The Mobeus VCTs-backed technology preserving the Magna Carta and government records

If you’ve ever held a faded photo in your hand, you may have pondered how vulnerable our memories are to time and deterioration. 

The same is true of digital records. Even if you now store your family snapshots as digital files, how can you be sure you or future generations will still be able to retrieve them in time to come? What if the files become corrupted or the format obsolete?

Organisations – government, educational and multinational enterprises alike – face similar challenges on a much greater scale: how to future-proof archived digital records. They need to ensure files can be easily managed, authenticated, retrieved and readable for decades ahead – often for compliance and regulatory as well as archival purposes.

Future-proofing the digital Magna Carta

Preservica, a company backed by the Mobeus VCTs, has developed software that automatically converts and preserves digital content in a format that can be read by future technologies.

The company’s award-winning Active Digital Preservation™ SaaS platform helps protect over 500 million collections of content – converted from c.1,100 different file formats and uploaded by over 4,000 organisations globally. These comprise not only the likes of emails, documents and company product videos, but the entire digitised content of museums, libraries, organisational archives and government departments. 

The European Commission, HSBC, MoMA, Yale, Associated Press, the Met Office and UK Cabinet Office are some of Preservica’s customers. 

The company’s platform helps the National Archives preserve the Domesday Book and Magna Carta for future generations. It also helps the University of Manchester preserve possibly the oldest remains of the New Testament, fragments of St John’s Gospel.

Most recently, Preservica has collaborated with Microsoft to launch its latest product, Preserve365®, which can integrate with the Microsoft 365 suite. 

Preservica is the largest holding in the Mobeus VCTs (the VCTs are currently available – albeit not for much longer). Why has Mobeus invested steadily in Preservica over the years – and how might you invest in this and similar companies? Read on to find out more.

More about Preservica

Preservica was spun out from a previous Mobeus investment: analytics, software and consulting services company Tessella. 

Mobeus originally backed Tessella’s MBO in 2012. By 2014, the company had formed a subsidiary business, Preservica, from its successful Archiving Solutions division to focus on the rapidly growing digital preservation market.

When in 2015 Tessella was acquired by a French engineering consultancy, Mobeus retained its shareholding in Preservica.  

Preservica is now a market leader in Active Digital Preservation software. Its cloud-hosted SaaS platform aims to ensure a customer’s digital content can always be read, whatever its original format. The software also protects files from being changed or deleted – and enables users to demonstrate their provenance and authenticity, so they can meet compliance or legal requirements as well as Freedom of Information requests.

In addition, Preservica's advanced full-text search allows users to instantaneously respond to information requests. As users at Associated Press found: "People are astounded by the speed we can now provide information to the organization."

To make the technology more widely available, the company has now partnered with Microsoft to embed Active Digital Preservation™ archiving ability as Preserve365® in the Microsoft 365 suite. This offers to protect long-term records and have them always available in the latest readable file formats over decades.

Why did Mobeus invest in Preservica?

Since 2015, the two Mobeus VCTs – Mobeus Income & Growth VCT and The Income & Growth VCT – have looked to invest in young, revenue-generating companies across various stages of maturity: early-stage technology-led businesses, mid-stage businesses looking to upscale or expand internationally, and profitable late-stage businesses. 

They have found success backing businesses that spin out from existing portfolio companies – these would be teams the manager knows well, so it can invest at an early stage and progressively increase its stake. 

Preservica is a prime example – and currently the VCTs’ largest holding.

Mobeus first invested £3 million in Preservica in 2015. It has since supported the company’s growth over several funding rounds, investing a total of £15 million. The holding is now valued at £66.0 million and represents 19.5% of combined net assets (March 2024). Past performance is not a guide to the future.

How to invest in Preservica and similar companies 

The two Mobeus VCTs are currently open for investment (although capacity is limited). 

Investors can get exposure to Preservica as well as a portfolio of c.50 companies across various sectors, but with a bias towards software and computer services (March 2024). 

Mobeus has an impressive performance track record to date. The two Mobeus VCTs are amongst the best-performing active VCTs over five and 10 years (June 2024) generating an average NAV total return (including dividends reinvested) of 71.2% (five years) and 141.6% (10 years), effectively more than doubling investors’ money in the period. Past performance is not a guide to the future.

Under the current offer, the annual dividend target has been changed to 7% of NAV, one of the most generous in the market. Dividends are variable and not guaranteed. 

When you invest through Wealth Club, you get a better deal than going direct: you pay a 2.5% net initial charge and receive an annual rebate of 0.10% for three years. The minimum investment is £6,000 (£3,000 per VCT) and you can apply online. 

Please remember, VCTs are high risk and illiquid – you should not invest money you cannot afford to lose. Before investing, please carefully read all the documents to ensure you understand and are comfortable with the risks.  

Mobeus VCTs: NAV and cumulative dividends per share over five years (p)