call, Newable's investment directors and analysts will write to investors, let them know the underlying investment, why they think it is a good idea, and the problem this product is trying to solve. To date, Newable hasn't had a single majority no, and the process allows investors and advisers to engage with the funding journey. Sanjeev said on this "These types of steps help Newable increase transparency in the market and make sure investors are on the journey with us." Avantika is a highly experienced project manager with a background in the commercialisation of life sciences, which makes her well fitted for the Associate Investment Director role. Newable's Scale-Up Fund follows a strategy in line with the expectations of the fourth industrial revolution. The term was popularised at the World Economic Forum and stipulates that soon there will be a blurring of the lines between the biological, physical, and digital worlds.
GB Investment Magazine
