The Jenson EIS Fund is a generalist fund that invests into follow-on investments from Jenson’s existing SEIS and EIS investments. The fund invests at three different stages, with each tranche looking to diversify by stage of development, sector and business model. Jenson aims to provide 5-10 investments in each tranche, although towards the lower end of that is most common in practice. Jenson has a small team, using appropriate outsourcing to give scale.

Why invest

Positives

• Strategy: A generalist fund that invests into follow-ons from Jenson’s existing SEIS and EIS investments over several stages.

Issues

• Track record: Jenson has achieved a good number of exits to date, but EIS performance has been dragged down by recent weak markets.

The investment manager

Positives

• Team:  The team brings strong investment experience and has been in place for several years.

Issues

• Small team: Jenson’s team is small, albeit with well-structured processes and outsourcing to manage the portfolio effectively.

Nuts & bolts

• Duration: The fund is evergreen, with two closes a year.
• Diversification: The manager expects to provide 5-10 investments for each tranche, with a deployment targeted within 10 days, with the 1 April close being invested in the same tax year.
• Valuation:  Usually changes at next external financing.

Fees

• Fees: Initial and ongoing fees are charged to investee companies.
• Performance fee:  Charged at 25% plus VAT on aggregate returns, with a 120% threshold.

Risks

• Target returns: The target return of 3x suggests a high-risk investment strategy.
• Companies:  Supplying risk capital to early-stage, technology or tech-enabled companies at the start of commercialisation. There will be a spread of company returns, as the successful ones will do very well, but those that fail may do so completely.