Theo Osborne’s Force Over Mass fund aims to raise £15m
Chancellor George Osborne’s younger brother Theo Osborne has teamed up with a tech advisory firm to raise £15m from well-heeled investors to seed new tech start-ups and entrepreneurs.
Osborne, managing partner and co-founder of Force Over Mass Capital with other founder Martijn de Wever, launched the group’s first fund with tech advisers Dreamstake last month with the aim of raising £15m by August.
The funds are structured as an Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), two government schemes which give investors tax breaks on their investments.
The elder Osborne introduced greater tax relief on the schemes in his 2011 Budget in a bid to get more money flowing into smaller enterprises. The Force Over Mass Capital Fund will put the cash into a so-called accelerator fund overseen by Dreamstake which will then be allocated to back start-up tech ventures.