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To view the report online visit: www.augmentum.vc
Investing in Fintech.
Augmentum Fintech plc
Annual Report
Annual Report
For the year ended 31 March 2025
For the year ended 31
st
2025March
Investing in Fintech.
Annual Report
For the year ended 31
st
2025March
About Augmentum Fintech plc
1ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 2025
Strategic Report and Business Review
2 Chairman’s Statement
5 Investment Objective and Policy
6 Portfolio Review
7 Key Investments
13 Other Investments
16 Portfolio Manager’s Review
20 Strategic Report
Corporate Governance
33 Board of Directors
34 Management Team
35 Directors’ Report
39 Corporate Governance Report
45 Directors’ Remuneration Report
48 Directors’ Remuneration Policy
49 Report of the Audit Committee
52 Statement of Directors’ Responsibilities
Financial Statements
53 Consolidated Income Statement
54 Consolidated and Company Statements of
Changes in Equity
55 Consolidated Balance Sheet
56 Company Balance Sheet
57 Consolidated Cash Flow Statement
58 Company Cash Flow Statement
59 Notes to the Financial Statements
70 Independent Auditor’s Report to the Members of
Augmentum Fintech plc
Further Information
78 Information for Shareholders
79 Glossary and Alternative Performance Measures
81 Contact Details
Contents
270829 Augmentum pp001-pp032.qxp 30/06/2025 19:27 Page 1
Chairman’s Statement
2 AUGMENTUM FINTECH PLC
Introduction
This is our seventh, and my first, annual report since the launch of the
Company in March 2018, and covers the year ended 31 March 2025.
It has been a frustrating year on several counts. On the one hand, as
you can see below and in our Portfolio Manager’s report, our portfolio
continues to deliver impressive operating performance, we have made
two exciting new investments, and we disposed of Onfido and
FullCircl, at an average premium of 42% to their previous reported
values. On the other hand, as both our operating businesses and our
longsuffering shareholders can see every day, the wider market
environment has proven – in a word – inhospitable. This has, firstly,
depressed our Net Asset Value (“NAV”) per share, which fell 3.5%. And,
secondly, our shareholders have seen an even worse Total Shareholder
Return of -15.4%, resulting in our discount to NAV widening from 40.0%
to 47.4% as at 31 March 2025.
Our mission and strategy
Your company’s mission is to become Europe’s leading fintech venture
investor. Fintech is a growth sector that the UK/Europe region has
particular strengths in, and indeed Fintech is arguably the one tech
sector where Europe’s ability to create ‘unicorns’ exceeds that of the
USA. We believe that there has never been a better time to pursue our
mission.
We are currently unique, in two respects. We are the only European
fintech venture capital fund which is an I
nvestment Trust, and thus
accessible to the broadest possible pools of capital, and capable of
operating as patient capital in ways that traditional GP/LP venture funds
often struggle to do. And secondly, within the circa 260 investment
trusts listed on the London Stock Exchange, we are the only one
focusing on fintech venture capital in and around Europe.
Our vision sees our portfolio growing over the medium term to over
€1billion, comprising more than 30 investments, with several investments
having ‘graduated’ via an IPO. On the journey, we expect to see our
brand strengthening, our talent pool growing, and our relationships
deepening across the European fintech ecosystem of regulators,
capital providers, entrepreneurs and fintech supply chains.
Our strategy has four pillars:
l Focusing on fintech venture opportunities. Early stage private
fintech businesses in and around Europe are what we are focused
on. Such businesses are disruptive to and/or help to digitalise the
traditional financial services sector. A typical investment will offer
the prospect of high growth and the potential to scale during their
period of value creation. We are active investors with a team that
works closely with the companies we invest in, typically taking
either a board or an observer seat.
Our Portfolio Manager aims, before costs, for our diversified
portfolio of such investments to generate a long-term return of
20% on invested capital and for cash invested to return on average
3x at exit. In practice, successful venture capital portfolios can
expect to see a wide range of exit multiples and rely for their strong
returns on the outsized winners – which are usually rare.
l Building a team and network with a reputation for board-level
expertise. As well as being strong allocators of capital, we need to
be appealing partners for top entrepreneurs – bringing expertise,
relationships and resources to the table.
l Operating with a high Return on Investment mindset. We
revere value-for-money, and we want maximum ‘bang for our buck’.
l Operating as patient capital. We think and operate for the long
term.
Performance
Our portfolio companies delivered very strong trading performance
over the year, and I want to congratulate the management teams
leading our businesses. The 25 extraordinary businesses in our
portfolio include businesses of significant scale, delivering impressive
growth; their combined revenues grew by 31% from £0.93 billion to
£1.22billion and their aggregate profitability is now £65million, a margin
of 5.4%, up from a loss of £29 million and -3.1% a year earlier. Six of our
* These are considered to be Alternative Performance Measures. Please see the Glossary and Alternative
Performance Measures on page 79.
1
The Board considers the NAV per share after any performance fees provision to be the most accurate way to
reflect the underlying value of each share, whereas accounting standards require the Group’s consolidated
NAVper share to be presented before such fees are deducted as a consequence of our Portfolio Manager
being within our Group structure and the fees therefore being eliminated on consolidation.
To read about our KPIs see page 23.
Performance Highlights
31 March 31 March
2025 2024
NAV per Share after performance fee
1
* 161.5p 167.4p
NAV per Share after performance fee Total Return*
(3.5%) 5.4%
Share pric
e 85.0p 100.5p
Total Shareholder Return*
(15.4%) 3.6%
Discount to NAV per Share after performance fee*
(47.4%) (40.0%)
Ongoing Charges Ratio*
2.0% 2.0%
270829 Augmentum pp001-pp032.qxp 30/06/2025 19:27 Page 2
Chairman’s Statement continued
businesses are now profitable, with the total profit of these businesses
having more than doubled from over £50 million to over £130 million.
Our portfolio is diversified across different fintech sectors, European
markets and maturity stages. Its exposure to the constituent companies’
strong trading performance, weighted by our respective shareholdings,
reflects the strong performance cited above.
Our share of these
companies’ revenues grew approximately 27% last year to £49 million,
and our share of profits/(losses) was a breakeven performance.
Of course, trading performance does not directly map across to Net
Asset Value. Your Board considers its governance role in the valuations
process to be of utmost importance and understands that shareholders
and potential investors can be sceptical of private equity valuations as
they cannot be readily verified in the way that public equities can. We
consider and challenge all of the investment valuations used for the full
and half year financial statements. These are then in turn reviewed by
our independent AIFM, Frostrow, and our external auditors, BDO. The
valuations are arrived at using appropriate and consistent
methodologies in accordance with International Private Equity and
Venture Capital (“IPEV”) Valuation Guidelines and we sense check and
debate our conclusions on the assets themselves and their market
context.
We have marked down one of our larger holdings, the Berlin-based
Grover, by £26.3 million. Grover has completed a strategic review and
is in the middle of a restructuring. This is our largest write down ever,
reflecting in part the scale that Grover operates at. Our co-founder
Richard Matthews has recently stepped in as chair to support the
restructuring – as the Portfolio Manager's report explains in more detail.
Aside from Grover’s unique situation, our portfolio’s strong trading
performance contributed a £31.1 million increase to our Net Asset Value.
However, our valuations took a £15.2 million knock from the decline in
multiples of publicly traded comparables as markets grew uneasy over
the possible approach of the Trump administration to tariffs. This was
particularly felt among growth and technology stocks (which comprise
the bulk of our peer comparables). The NASDAQ* fell 14% from its
December all-time high to March 31st. Since then, markets have
recovered and at the time of writing the NASDAQ had reached a new all
time high, 17% above the 31st March level. We expect strong operating
performance to continue, and where the portfolio goes, our Net Asset
Value should eventually follow.
Our Portfolio Manager invested £18.9 million during the year, including
in two new investments LoopFX and Pemo, and nine follow-on
investments – as detailed in the Portfolio Manager’s report. The exits
previously mentioned realised £16.3 million. Further details on all
transactions are provided in the Portfolio Manager’s report.
We are disappointed that the cumulative effect of these movements is
that your Company’s NAV after performance fee at 31 March 2025 was
£270 million, 161.5p per share, down 3.5% from 31 March 2024.
And just as trading performance does not map directly across to Net
Asset Value, nor does Net Asset Value map directly across to share
price performance. The first few months of 2025 have seen significant
market turmoil, which affected our share price too. With the S&P500
and NASDAQ now up slightly on the start of the year, one might almost
forget the sharp drops both indices – and indeed our own share price –
endured earlier this calendar year – reaching their nadir almost exactly
at the end of our financial year.
Our share price on 31 March 2025 closed at 85.0p per share, down
15.5p from the price at 31 March 2024 and representing a widening of
the discount to the NAV per share after performance fee to 47.4%. As at
31 March 2025, similar to last year, our market capitalisation was £142
million, a multiple of 2.9x the £49 million ownership-weighted revenues
of our portfolio. This market capitalisation is less than the valuation of
our top three positions (Tide, Zopa Bank, and Volt), plus cash, and
attributes no value at all to our £134million of other investments.
Whatever the reasons, and notwithstanding a subsequent recovery in
our share price to 99.0p per share at the last close (27 June 2025), the
poor shareholder return over the financial year is frustrating. The Board
is acutely aware that since our IPO the very strong operating
performance of our portfolio has not been reflected in shareholder
returns as a result of a widening discount to NAV.
There is a full review of the portfolio and investment transactions during
the year in the Portfolio Manager’s Review beginning on page 16.
Portfolio Management
At its launch the Company adopted an internalised management
structure, with Augmentum Fint
ech Management Limited (“AFML” or the
“Portfolio Manager”), a subsidiary of the Company, appointed as the
Company’s Portfolio Manager. With this structure it was considered that
if AFML subsequently took on other fund management and advisory
mandates with third parties it would provide an additional income
stream to the Group.
Since that time, an unanticipated disadvantage of the internalised
structure emerged. During 2021, the Company was advised that the
long-term employee benefit plan to incentivise employees of AFML and
align them with shareholders through participation in the realised
investment profits of the Group had adv
erse accounting consequences
for the Group. To address this, the AFML employee remuneration plan
that had been in place was terminated. AFML continued to be entitled
to a performance fee as before, but the allocation to AFML employees
of any performance fee paid by the Company to AFML changed to
being at the discretion of the board of AFML, with oversight from the
Management Engagement & Remuneration Committee of the
Company. However, this had the knock-on effect that AFML was not
able to offer its directors and employees a binding points-based
remuneration structure such as would be typical for venture capital
investment managers and put AFML at a competitive disadvantage in
hiring at a senior level and could be detrimental to staff retention. This is
also an important consideration for the Company since it is reliant on
the Portfolio Manager to generate investment returns for the benefit of
shareholders and for any opportunity to earn supplementary income
from additional funds.
Following careful consideration by the Board, and having consulted with
the Company’s major shareholders, the Board has agreed that, subject
to shareholder approval, AFML will appoint Augmentum Capital LLP, an
English limited liability partnership controlled by Tim Levene and
Richard Matthews, the CEO and COO of AFML, as Investment Adviser
in relation to AFML's portfolio management duties. Augmentum Capital
LLP will engage, as employees or members, the staff of AFML who are
3ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 2025
STRATEGIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW
* NASDAQ Composite Index (total return, dollars)
270829 Augmentum pp001-pp032.qxp 30/06/2025 19:27 Page 3
currently engaged in the provision of investment advice. Augmentum
Capital LLP is authorised and regulated by the FCA. It is not a subsidiary
of the Company. AFML will retain certain functions (and associated
personnel), being portfolio management, investor relations and
marketing, systems and office administration.
There will be no change to the overall level of fees paid by the Company
and Augmentum Capital LLP should be able to offer its members and
employees a more conventional remuneration package than AFML can,
addressing the current structural issue.
The agreements that have been
negotiated in relation to this change include provisions for fee sharing in
respect of any further funds, conserve the existing termination notice
period and the Company and/or AFML will continue to own the brand
and associated intellectual property associated with the management of
the portfolio. There will be no change to the Company’s AIFM, Frostrow
Capital LLP; and AFML will remain as portfolio manager to theCompany.
A separate circular in relation to this, convening a General Meeting to
be held at 10.00 a.m. on Thursday, 24 July 2025 at 25 Southampton
Buildings, London WC2A 1AL, is being published alongside this
annualreport.
Cash Reserves, Discount and Share Buybacks
The use of the Company’s cash reserves is a matter of regular Board
review. We aim to balance the benefits of highly accretive buybacks
when discounts are high against ensuring that we hold appropriate
reserves to fund follow on investments and capture the best of the new
investment opportunities that we continue to see.
The Company’s shares traded at a discount to NAV throughout the year
under review and up to the date of this report. The Board continues to
discuss our position in the market with its advisers. We believe our
share price performance does not fairly reflect the true value of our
portfolio. Instead, our discount, in common with many other investment
trusts, reflects wider market dynamics and the particular circumstances
of some of our shareholders – and presents a buying opportunity for
some future shareholders. We are working hard to turn the market’s
challenges into opportunities.
Share buybacks are one of the mechanisms your Board actively
considers. When I consulted with several of our shareholders earlier this
calendar year I made a point of canvassing views on share buybacks.
There was widespread agreement that buybacks, while accretive to
NAV, are not effective in controlling the discount. Accordingly, we only
bought back 2,550,383 shares (1.5% of our issued share capital) in the
financial year (2024: 4,687,567 shares, 2.7% of issued share capital) –
and only as allowed under market abuse rules. All the shares
repurchased by the Company are being held in treasury. The average
purchase price was 104.9p per share, representing an average discount
to the prevailing NAV per share after performance fee of 37.5% and
adding 1.0p to the NAV per share. No shares have been bought back
since March, up to the date of this annual report.
We will seek to renew shareholders’ authorities to issue and buy back
shares at the forthcoming AGM.
Dividend
No dividend has been declared or recommended for the year. Your
Company is focused on providing capital growth and the Board is not
expecting to recommend paying a dividend in the foreseeable future.
AGM
Our AGM will be held on Wednesday, 17 September 2025 at 11.00 a.m.
at 25 Southampton Buildings, London WC2A 1AL. Your Board strongly
encourages shareholders to register their votes in advance using the
proxy form provided or by voting online, or if they are not held directly, by
instructing the nominee company through which the shares are held.
Registering votes in advance does not preclude shareholders from
attending the meeting.
Details of all the resolutions can be found in the Notice of AGM, which is
published separately from this annual report and will be sent to
shareholders when the annual report is published. Both documents will
also be available to view on or download from the Company’s website
at www.augmentum.vc.
Your Directors consider that all the resolutions listed are in the best
interests of the Company and its shareholders and recommend voting
in favour of them, as your Directors intend to do in respect of their
ownholdings.
Outlook
The fundamentals of our portfolio of businesses are good with strong
top line growth and improving profitability. Our strategy is time-tested
and proven despite the current challenging market conditions, with a
gross IRR of 31% and 2.4x multiple on realisations.
While markets remain mired in uncertainty and frustration, the European
fintech sector is scaling impressively with several €1 billion+ businesses
paving the way – including several in our portfolio. As a Board we are
very mindful of the discount to NAV and we are working hard to find
ways to narrow the discount. In the meantime, we believe our portfolio
of extraordinary businesses represents a compelling investment
proposition for growth-savvy investors.
William Reeve
Chairman
30 June 2025
4 AUGMENTUM FINTECH PLC
Chairman’s Statement continued
270829 Augmentum pp001-pp032.qxp 30/06/2025 19:27 Page 4
5ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 2025
STRATEGIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW
Investment objective
The Company’s investment objective is to generate capital growth over
the long term through investment in a focused portfolio of fast growing
and/or high potential private financial services technology (“fintech”)
businesses based predominantly in the UK and wider Europe.
Investment policy
In order to achieve its investment objectiv
e, the Company invests in
early or later stage investments in unquoted fintech businesses. The
Company intends to realise value through exiting these investments
over time.
The Company seeks exposure to early stage businesses which are
high growth, with scalable opportunities, and have disruptive
technologies in the banking, insurance and wealth and asset
management sectors as well as those that provide services to underpin
the financial sector and other cross-industry propositions.
Investments are expected to be mainly in the form of equity and equity-
related instruments issued by portfolio companies, although
investments may be made by w
ay of convertible debt instruments. The
Company intends to invest in unquoted companies and will ensure that
the Company has suitable investor protection rights where appropriate.
The Company may also invest in partnerships, limited liability
partnerships and other legal forms of entity. The Company will not invest
in publicly traded companies. However, portfolio companies may seek
initial public offerings from time to time, in which case the Company may
continue to hold such investments
without restriction. The Company
may also hold securities in publicly traded companies, including non-
fintech companies, that have been received as consideration for the
Company’s holding in a portfolio company (“Listed Consideration
Securities”).
The Company may acquire investments directly or by way of holdings in
special purpose vehicles or intermediate holding entities (such as the
Partnership*).
The Management Team has historically taken a board or board
observer position at investee companies and, where in the best
interests of the Company, will do so in relation to future
investeecompanies.
The Company’s portfolio is expected to be diversified across a number
of geographical areas predominantly within the UK and wider Europe,
and the Company will at all times invest and manage the portfolio in a
manner consistent with spreading investment risk.
The Management Team will actively manage the portfolio to maximise
returns, including helping to scale the team, refining and driving key
performance indicators, stimulating growth, and positively influencing
future financing and exits.
Investment restrictions
The Company will invest and manage its assets with the object of
spreading risk through the following in
vestment restrictions:
l the value of no single investment (including related investments in
group entities or related parties) will represent more than 15% NAV,
save that one investment in the portfolio may represent up to 20%
of NAV;
l the aggregate value of seed stage investments will represent no
more than 1% of NAV;
l at least 80% of NAV will be invested in businesses which are
headquartered in or have their main centre of business in the UK or
wider Europe; and
l the aggregate value of holdings of Listed Consideration Securities
may not exceed 2.5% of NAV.
In addition, the Company will itself not invest more than 15% of its gross
assets in other investment companies or
investment trusts which are
listed on the Official List of the FCA.
Each of the restrictions above will be calculated at the time of investment
and disregard the effect of the receipt of rights, bonuses, benefits in the
nature of capital or by reason of any other action affecting every holder of
that investment. The Company will not be required to dispose of any
investment or to rebalance the portfolio as a result of a change in the
respective valuations of its assets.
For the purposes of the investment policy, “NAV” means the consolidated
assets of the Company and its consolidated subsidiaries (together “the
Group”) less their consolidated liabilities, determined in accordance with
the accounting principles adopted by the Group from time to time.
Hedging and derivatives
Save for investments made using equity
-related instruments as
described above,
the Company will not employ derivatives of any kind
for investment purposes, but derivatives may be used for currency
hedging purposes.
Borrowing policy
The Company may, from time to time, use borrowings to manage its
working capital requirements but shall not borrow for investment
purposes. Borrowings will not exceed 10% of the Company’s Net Asset
Value, calculated at the time of borrowing.
Cash management
The Company may hold cash on deposit and may invest in cash
equivalent investments, which may
include short-term investments in
money market type funds and tradeable debt securities.
There is no restriction on the amount of cash or cash equivalent
investments that the Company may hold or where it is held. The Board
has agreed prudent cash management guidelines with the AIFM and
the Portfolio Manager to ensure an appropriate risk/return profile is
maintained. Cash and cash equivalents are held with approved
counterparties.
It is expected that the Company will hold between 5% and 15% of its
Gross Assets in cash or cash equivalent investments, for the purpose of
making follow-on investments in accordance with the Company’s
investment policy and to manage the working capital requirements of
the Company.
Changes to the investment policy
No material change will be made to the investment policy without the
approval of Shareholders by ordinary resolution. Non-material changes
to the investment policy may be approved by the Board. In the event of
a breach of the investment policy set out abo
ve or the investment and
gearing restrictions set out therein, the Management Team shall inform
the AIFM and the Board upon becoming aware of the same and if the
AIFM and/or the Board considers the breach to be material, notification
will be made to a Regulatory Information Service.
Investment Objective and Policy
* Please refer to the Glossary on page 79.
270829 Augmentum pp001-pp032.qxp 30/06/2025 19:27 Page 5
6 AUGMENTUM FINTECH PLC
Portfolio Review
Fair value of Impact Fair value of
holding at Net of foreign holding at % of Net
31 March investments/ currency rate Investment 31 March assets after
2024 (realisations) changes
#
gains/(losses)
#
2025 performance
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 fee
Tide 51,293 2,000 – 11,924 65,217 24.1%
Zopa Bank^ 39,291 505 – (3,488) 36,308 13.4%
Volt 25,458 – – (5,437) 20,021 7.4 %
BullionVault^ 13,119 (400) – 3,687 16,406 6.1%
Iwoca 7,926 – – 6,552 14,478 5.4%
Grover 35,893 4,451 (932) (25,354) 14,058 5.2%
XYB 7,135 3,500 – 1,984 12,619 4.7%
AnyFin 9,415 843 (197) 1,190 11,251 4.2%
Intellis 10,074 – 130 910 11,114 4.1%
Gemini 10,924 – (266) (1,344) 9,314 3.4%
Top 10 Investments 210,528 10,899 (1,265) (9,376) 210,786 78.0%
Other Investments* 44,407 1,027 (383) (58) 44,993 16.6%
Onfido 10,148 (9,930) – – 218 0.1%
Total Investments 265,083 1,996 (1,648) (9,434) 255,997 94.7%
Cash & cash equivalents 38,505 32,256 12.0%
Net other liabilities (271) (2,837) (1.1%)
Net Assets 303,317 285,416 105.6%
Performance Fee provision (18,980) (15,244) (5.6%)
Net Assets after performance fee 284,337 270,172 100.0%
#
The amounts in both columns are included within (Losses)/Gains on Investments in the Income Statement.
^ Held via Augmentum I LP
* There are fifteen other investments (31 March 2024: fourteen). See pages 13 to 15 for further details.
270829 Augmentum pp001-pp032.qxp 30/06/2025 19:27 Page 6
7ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 2025
STRATEGIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW
Key Investments
Digital Asset Infrastructure
The Augmentum portfolio is well diversified across the fintech ecosystem
NAV
1
by sub-sector, %
Payments
Wealth & Asset Management
SME Digital Banking & Lending
Infrastructure
Proptech
1. NAV before performance fee, as at 31 March 2025, NAV after performance fee is £270.2m
2. £29.3m cash reserves as at 31 March 2025
3. Investment in RetailBook made post-year end.
4. Following the acquisition of Farewill by Dignity in February 2025, we now hold shares in Dignity’s parent company Castelnau Group, a publicly listed fund
Circular Economy
Consumer Digital Banking & Lending
Insurtech
Cash and other net assets
2
NAV
1
£285.4m
3
4
28%
17%
11%
10%
8%
7%
5%
3%
1%
10%
Portfolio valuation changes
Gross
Portfolio
Value
NAV
3
1. Onfido exited in April 2024. FullCircl exited in October 2025
2. Consolidated cash position of £32.3m less net liabilities
3. NAV is shown before performance fee , NAV after performance fee is £270.2m
Year ended 31 March 2025
Mar-24 Investment Realisation
1
Uplift Reduction Cash available & other
2
Mar-25
Other
Total
£51.3m
£2.0m
£11.9m
£65.2m
£39.3m
£0.5m
(£3.5m)
£36.3m
£25.5m
(£5.4m)
£20.0m
£13.1m
(£0.4m)
£3.7m
£16.4m
£7.9m
£6.6m
£14.5m
£35.9m
£4.5m
(£26.3m)
£14.1m
£7.1m
£3.5m
£2.0m
£12.6m
£9.4m
£0.8m
£1.0m
£11.3m
£10.1m
£1.0m
£11.1m
£65.5m
£8.1m
(£15.4m)
(£3.0m)
£54.5m
£256.0m
£29.4m
£285.4m
270829 Augmentum pp001-pp032.qxp 30/06/2025 19:27 Page 7
8 AUGMENTUM FINTECH PLC
Key Investments continued
Tide’s (www.tide.co) mission is to help small and mid-sized businesses
(“SMEs”) save time and money in the running of their businesses.
Members (customers) can be set up with an account number and sort
code in less than 10 minutes, and the company continues to build a
comprehensive suite of digital banking services for businesses,
including automated accounting, savings, credit, business loans, card
readers and invoicing. Tide acquired Onfolk in 2024, giving Tide
members a payroll solution.
Tide acquired Funding Options in 2022, giving Tide’s customers access
to a wider range of credit options and created Partner Credit Services,
one of the UK’s biggest digital marketplaces for SME credit. Tide is
alsoexpanding geographically, with a significant business now
established in India and has recently launched in Germany. Tide has
more than 10% market share of small business accounts in the UK and
has more than 1 million membersworldwide.
Augmentum led Tide’s £44.1 million first round of Series B funding in
September 2019, alongside Japanese investment firm The SBI Group.
In July 2021 Tide completed an £80 million Series C funding round led
by Apax Digital, in which Augmentum invested an additional £2.2 million
and into which the £2.5 million loan note was converted. Augmentum
invested a further £4.2 million in October 2023 and £2.0 million in May
2024 through a combination of primary and secondary transactions.
Source: Tide 31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 19,376 17,376
Value 65,217 51,293
Valuation Methodology^ Rev. Multiple Rev. Multiple
As per last filed audited accounts of the investee company for the year
to 31 December 2023:
2023 2022
£’000 £’000
Turnover 119,351 59,176
Pre tax loss (43,714) (39,795)
Net assets 19,372 32,444
^ See note 13(iii) on pages 63 to 65.
Founded in 2020, with a full banking licence and backed by some of
Silicon Valley’s most iconic investors, digital bank Zopa (www.zopa.com)
is building the “Home of Money”. Zopa Bank secured its banking license
in just over 4 years, and has grown to just under 1.5 million customers,
achieved profitability, and launched unsecured personal loans, BNPL
retail finance and POS, car finance, credit cards, savings accounts, and
tools for improved financial management and health.
Zopa Bank achieved its first full year of profitability in 2023, swinging to
a pre-tax profit of £15.8 million for the financial year ending 31 December
2023. It again doubled pre-tax profits to £34.2 million in FY2024. Zopa
Bank has lent more than £13 billion to consumers in the UK to date and
takes care of over £5 billion in savings.
Zopa Bank was again voted the UK’s best Personal Loan Provider and
best Credit Card Provider at the 2024 British Bank Awards. Zopa Bank
Limited is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and
regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential
Regulation Authority.
Augmentum participated in a £20million funding round led by
Silverstripe in March 2021, added £10million in a £220 million round led
by SoftBank in October 2021, and in February 2023 invested a further
£4million as part of a £75 million equity funding round alongside other
existing investors. In September 2023 Zopa Bank raised £75 million in
Tier 2 Capital to support further scaling, and in December 2024, raised
£68 million in an equity round led by A.P. Moller in which Augmentum
participated.
Source: Zopa Bank 31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 33,670 33,670
Value 36,308 39,291
Valuation Methodology Rev. Multiple Rev. Multiple
As per last filed audited accounts of the investee company for the year
to 31 December 2024:
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Operating income 298,612 223,544
Pre tax profit 28,774 10,828
Net assets 496,446 410,385
270829 Augmentum pp001-pp032.qxp 30/06/2025 19:27 Page 8
9ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 2025
STRATEGIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW
Key Investments continued
Volt (www.volt.io) is building the infrastructure for global real-time
payments. Launched in 2019, its payment network is the first to unite
domestic account-to-account schemes t
o a single interoperable
standard. Scaling and enterprise businesses use it to accept real-time
payments (via a Pay by Bank option at checkout), initiate payouts and
manage funds. In doing so, they benefit from faster settlement times,
lower fees, and full visibility of payment value chains.
Headquartered in London, Volt – which is live in 31+ markets across the
UK, the EU and Australia – has offices in Warsaw, Kraków and Sydney.
In early 2025, it secured its UK EMI licence and, a few months earlier in
2023, its Polish Payment Institution licence – enabling it to offer virtual
accounts alongside payment initiation services.
Recent milestones for Volt include partnerships with Farfetch and
Pay.com, the development of its one-click checkout in Australia, and the
launch of virtual IBANs to enable merchants to automatically reconcile
high volumes of user deposits. It also partners with Worldpay, the world’s
largest merchant acquirer, and Shopify, the global ecommerce platform.
Augmentum invested £0.5 million in Volt in December 2020, £4 million
in its June 2021 US$23.5 million Series A funding round and £5.3million
in its US$60 million Series B funding round in June 2023.
Source: Volt 31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 9,800 9,800
Value 20,021 25,459
Valuation Methodology Rev. Multiple Rev. Multiple
Volt is not required to publicly file audited accounts.
BullionVault (www.bullionvault.com) is a physical gold and silver market
for private investors online. It enables people across 175 countries to buy
and sell professional-grade bullion at competitive prices online.
BullionVault currently has £4 billion of assets under management, with
over £100 million worth of gold and silver traded monthly.
Each user’s property is stored in secure, specialist vaults in London,
New York, Toronto, Singapore and Zurich. BullionVault’s unique daily
audit then proves the full allocation of client property every day. The
company generates monthly profits from trading, commission, custody
fees and interest. It is cash generative, dividend paying, and well-placed
for any cracks in the wider financial markets.
The BullionVault holding was one of the seed assets acquired by the
Company at its IPO in March 2018, for £8.4 million.
Source: BullionVault 31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 8,424 8,424
Value 16,406 13,119
Valuation Methodology Earnings Earnings
Multiple Multiple
Dividends paid* 400 799
*BullionVault has shifted from paying a single final dividend to issuing three interim
dividends, which has resulted in a delay in distributing dividends for its most recent
financial year.
As per last filed audited accounts of the investee company for the year
to 31 October 2024:
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Turnover 336,297 288,113
Pre tax profit 18,937 13,023
Net assets 53,307 46,323
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10 AUGMENTUM FINTECH PLC
Key Investments continued
Berlin-based Grover (www.grover.com) is the leading consumer-tech
subscription platform, bringing the access economy to the consumer
electronics market by offering a simple, monthly subscription model for
technology products. Private and business customers have access to
over 1,500 products including smartphones, cameras, laptops, virtual
reality technology, gaming, wearables and smart home appliances. The
Grover service allows users to keep, switch, buy, or return products
depending on their individual needs. Rentals are available in Germany,
Austria, the Netherlands and Spain. Grover is at the forefront of the
circular economy, with products being returned, refurbished and
recirculated until the end of their usable life.
Augmentum participated in multiple funding rounds, initially investing in
2019, with three follow on investments up to March 2024. In the current
year a €1.8 million investment was made into a CLN as part of a bridging
round and a further €3.5 million was invested in March 2025 following
Grover's strategic review and restructuring.
Source: Grover 31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 13,745 9,295
Value 14,058 35,893
Valuation Methodology Rev. Multiple Rev. Multiple
As an unquoted German company, Grover is not required to publicly file
audited accounts.
Founded in 2011, iwoca (www.iwoca.co.uk) uses award-winning
technology to disrupt small business lending across Europe. Since
launch, iwoca has provided over £3.5 billion in loans to SMEs across the
UK and Germany, solidifying its role as a key funding partner for small
businesses.
In February 2023 iwoca hit profitability and saw an increase of over 50%
in the number of businesses funded across the UK and Germany year on
year, reinforcing its position as one of Europe’s most scalable and
reliable fintech lenders. With £1.5 billion in investment across equity and
debt, iwoca stands among Europe’s best-funded fintech success stories
and continues to demonstrate the strong profit potential of tech-enabled
lending through the use of machine learning and digital infrastructure.
Augmentum originally invested £7.5 million in Iwoca in 2018 and has
since added £0.35 million. Iwoca has raised over £1 billion in debt
funding from partners including Barclays, Pollen Street Capital, Värde,
Citibank and Insight Investment.
Source: Iwoca
31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 7,852 7,852
Value 14,478 7,926
Valuation Methodology Earnings Earnings
Multiple Multiple
As per last filed audited accounts of the investee company for the year to
31 December 2024:
2024 2023
£’000 £’000
Turnover 234,160 142,584
Pre tax profit 59,133 21,784
Net assets 94,686 54,976
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11ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 2025
Key Investments continued
Anyfin (www.anyfin.com) was founded in 2017 by former executives of
Klarna, Spotify and iZettle, and leverages technology to allow creditworthy
consumers the opportunity to improve their financial wellbeing by
consolidating and refinancing existing credit agreements with improved
interest rates.
Anyfin is currently available in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Germany, with
plans to expand across Europe as well as strengthen its product suite in
existing markets. With more than one million app downloads to date,
Anyfin has saved its customers a combined €103 million, lowering the
average user’s loan costs by 40%. In July 2024 Anyfin announced
UC-kollen, a new service in the Anyfin app providing daily credit rating
updates and tips to improve scores. In June 2025 Anyfin was granted a
banking licence in Sweden, which should open up a wider finance base
and lower borrowing costs.
Augmentum invested £7.2 million in Anyfin in September 2021 as part of a
US$52 million funding round, a further £2.7 million as part of a
US$30million funding round in November 2022 and £0.8 million in
July2024.
Source: Anyfin
31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 10,768 9,924
Value 11,251 9,416
Valuation Methodology Rev. Multiple Rev. Multiple
As an unquoted Swedish company, Anyfin is not required to
publicly file audited accounts.
XYB (www.xyb.co) offers a platform for modern adaptive financial
infrastructure. Launched by Monese in May 2023 and spun out as a
separate business in May 2024, XYB empowers banks and non-banks
to provide comprehensive financial services to individuals and
businesses. XYB also enables banks to transform and modernise their
legacy systems, integrate new services, and help them prepare for
regulatory change with minimal risk. XYB now has 200+ coreless
banking services and 60+ partner adaptors.
In 2024, XYB partnered with IBM to provide technologies and consulting
expertise that can help financial services organisations address the
growing requirements for core modernisation initiatives. XYB also counts
HSBC and Investec amongst its client base. The BaaS sector shows
strong growth as established banks and fintech companies continue to
bring innovative digital products to market.
Augmentum invested £1 million specifically into the spun-out business
via a secondary transaction in September 2024, bringing total
investment made by Augmentum as part of the separation of XYB and
Monese to £3.5 million.
Source: XYB 31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 10,635* n/a
Value 12,619 n/a
Valuation Methodology Rev. Multiple n/a
XYB is a new company and no accounts have been filed.
* Includes legacy Monese investment costs attributable to the XYB business.
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12 AUGMENTUM FINTECH PLC
Key Investments continued
Gemini (www.gemini.com) enables individuals and institutions to safely
and securely buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies. Gemini was founded
in 2014 by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and has been built with a
security and regulation first approach. Gemini operates as a New York
trust company regulated by the New York State Department of Financial
Services (NYSDFS) and was the first cryptocurrency exchange and
custodian to secure SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 certification.
Gemini entered the UK market in 2020 with an FCA Electronic Money
Institution licence, becoming one of only ten companies to have
achieved FCA Cryptoasset Firm Registration at that time. Gemini is
available in more than 70 countries.
Gemini announced acquisitions of portfolio management services
company BITRIA and trading platform Omniex in January 2022. Gemini
expanded into the UAE and Asia in 2023, and in 2024 was selected as
custodian for Path Crypto’s Managed Portfolios, the first and only bitcoin
ETF in Australia launched by Monochrome Asset Management, and a
landmark ether staking ETF fund launched by Purpose Investments.
Augmentum participated in Gemini’s first institutional funding round in
November 2021 with an investment of £10.2 million.
Source: Gemini
31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 10,150 10,150
Value 9,314 8,306
Valuation Methodology Rev. Multiple Rev. Multiple
Gemini is not required to publicly file audited accounts.
Intellis (https://intellis.ch), based in Switzerland, is an algorithmic
powered quantitative hedge fund operating in the FX space. Intellis’
proprietary approach uses artificial intelligence and takes a conviction-
based assessment towards trading – a position which is uncorrelated to
traditional news and macro/trade-driv
en investment patterns. The
company operates across a range of global trading venues with a
regulated Investment Trust fund structur
e on behalf of multiple
externalinvestors.
Following an initial investment of €1 million in 2019, Augmentum
exercised its option to invest a further €1 million in March 2020 and a
further €1 million in March 2021.
Source: Intellis
31 March 31 March
2025 2024
£’000 £’000
Cost 2,696 2,696
Value 11,114 10,074
Valuation Methodology P/E Multiple P/E Multiple
As an unquoted Swiss company, Intellis is not required to publicly file
audited accounts.
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