ET Capital has launched Cambridge Venture Index SEIS/EIS Fund 2, an investment vehicle focused on IP-rich startups emerging from the Cambridge and Oxford ecosystems.
The fund makes use of the UK’s investment schemes SEIS and EIS, which provide tax breaks to private investors in eligible seed and early-stage businesses.
ET Capital launched the Cambridge Venture Index SEIS/EIS Fund 1 only in January this year, which focused on spinouts from the University of Cambridge and accelerators in the city.
As the name suggests, the funds take an index approach, applying uniform investment criteria to 10 (for Fund 1) and up to 20 (for Fund 2) early-stage startups. To develop its approach, ET Capital studied the financing histories of nearly 200 startups in Cambridge from 1999 to 2024.
Martin Rigby, managing director of ET Capital, says: “Businesses coming out of Cambridge and Oxford science clusters represent some of the UK’s most ground-breaking deep science and technology startups.
“At the same time, there are sophisticated or high-net-worth investors that want to back these new companies, but who find it hard to access the breadth of deals. With the second of our venture index funds, we aim to give those investors access to a broad range of investments that balance significant potential with a reduction of risk through diversification.”
