FINAL RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2026

Summary by AI BETAClose X

Molten Ventures Plc reported strong final results for the year ended 31 March 2026, with Net Asset Value (NAV) per share growing 13% to 760p and Gross Portfolio Value increasing 13% to £1,525 million. The company invested £89 million, alongside £22 million from managed EIS/VCT funds, and generated £120 million in cash proceeds from realisations at an average multiple of 3x invested capital. Administrative expenses were maintained at 0.5% of year-end NAV, well below the 1% target, and consolidated group cash stood at £52 million. Share buybacks totalled £38 million during the year, contributing to the NAV per share uplift.

Disclaimer*

Molten Ventures Plc (GROW)
FINAL RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2026

09-Jun-2026 / 08:04 GMT/BST


Molten Ventures plc

(“Molten Ventures”, “Molten”, the “Group” or the “Company”)

 

FINAL RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2026

 

Strong NAV Growth, Compelling Realisations and Building Scale

 

Molten Ventures (LSE: GROW), a leading venture capital firm investing in and developing disruptive, high-growth technology companies, today announces its final results for the year ended 31 March 2026.

 

Financial highlights

  • £1,525m Gross Portfolio Value* (31 March 2025: £1,367m).
  • £1,324m Net Assets (31 March 2025: £1,236m).
  • 760p NAV per share* (31 March 2025: 671p).
  • 13% Gross Portfolio net fair value movement* (31 March 2025: 5%).
  • £89m Invested (31 March 2025: £73m), in addition a further £22m from the managed EIS/VCT funds (31 March 2025: £73m invested and a further £34m from the managed EIS/VCT funds)**
  • £120m Cash proceeds from realisations (31 March 2025: £135m).
  • 0.5% Admin expenses (net of fee income and exceptional items) (31 March 2025: 0.6%) vs the targeted 1% of year-end NAV*.
  • £52m Consolidated Group Cash (31 March 2025: £89m).
  • £38m Share buybacks completed during the year, with a further £1m completed post period-end (31 March 2025: £17m).

 

*The above figures contain alternative performance measures (“APMs”) – see Note 34 Annual Report for reconciliation of APMs to IFRS measures.

**EIS and VCT funds are managed by Molten Ventures plc Group but are not consolidated. See accounting policies on page 146 to 157 and Glossary on page 192 to 193 of the Annual Report for defined terms.

 

Portfolio and operational highlights

  • Fair value increase in the year £172m Net Fair Value increase, exclusive of the impact of FX.
  • Well funded Core Portfolio 88% of Core Portfolio companies funded for at least 12 months.
  • Strong Core average revenue Average revenue of over $600 million in the Core Portfolio, including those that are currently earning over $1 billion a year in revenue.
  • Strong Core gross margin position Core Portfolio companies average gross margin of 70% for 2026, excluding pre-revenue companies.
  • Increased maturity in the Core 7 of the Core Portfolio profitable.
  • Strong funding in the Core and Emerging $3.75 billion raised from funding rounds. Over $3.5 billion raised by Core companies and over $200 million for Emerging companies.

Our Sustainability Report will be published on 16 June 2026 and will be available on our website: investors.moltenventures.com/sustainability

 

Post period end

  • Secured a cornerstone investor for our new Growth Fund.
  • Realised a further £63 million from Revolut while retaining significant upside.
  • Portfolio company ICEYE completed a Series F funding round raising €450 million at a valuation of over €10 billion.

 

Ben Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer of Molten Ventures, commented:

“FY26 marks twenty years since Molten was founded as a venture investor in European technology and ten since our IPO. Over that time, we have built a differentiated platform with the experience, relationships and track record to back Europe’s most ambitious companies through cycles and realise value for shareholders. This year’s results reflect that, with strong NAV growth, realisations at compelling multiples, a strengthened team and costs well below target, as we continue to make progress against our strategic objectives.

“One enduring feature of Molten has been our focus on the enabling layers of technology, which has been maintained through changing market cycles and has helped us to build a diversified portfolio across multiple subsectors. As AI reshapes the technology landscape, demand for European technological sovereignty grows and more domestic institutional capital is directed towards the asset class, we see these trends creating a favourable backdrop for both Molten and the wider European venture capital landscape.

“Looking ahead, we are pleased with the progress we are making in scaling third-party capital alongside our balance sheet. We have secured a cornerstone commitment for our new growth fund, Molten East is progressing towards a first close later this year and our dedicated Secondaries team is building strong momentum. We also continue to see compelling opportunities in areas such as AI infrastructure, space and dual-use technologies. The opportunity to build Molten into the leading platform for European venture capital has never been clearer, and we enter FY27 with a well-positioned portfolio, growing momentum across our fundraising initiatives and confidence in the path ahead.”

As previously announced, a live webcast presentation including Q&A will be held today at 9:30am for analysts and will be available on https://brrmedia.news/GROW_FY26. Conference call details for the Q&A are available upon request via Sodali (details below).

In addition, Molten will be hosting a presentation for all investors via the Investor Meet Company platform on 12 June 2026 at 10:30am BST. Existing and potential investors can sign up to Investor Meet Company for free via the following link: GROW - MOLTEN VENTURES PLC | Investor Meet Company.

The financial information set out in this announcement does not constitute the Company's statutory financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2026 but is derived from those financial statements. The Annual Report and Financial Statements 2026, which includes the full financial statements, will be made available to shareholders in due course and will be published on the Company's website. Where page numbers are referenced in this announcement, these refer to the Annual Report and Financial Statements 2026. The auditors have reported on those financial statements; their report was unqualified and did not contain a statement under section 498(2) or (3) of the Companies Act 2006.

Enquiries:

 

Molten Ventures plc

Ben Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer

Andrew Zimmermann, Chief Financial Officer

+44 (0)20 7931 8800

ir@molten.vc

Deutsche Numis

Joint Financial Adviser and Corporate Broker

Joshua Hughes

Liam Kingsmill

+44 (0)20 7260 1000

Berenberg

Joint Financial Adviser and Corporate Broker

Ben Wright

Harry Nicholas

Mark Whitmore 

+44 (0)20 3207 7800

Sodali & Co

Public Relations

Elly Williamson

Sam Austrums


+44 (0)7889 297 217

molten@sodali.com

 

About Molten Ventures

Molten Ventures is a leading venture capital firm in Europe, developing and investing in high growth technology companies.

It invests across four sectors: Enterprise & SaaS; AI, Deeptech & Hardware; Consumer Technology; and Digital Health, with highly experienced partners constantly looking for new opportunities in each.

Listed on the London Stock Exchange, Molten Ventures provides a unique opportunity for public market investors to access these fast-growing tech businesses, without having to commit to long-term investments with limited liquidity. Since its IPO in June 2016, Molten has deployed over £1 billion of capital into fast growing tech companies and has realised more than £750 million to 31 March 2026.

For more information, go to https://investors.moltenventures.com/investor-relations/plc

 

 

Chairman’s Statement

 

Dear Shareholders,

FY26 has been a year of meaningful strategic progress for Molten Ventures. Against a challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop that has tested capital markets globally, your Company has demonstrated resilience, discipline and a determination to build long-term value for shareholders and, importantly, has delivered against the strategy it set out.

This was the first full financial year under Ben Wilkinson’s leadership as Chief Executive, and marks ten years since Molten’s IPO and twenty since the business was founded. Over that period Molten has built a distinctive long-term track record as a leading European venture investor, and it is that pedigree, together with the progress made this year, that underpins the Board’s confidence in the direction of the business.

The strategic refocus Ben set out: concentrating capital at Series A and B, building out our secondaries capability, and scaling third-party capital alongside our evergreen balance sheet, is now well underway and, as the results demonstrate, is delivering. The Board is firmly supportive of this direction and encouraged by the pace of execution. The securing of a cornerstone commitment for our new Growth Fund is a significant milestone and, in the Board’s view, an important external endorsement of the scaling strategy. The detail of how this strategy is being executed across the portfolio is set out in the Chief Executive’s Review.

The policy environment is also moving in a constructive direction. The growing recognition of European technology sovereignty, the Mansion House Accord, and wider efforts to unlock domestic institutional capital into growth companies all create structural opportunities that Molten is well placed to capture.

Portfolio and performance

Our portfolio companies have continued to demonstrate encouraging fundamentals, and these metrics give the Board confidence that the underlying quality of our investments is strong, even where the broader market environment has constrained some valuations and exit activity. The team has made good progress on realisations during the year and has taken a proactive approach to exit preparation and portfolio management, ensuring that the portfolio is well positioned to benefit as market conditions improve.

Our share buyback programme formed part of a clear, Board-endorsed capital allocation discipline that prioritises NAV per share accretive uses of capital, with returns to shareholders through buybacks where they are accretive to NAV per share. As part of this, the Board resolved to allocate an additional £38 million to the programme during the financial year. A fuller discussion of investment deployment, the buyback programme and capital allocation priorities can be found in the Chief Executive Officer’s and Chief Financial Officer’s Reviews.

People and culture

Our people are the foundation of our success, and I am pleased with the progress made during FY26 to strengthen the team and embed a strong, values-driven culture. The investment team has seen thoughtful evolution, with new joiners at Investment Manager and Associate level complementing the experience of the existing team.  We welcomed Franco Danesi as Senior Partner and furthered our secondaries capability by establishing a dedicated Secondaries team.

The appointment of Chantal Cantle as Chief People Officer in June 2025 has provided renewed impetus to our people strategy, with a focus on structured career pathways, development programmes and the articulation of the Company’s values. The Board is mindful of the importance of succession planning at all levels of the business, and structured pathways to promotion for high-performing team members have been established. Employee engagement feedback has been positive, with strong support for the business direction, leadership, and the balance between autonomy and structure. Further detail on these initiatives can be found in the Sustainability Report and Governance Reports.

Board and governance

The Board has continued to evolve its governance framework in line with best practice. During the year, we undertook preparatory work for compliance with the 2024 UK Corporate Governance Code, including the addition of new sections addressing board leadership, purpose, culture and values. We have also enhanced our approach to risk management and internal controls in line with the updated Code’s requirements.

Grahame Cook will stand for re-election at this year’s Annual General Meeting for a final term before retiring from the Board. Grahame has served as a Non-Executive Director since the Company’s IPO and has made an invaluable contribution to the Board, including as Chair of the Audit, Risk and Valuations Committee and as interim Chairman in the period before my appointment. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Grahame for his dedicated service over many years, including for standing in as interim Chairman during the leadership transition. Further details of the planned succession arrangements can be found in the Nomination Committee Report on page 95.

Shareholder engagement

During the year, the Board undertook a thorough review of the Company’s available strategic opportunities. Having considered each rigorously, the Board unanimously concluded that the current strategy of disciplined primary investment, proactive portfolio management and development, and selective capital return, remains the most compelling path to long-term value creation. I have personally engaged directly with all our large institutional shareholders, and the overwhelming majority expressed clear support for this direction. These conversations have been encouraging and candid, and I remain committed to maintaining an open dialogue with all our shareholders.

Separately, our Senior Independent Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee, Sarah Gentleman, has conducted a thorough consultation with shareholders on the Company’s remuneration policy. The feedback has been positive, with shareholders supportive of the proposed approach. The strong operational performance delivered during FY26 is reflected in the corporate KPI outcomes disclosed in the Directors’ Remuneration Report on page 108.

Outlook

Exit markets remain in recovery, and the Board is conscious that the pace of improvement is not yet fully predictable. Against that backdrop, the Board takes confidence from the foundations established during FY26: a focused investment strategy, a strengthened team, and a capital allocation framework that has delivered meaningful NAV per share growth. The work underway to scale Molten’s third-party capital platform, which Ben describes in detail in his review, represents in the Board’s view the most significant medium-term opportunity for the business. We enter FY27 with clear priorities, a cohesive team, and a Board that is fully supportive of the direction being taken. I look forward to reporting on further progress.

I would like to thank our shareholders, portfolio company founders and my fellow Directors for their continued support. I am particularly grateful to the entire Molten Ventures team for their dedication during what has been a demanding but genuinely exciting year for Molten. I look forward to reporting on further progress next year.

Laurence Hollingworth

Chairman

 

 

 

CEO’s statement

Twenty years of Molten

FY26 marks two milestone anniversaries for Molten Ventures: twenty years since we were founded as a venture investor in European technology, and ten years since our IPO in June 2016. During that period, we have deployed over £1.3 billion, realised more than £780 million, and delivered average portfolio returns of 26% per annum against a 20% target. Those numbers are not just a function of picking well at the outset. They reflect our ability to curate and actively manage the portfolio over many years supporting founders through initial investments, follow-on rounds, pivots, and exits which is a distinct VC skillset and where value compounds across cycles. Venture matters because it is how the next generation of companies are built and with them the innovation, skilled jobs, IP and resilience that flow through the wider economy.

Venture returns are defined by the power-law, where a small number of category-winning companies drive the bulk of returns, and the discipline lies in identifying those companies early, backing them with conviction, and doubling down as they scale. Venture delivers the strongest long-term returns of any private capital strategy. The UK Private Capital (‘UKPC’) 2025 Performance Measurement Survey shows UK venture funds generating since-inception returns ahead of small and mid private equity over the long run, with exposure to the structural growth themes such as AI, space, fintech, energy transition, digital health and quantum, that are reshaping the global economy. Molten gives institutional and public market investors scaled, liquid access to that opportunity in Europe through a platform: a listed evergreen balance sheet providing liquid exposure, alongside managed EIS and VCT funds, and a growing third-party capital business, run by an experienced team with reach across the European ecosystem.

We are committed to delivering shareholder returns, underpinned by our strategic priorities: driving NAV growth through our core investing strength at Series A and B, scaling our third-party asset management platform, putting capital to NAV-accretive use, and narrowing the share price discount to NAV. Our FY26 performance, together with the progress we have made since the period-end, demonstrates strong execution against each of these priorities.

FY26 Performance Overview

FY26 was a year of meaningful progress. NAV per share grew 13% to 760p, and Gross Portfolio Value rose 13% to around £1,525 million. Fair value growth, excluding foreign exchange, in the portfolio was £172 million, or 13%. Realisations remained strong, generating £120 million of cash proceeds at an average 3x multiple on invested capital. We deployed £89 million into new and follow-on investments and returned £38 million to shareholders through the share buyback programme, a NAV per share accretive use of capital that contributed 21p to the total 89p NAV per share uplift. We held operating costs well below our 1% of NAV target. We grew the team with new hires, including a dedicated secondaries team to support our scaling ambitions. The portfolio is balanced with strong operational delivery and funding rounds at ICEYE, Revolut, Ledger and Riverlane more than offset pressure in some listed comparables. Two portfolio companies, Modo Energy and Manna, moved into the Core during the year following successful Series B rounds.

Realisations and Investments

The £120 million returned in FY26 builds on £135 million in FY25, taking the trailing two-year total to £255 million. Partial realisations of Revolut at 21.0x and ICEYE at 12.9x, alongside full realisations of Freetrade at 1.5x and Lyst at 0.7x, all at or above holding value, reaffirm the maturity of the portfolio and our disciplined approach to valuation.

Our direct investments included the leading of rounds in Modo Energy and Manna at the Growth stage, and earlier stage deals in Polymodels Hub, General Index, Duel and MAIA. These growth investments are an example of where  our differentiated deal flow, brand and ability to lead create the most value, and they sit in the persistent funding gap European growth-stage companies face.

On secondaries, we acquired a stake in Speedinvest Continuation Fund I, building on Molten’s long track record in this market. We’ve realised over £200 million from earlier secondaries positions, with a distribution-to-paid-in multiple of over 1.7x and a TVPI of over 2.3x. The logic is compelling, shorter duration, better visibility on exit, attractive entry pricing in a constrained liquidity environment, and a market where our European network is genuinely differentiated.

European Technology

The case for European technology has never been more compelling. Category-defining companies are emerging across artificial intelligence (‘AI’), space, fintech, energy transition, digital health, cyber and quantum. The growing case for European technological sovereignty and the recognition that critical infrastructure like defence applications, payments rails and frontier compute can’t depend wholly on capital outside the region is further compounding strategic interest in European champions. This plays directly to Molten’s positioning as a pan-European Series A and B investor. Capital is being recycled, entrepreneurial talent is starting new businesses, the investor ecosystem is deepening and the European flywheel is turning.

Our thesis is consistent, we back the enabling layers, the infrastructure, middleware, data, and governance rails on which whole sectors are built. It is a less crowded part of the market, the unit economics are more durable, and it is where European founders have a genuine right to win. Europe’s strengths play directly into this layer, regulatory proximity to the world’s most demanding customers, a deep opensource and engineering heritage, sovereign procurement tailwinds, and an unrivalled density of technical talent coming out of our universities and research clusters.

Our portfolio is well diversified, with a pipeline of investment, growth and realisation (both full and partial) opportunities, reflecting exposure to areas of tangible demand and commercial traction. Two areas of particular focus, both for the wider market and for Molten, have been AI and Space.

AI is the most significant generational shift in technology since the internet. We’re in the sixth wave of technology, and our primary area of focus is the enabling middleware layer, security and governance, workload intelligence, agentic commerce infrastructure, and the data infrastructure for AI memory, rather than the foundational models or the application layer. We continue to invest with discipline and are not chasing the hyped-up applications at stretched valuations; instead we aim to back businesses where AI compounds an existing data, distribution or workflow advantage, and where European founders have a genuine right to win. Thought Machine, the cloud-native core banking provider, sit in the technology infrastructure layer that customers increasingly rely on as the foundation for AI deployment. Aircall, our cloud-based phone platform, has embedded AI into its product and was a standout fair-value contributor in the period. RavenPack supplies AI-driven analytics to financial markets clients. Among our newer FY26 positions, we led a $10 million Series A extension in General Index, a London-based provider of transparent, technology-driven energy and commodity pricing benchmarks, and a £7 million Series A in Polymodels Hub, which applies modelling, simulation and AI to pharmaceutical process development.

Space has moved from speculative thesis to commercial reality faster than most anticipated. ICEYE, our largest space holding and operator of the world’s largest synthetic-aperture radar satellite constellation, delivered revenues of $250 million and backlog contracts of $1.7 billion, secured a series of major government and defence contracts during the year, including programmes with the Polish Armed Forces, the Finnish Defence Forces and the Portuguese Air Force, alongside a multi-billion-euro contract with Germany through its Rheinmetall joint venture. The maturity of the business is reflected in the £17 million partial realisation we completed during the year as part of the $2.8 billion Series E, with substantial value retained.

ISAR Aerospace remains the leading European launch services provider; following its first orbital launch attempt from continental Europe in 2025, the company has spent FY26 preparing for its qualification mission, expanding its production facilities, and continuing to win commercial contracts.

SatVu, our thermal intelligence holding, secured a £30 million funding round in February 2026 led by the NATO Innovation Fund and including the British Business Bank, with Molten as lead among existing investors. The round funds the build-out of SatVu’s multi-satellite thermal constellation, with HotSat-2 and HotSat-3 due for launch in 2026 and a further three satellites under contract.

As governments rebuild defence and resilience capacity and corporates embrace space-driven commercial opportunities, the momentum in space and launch is structural rather than cyclical, and we have built deliberate exposure across both areas

Our model: one platform, multiple pools of capital

Molten gives investors institutional-grade, scaled access to European venture and growth-stage technology through a single, integrated platform. Capital flows in through three pools, our listed PLC balance sheet, our managed EIS and VCT funds, and a growing pool of thirdparty institutional capital, deploying through three complementary routes: direct primary investments at Series A and B, where we lead and shape rounds; secondary investments, where we acquire mature, high-quality portfolios with nearer-term liquidity; and a focused Fund of Funds programme, which gives us early visibility on the next generation of category leaders across the European seed ecosystem.

Each route reinforces the others. Fund of Funds and seed exposure feed proprietary deal flow into the direct programme. The direct portfolio generates the realisations that recycle capital back into new investments and shareholder returns. Secondaries add duration management and a counter-cyclical entry point, and provide the foundation for our next phase of third-party fundraising. The result is a platform that can deploy through cycles, realise consistently, and offer LPs the rare combination of liquidity, diversification and scale in an asset class.

The venture asset-class case is well established, being the most direct route to the structural growth themes such as, AI, space, fintech, climate, digital health and quantum, that are reshaping the global economy. The challenge has always been access at scale, with appropriate governance, at an attractive entry point. Molten’s platform is built precisely to close that gap: a twenty-year track record, a listed evergreen vehicle, and a growing opportunity for co-investment and fund structures alongside it.

Strategic Priorities and Capital Allocation

In February 2025 I set out a strategic refocus built around five clear priorities, all directed at delivering NAV per share growth and long-term shareholder returns: (i) reinforce our core investing strength in Series A and B; (ii) scale portfolio development and institutional co-investment; (iii) operate a narrower, more focused Fund of Funds programme; (iv) maintain balance sheet strength and NAV accretive use of capital; and (v) narrow the share price discount to NAV. On Fund of Funds, while we are concentrating future commitments on a smaller, select group of managers, we also took the opportunity in December 2025 to repurchase the previously syndicated portion of our Fund of Funds programme for £20 million. This was an opportunistic transaction to acquire a high-quality portfolio we know intimately, brought back fully onto our balance sheet at attractive pricing. We’ve added to and upskilled the team to support delivery, including the establishment of a dedicated secondaries team during the year. We continue to reaffirm our capital allocation policy being a balanced approach prioritising NAV per share accretive uses of capital, with a minimum of 10% of realisation proceeds returned to shareholders through the share buyback programme. During FY26, supported by strong realisations, the buyback programme contributed 21p to the total 89p uplift in NAV per share, alongside continued portfolio development through new and follow-on investments.

Together, these actions have helped narrow the share price discount to NAV, which remains a key focus for the Board.

Building scale

Third-party fundraising is now the central pillar of our scaling strategy, and we’re building it on a platform that already works. The operational, governance and reporting infrastructure of an institutional-grade European venture capital investor is in place today.

Our task is to layer additional third-party capital onto it. We’re not opportunity constrained, we’re capital constrained and the chance to do more with more is clearly there. We secured a cornerstone commitment for our new growth fund, a significant milestone and a strong endorsement of the strategy. The cornerstone investor validates the proposition, de-risks the path to a first close, and gives us real momentum to bring in further institutional LPs on the back of it. Just as importantly, it enables us to lead and scale Series B+ rounds in Europe, backing our highest-conviction companies with the depth of capital they need to compete globally, without stretching the plc balance sheet. For Molten, that means more ownership in the winners, stronger management fee economics over time, and a clearer route to narrowing the discount to NAV. Molten East, our fund focused on technology companies across the Central and Eastern European region, is progressing well and we expect a first close in 2026. Our new dedicated secondaries team is preparing a third-party fundraise targeting a market where competition for high-quality assets remains comparatively low and entry pricing is attractive. We’re also engaged with the UK and European pension and insurance investors, on initiatives aligned with the policy direction of unlocking domestic institutional capital for growth companies.

The macro backdrop is supportive: UK Private Capital’s (formerly the BVCA) 2025 Report on Investment Activity shows UK private capital fundraising rising to £58.7 billion during 2025 with pension funds the largest contributor at 23%. Molten provides a complete proposition for diversified exposure to European growth-stage technology: a twenty-year track record, an established team and platform, a diversified portfolio of more than 90 direct and indirect positions, multiple routes to deploy and realise capital, and the option to participate alongside us through co-investment structures or dedicated vehicles. These initiatives share one objective: building third-party capital alongside our evergreen balance sheet so Molten can participate in larger opportunities, generate management fee income that strengthens our cost ratio, and aim to accelerate the closing of the share price discount to NAV. We continue to assess further options.

Broadening of the Team

None of this happens without the people who execute it. During the year we continued to hire into the investment team and strengthen the platform, the technology, finance, communications and operations capabilities that make a public-market venture business work. In March 2026 we announced the establishment of a dedicated secondaries team, bringing together Malcolm Ferguson and Nick Sando, who join from Octopus Ventures with deep experience supporting high-growth companies, and Steven Mendel, co-founder and former CEO of ManyPets, who scaled that business to unicorn status and brings first-hand insight into the liquidity needs of founders, employees and early investors. The team is focused on raising a dedicated third-party secondary fund to co-invest alongside the Molten Ventures plc balance sheet, building on our established track record of acquiring high-quality, mature assets with nearer-term realisation opportunities. The team is already pursuing a strong pipeline and is the engine for the third-party fundraise.

The Portfolio

The portfolio is scaling nicely, with the Core Portfolio consisting of 17 portfolio companies accounting for 64% of the Gross Portfolio Value. These Core companies are achieving 41% revenue growth with average gross margins of 70%, and 88% of companies being funded for at least 12 months, with seven Core holdings are now profitable.

Modo Energy, which builds the global standard for benchmarking and forecasting electrification assets including batteries, solar, wind and flexible loads, advanced into the Core during the year following the £25 million Series B that we led in December 2025; its data is now used by major asset owners, operators and financiers across Europe, North America and APAC, with billions of dollars of assets underwritten using its intelligence. Manna, our drone delivery investment, also progressed into the Core following the $50 million Series B; the business now operates across Ireland, Texas and Helsinki, with platform partnerships including Deliveroo, Just Eat, Wolt, DoorDash and Uber as it scales toward becoming a global drone delivery operator.

Market backdrop and Policy

European venture deal volumes for 2025 were tracking around $68 billion against the 2021 peak of $125 billion, but the best businesses continue to attract capital at attractive valuations, whilst our portfolio companies raised $3.75 billion in aggregate during the year.

In the UK, the Mansion House Accord signed in May 2025 is working to unlock up to £50 billion of pension scheme capital into private markets by 2030, with at least half intended for UK assets. Combined with the British Business Bank’s Growth Partnership and broader efforts to deepen domestic institutional participation in growth capital, this represents a structural shift in the funding environment for UK and European technology companies. We continue to engage with policymakers and the wider industry on these opportunities, including through the UKPC, where I sit on as Chair of the Pensions and Private Capital Expert Panel, and where the case for unlocking domestic institutional capital into growth assets is being made consistently and constructively. Molten is well placed to participate in that shift, both as a listed vehicle that already gives public market investors access to high-growth private technology and as a manager of third-party capital for institutions seeking the same exposure.

On geopolitics, Molten has no direct exposure to events in the Middle East and has not experienced any detrimental first-order effects on the portfolio arising from the current conflict. We continue to monitor the wider implications for capital flows, supply chains and risk sentiment as part of our standard portfolio risk management.

Post-Period End and Outlook

Post period-end, we’ve realised a further c.£63 million from Revolut while retaining significant upside, alongside securing a cornerstone investor for our new Growth Fund. This reflects our active approach: retain upside, release capital, and recycle it into the next generation of growth opportunities, which is the engine of our capital allocation policy

We have entered FY27 with momentum: a well-balanced, robust portfolio with near-term realisation opportunities, a strengthened team, and an expanding pipeline of high-conviction opportunities at Series A and B, supported by structural tailwinds in European technology sovereignty, accelerating demand in AI, Space and Energy transition, and initiatives like the Mansion House Accord unlocking domestic growth capital. Recycling proceeds into this pipeline, not simply returning them, is how we compound NAV per share over the cycle. We’re particularly pleased with recent progress on building scale, which will support consistent deployment and broaden our access to the best European deals, as we continue to assess further initiatives to unlock value and close the NAV discount. Our capital allocation policy is reaffirmed with NAV-accretive deployment first and returns to shareholders through buybacks where accretive to NAV per share. I’d like to thank all our colleagues and stakeholders for their hard work and support.

 

Ben Wilkinson

Chief Executive Officer

 

 

Portfolio review

FY26 was a year of strong portfolio performance, disciplined capital deployment and continued delivery on realisations. Gross Portfolio Value (“GPV”) increased to £1,525 million (31 March 2025: £1,367 million), driven by £172 million of fair value growth (13% of opening GPV, excluding foreign exchange). Foreign exchange contributed a further £16 million uplift, driven primarily by our Euro exposure and partially offset by US Dollar and other non-Sterling denominated investments.

Overview

Our portfolio valuations process continues to follow the IPEV Guidelines, reflecting both public market comparables and pricing in recent funding rounds. Fair value increased by £172 million (13% of opening GPV), comprising £297 million of uplifts and partially offset by £123 million of reductions. Growth was led by the Core Portfolio, with strong contributions from ICEYE, Revolut, Ledger and Riverlane on the back of new funding rounds and continued commercial momentum, partially offset by reductions in Coachhub and Schüttflix. Portfolio companies collectively raised more than $3.75 billion during the year.

Our activities in the year

Disciplined portfolio management remains a defining feature of how we operate. During FY26 we deployed £89 million from the Plc balance sheet (FY25: £73 million), with a further £22 million invested through our managed EIS and VCT funds. Capital was directed into a focused set of new investments, selective follow-on rounds in companies hitting clear inflection points, and into our Secondary strategy where we continue to find attractively priced exposure to high-quality assets with shorter paths to liquidity.

 

Follow-on investments

Company and sector

Stage

What they do

Why we are excited

MODOENERGY

Energy & Climate

Growth

Building the global standard for benchmarking and forecasting electrification assets, with battery and solar forecasts used by major asset owners, operators and financiers across Europe, North America and APAC.

Molten led a £25 million Series B round, investing £12.5m as a follow-on. Billions of dollars of assets are now being underwritten, operated and valued using Modo’s data a structural opportunity that scales with global renewable deployment. Modo advanced into the Core Portfolio during the year.

MANNA

Consumer Technology

Growth

Pioneering drone delivery operator with a full-stack approach to last-mile logistics, live in Dublin, Texas and Helsinki, with partnerships including Deliveroo, Just Eat and Wolt.

Follow-on capital to support international scale-up. Manna also moved into the Core Portfolio during the year following its successful Series B.

fintechOS

Enterprise & SaaS/ Fintech

Growth

Banking and insurance product development platform enabling financial institutions to launch and modernise products faster.

A £2.2 million follow-on supporting a highly disruptive, AI-fluent product engine that allows banks and insurers to modernize their technology stack.

BeZero

Energy & Climate

Growth

Carbon credit ratings agency providing independent assessments of project quality, with ratings now available on 40+ platforms including Bloomberg.

Continued conviction following BeZero's appointment by the Swiss Government to assess carbon credits for national climate targets - one of the strongest external validations of its position as a reference standard.

imu

HealthTech

Growth

A company at the intersection of immunology and data science decoding the human immune system using AI and deep, systems-level immune profiling.

Follow-on capital to accelerate an AI-driven map of the human immune system, unlocking breakthroughs in precision medicine.

 

Core Portfolio

 

The Core Portfolio comprises 17 companies representing the majority of our Gross Portfolio Value at 31 March 2026. Across this cohort, revenue grew by 40% in FY26, with average gross margins of approximately 70% (excluding ISAR Aerospace as a pre-revenue company), confirming that the Core continues to combine high growth with strong unit economics. Cash positions remain healthy: 88% of Core companies are funded for at least 12 months and seven are now profitable, underpinning the maturity and resilience of this cohort.

 

The Core Portfolio drove the majority of the £172 million fair value uplift recorded in the year, with £210 million contributing to fair value growth. Modo Energy and Manna joined the Core Portfolio following successful Series B rounds, illustrating the funnel from Emerging to Core that is central to our portfolio construction model. Freetrade and Lyst exited the Core through full realisations.

Emerging Portfolio

The direct Emerging Portfolio spans a broad range of early to growth-stage technology companies that the team actively support. The best performing emerging companies become the Core Portfolio, as evidenced by the strong funding rounds for Modo Energy and Manna now entering the Core.

Selected highlights:

• BeZero: Carbon ratings now available on 40+ platforms (including Bloomberg) and 100+ enterprise clients. Following their FY25 Series C, BeZero was appointed by the Swiss government to assess credits for national climate targets.

• Deciphex: secured full UKAS accreditation for its histopathology laboratory, and advanced its AI-driven platforms to improve efficiency of pathologist review in research and clinical practice.

• Sightline Climate: Market intelligence for the climate economy, with growing corporate and investor demand.

• RenewRisk: CAT risk models for renewable energy infrastructure, addressing a clear gap in the insurance and project finance markets.

Fund Investments

Our Fund Investments capture exposure to our Fund of Funds programme, Earlybird, and our Secondary strategy. Together they contributed £17 million of fair value growth in FY26 providing diversified exposure to the broader European venture ecosystem alongside our direct portfolio.

Fund of Funds programme

Since 2017 we have built a diversified seed Fund of Funds programme of over 80 funds. Total commitments at 31 March 2026 stand at  £157 million, of which £130 million has been drawn; the remaining £27 million is expected to draw over the next three to five years. We continue to back the leading existing and new seed fund managers offering the best insight and breadth across the European ecosystem, having already committed to 6 new funds.

During the year, Molten completed the acquisition of the remaining syndicated interest in its Fund of Funds programme. Full ownership consolidates the programme under a single decision-making structure, simplifies the distribution waterfall and ensures all future fair value growth flows directly to the Group. It also enhances our ability to engage strategically with the underlying fund managers, deepening access to proprietary deal flow and co-investment opportunities, while preserving optionality to pursue value-enhancing transactions across the portfolio as market conditions evolve.

Secondary strategy

Our Secondary strategy continued to scale during FY26 and is now supported by a dedicated team established during the year to build on Molten’s track record of acquiring high-quality assets and portfolios with nearer-term realisation opportunities. During the financial year Molten committed £15 million to Speedinvest Continuation Fund I, providing attractively priced exposure to a diversified portfolio of highquality, later-stage Central European technology companies with a shorter timeline to liquidity. Cumulative realised proceeds from Molten’s secondary positions now exceed £200 million, with a distribution-to-paid-in capital multiple of over 1.7x and a TVPI of over 2.3x.

Realisations

FY26 realisations totalled £120 million in cash proceeds (FY25: £135 million), delivered at an average 3.0x multiple on invested capital. All cash realisations were completed at or above carrying value, validating the discipline of our valuation approach. Total cash realisations since IPO now exceed £780 million.

Confirmed FY26 realisations

Company

Cost (£m)

Proceeds (£m)

Gross MOIC

Revolut (partial)

2.1

45.6

21.0x

ICEYE (partial)

1.4

17.5

12.9x

Freetrade (full)

14.0

20.4

1.5x

Lyst (full)

13.2

9.4

0.7x

Teraview (full)

0.1

5.1

51.0x

Fund realisations and secondaries

4.6

13.8

Other realisations (<£2m)

5.5

7.8

Total FY26 realisations

41.8

119.6

3.0x

Realisations as a percentage of opening GPV equate to 9%, broadly in line with our annual through-the-cycle target of 10%.

 

 

 

 

Defensibility in the age of AI

Sector and subsector review

Molten’s portfolio is constructed across four core sectors, Enterprise; Hardware and Deeptech; Consumer Technology; and Digital Health, with thematic exposure across fintech, cybersecurity, quantum, energy and climate, spacetech. With £1.5 billion in Gross Portfolio Value and over £1 billion spread across these key subsectors. We see AI as an accelerant of our existing strategies, not a threat to it, and our diversified portfolio construction is designed to deliver resilience through cycles.

A framework for evaluating AI exposure

In our March 2026 thought piece, we set out how we think about AI as investors: whether it shrinks the markets companies operate in, expands them, or redistributes who captures value within them. That framework shapes how we read the portfolio. The businesses AI threatens most are those whose core product is a workflow it can now approximate for a fraction of the cost. That is a real and specific category. It is not a description of how we have built this portfolio.

How we think about it

For every business we hold, we assess vulnerability and opportunity independently, across workflow replication risk, foundation model absorption, pricing pressure, and the defensibility of the company’s data and infrastructure. The net of those assessments, done company by company, drives our view.

Approximately 75% of the direct investment portfolio, being the Core and Emerging, sits in businesses we assess as net beneficiaries of AI, either structurally amplified by it or carrying a durable tailwind. A further 15% relates to companies where we identify real but manageable headwinds; these receive proportionally greater active management focus. The remainder sits in businesses where AI is not, at this time, a material factor either way. We include the full spectrum of outcomes precisely because we take risk seriously, and because honesty about where the headwinds exist is a prerequisite for managing them.

Backing the enabling layer

A consistent strand of our approach is to gain exposure to a powerful technology theme not by betting on which application wins, but by owning the infrastructure and enabling layer the entire theme has to run on.

The pattern recurs across the portfolio. Ledger provides the security layer that gives us exposure to crypto and blockchain without a view on any single token or protocol. Riverlane builds the error-correction software quantum computing cannot scale without, our way to invest in the quantum thematic at the layer every approach depends on. Thought Machine and Form3 are the critical infrastructure of modern banking, core ledger and payments rails so deeply integrated that the switching cost is operational, not commercial. Aiven is the enabling middle layer developers build on. And Deciphex is the vertical-specific infrastructure for pathology, embedded in a regulated market where trust is earned over years. AI is simply the latest, and largest, theme to follow this logic. Every organisation deploying AI agents at scale hits the same problems immediately: who authorises what the AI does, and what happens when it touches sensitive data or initiates a transaction. These are not future problems, they are the bottlenecks engineering teams are hitting now, and they do not go away regardless of which foundation model wins. AI did not create them; it made them more urgent. The AIpowered banking products being built today will run on infrastructure like Form3’s and Thought Machine’s, not replace it.

There is also a structural tailwind most commentary underweights. Inference now accounts for 80 to 90% of total AI compute costs over a model’s lifetime, a sharp reversal of the assumption that training was the dominant expense, and AI costs grow with every query. This is precisely where we expect the next wave of durable AI value to accrue: not in the models, but in the enabling layer that makes them usable, governable, and affordable at scale.

The build vs. buy question

The companies operating at the application and vertical layer prompt the most questions, and some scrutiny is fair. AI lowers the cost of building a credible first version of almost anything, but not the cost of running a production-grade system in a regulated environment over time, the reality in which FintechOS operates. And what the best vertical software companies sell is not automation but proprietary ground truth. RavenPack’s structured financial dataset is the retrieval layer on which AI-powered financial decision-making depends, and as AI scales its value grows because models need a reliable source of truth; BeZero applies the same principle in carbon markets. SimScale, meanwhile, illustrates genuine market expansion, physics-grade simulation, once affordable only to the largest firms, is now within reach of a mid-market that did not exist at scale before. That is not a threat; it is the market arriving.

From 1 to 10

AI has compressed the cost of going from zero to one. Going from one to ten is a different problem. Domain expertise takes years to accumulate, institutional trust is earned through consistent delivery, regulatory relationships require years of certification, and proprietary datasets compound with every data point. These define the businesses we back, and are precisely the things AI cannot shortcut. The founders we invest in are not worried about AI taking their business; they are using it to widen a lead they have already spent years building, and that is the portfolio we intend to keep building.

Space and European sovereignty

Sector and sub-sector review

Two interlinked themes, space and European technology sovereignty, are among the clearest sources of structural tailwind for the European venture ecosystem in which Molten operates.

Space: from frontier to strategic infrastructure

Space has emerged as a focal point on the geopolitical stage, in terms of both economic prosperity and strategic importance. The European Space Agency approved a record €22 billion budget for 2026–2028, a more than 30% increase, explicitly aimed at strengthening Europe’s strategic autonomy in space technologies and missions.

Molten’s space exposure is anchored by investments across the Core and Emerging Portfolio holdings:

  • ICEYE (£101m fair value, 12.95x MOIC), is the world’s leading SAR small-satellite operator, increasingly contracted by European and allied governments for sovereign intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. ICEYE’s data is increasingly viewed as critical national infrastructure.
  • ISAR Aerospace (£39.7m fair value, 25.1x MOIC): sovereign European launch capability. With its first test flight completed and signed commercial contracts, ISAR is among the most credible European answers to the strategic problem of dependency on non-European launch providers.
  • SatVu (£1m fair value, 1x MOIC): a British Earth observation company that captures high-resolution infrared thermal imagery from space. The company stands out by offering both still thermal images and up to 60-second video capabilities at a 3.5-meter resolution.

Together, these holdings give Molten exposure to both the downstream services layer (data, intelligence) and the upstream accessto-orbit layer that underpins it, a vertically resilient position in a sector where European demand is both strategically driven and structurally underserved.

European sovereignty as a structural tailwind

The response to European Sovereignty has catalysed a genuine reindustrialisation agenda. The capital backdrop is unprecedented. An estimated €1.5 trillion of incremental investment is set to be deployed across European defence, energy, industry and technology by 2035, with EU defence spending alone on track to reach 2.5% of GDP.

In the UK, the Mansion House Accord and broader efforts to increase domestic institutional participation in growth capital reinforce the same direction of travel, a deeper, more sovereign European capital base for the technologies that matter most.

We believe Europe is particularly well placed for this moment. Its engineering culture runs deep; its regulatory frameworks create fertile ground for security and compliance innovation.

Mapping the portfolio to European sovereignty

Sovereignty pillar

Portfolio exposure

Space & defence-adjacent intelligence

ICEYE, ISAR Aerospace, SatVu

Cybersecurity & secure compute

Binalyze, Ledger

Critical financial infrastructure

Form3, Thought Machine, Revolut

Energy transition & industrial decarbonisation

Modo Energy, BeZero, RenewRisk, Sightline Climate

Quantum & frontier compute

Riverlane

Trusted enterprise data & AI infrastructure

RavenPack, General Index

 

Meet the newest companies in the portfolio

We’re excited to welcome five exceptional new companies to our portfolio, each tackling a distinct challenge. From Duel’s customer advocacy platform and General Index’s data-driven commodity pricing, to PolyModels Hub’s biopharma digitisation tools, Modo Energy’s AI-native battery storage analytics, and MAIA Technology’s modern investment operating system, we couldn’t be more excited about what they’re building.

 

duel: Brand Advocacy Platform for consumer retail brand Sector: Cloud, enterprise & Saas, Molten co-led $16m Series A in September 2025

 

General Index: Energy pricing provider for global commodity markets Sector: Cloud, enterprise & Saas Molten led $10m Series A extension round in October 2025

 

Polymodels Hub: Speeding up drug development with smart automation Sector: Digital Health Molten led $25m Series B in December 2025

 

Maia: Empowering investment managers with cloud-native portfolio management Sector: Cloud, enterprise & Saas Molten led £4m Series A round in January 2026

 

The Molten Ventures Core portfolio is made up of 17 companies, representing 64% of the Gross Portfolio Value.

 

Revolut

Location:

London, UK

Sector:

Consumer

Year Invested:

2018

Subsector:

Fintech

 

Revolut is a global digital bank offering accounts, cards, payments, currency exchange, crypto, and investments through a single app, serving over 70 million customers worldwide.

Updates from the Year

Reported record profit of $2.3bn for 2025 as revenue surged to $6bn; launched UK operations, after being awarded its UK banking licence in March 2026 enabling broader regulated services; filed U.S. bank charter application and named new U.S. CEO in March 2026; launched full banking operations in Mexico in January 2026; became Global Partner and Official Back of Shirt Partner of Manchester City in February 2026; unveiled Audi Revolut F1 Team partnership with co-branded cards and fan benefits ahead of March 2026 debut; rolled out Revolut Business Titan plan in UK with 10GB global data and premium subscriptions in March 2026; secured organisation authorisation in Peru to incorporate as a bank in April 2026 (announced 1 April).

Why are we excited about them?

Revolut is building something structurally distinct from traditional banking: a globally scaled financial platform designed not to improve on legacy infrastructure, but to make it unnecessary.

The opportunity extends well beyond payments or consumer accounts. Across hundreds of millions of users, Revolut is accumulating a proprietary graph of financial behaviour that AI is turning into customer intelligence incumbents cannot easily replicate. That advantage compounds over time.

As financial services shift toward platform models, Revolut is well-positioned to become the layer on which payments, credit, investing, and business services are delivered at scale. We see this as a genuine category-defining opportunity.

 

Ledger

Location:

Paris, France

Sector:

Ai, Deeptech & Hardware

Year Invested:

2018

Subsector:

Cybersecurity

 

Ledger provides industry-leading hardware wallets and software for securely buying, storing, and managing cryptocurrencies and NFTs, protecting users from sophisticated cyber threats and hacks.

Updates from the year

The company introduced Ledger Enterprise HSM On-Premise for institutional clients and launched tokenized investment strategies with partner Midas in March 2026. Ledger opened a New York City office to scale U.S. expansion in March 2026. The company also announced a partnership with Tangany for securing institutional settlement in April 2026.

Why are we excited about them?

Ledger holds a structural position in digital asset security that will be difficult to replicate as on-chain infrastructure matures. When central banks deploy digital currencies, institutions tokenise securities, and governments move treasury management on-chain, the due diligence burden will favour proven providers over new entrants.

Ledger’s moat is not hardware alone. It is proprietary secure element technology, a decade of institutional trust, and a platform already validated at both consumer and institutional scale. That combination is rare.

In an environment where AI accelerates software vulnerabilities, hardware-rooted security becomes foundational rather than optional. We believe Ledger is well-positioned to be the security layer that the next generation of financial infrastructure is built on.

 

Aircall

Location:

Paris, France

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2016

Subsector:

Telecomms

 

Aircall is a leading cloud-based phone system, trusted by over 20,000 businesses globally. Their AI-powered platform transforms business communications, automating repetitive tasks, optimizing call routing, and delivering actionable customer insights.

Updates from the Year

Aircall was named HubSpot’s 2025 Co-selling Partner of the Year for the third consecutive year and designated a Premier partner in HubSpot’s newly launched Technology Partner Program in February 2026. The company was recognized as Best for Integrations in Software Advice’s 2026 Call Centre Software report in March 2026. Aircall launched AI Assist Pro, offering real-time AI coaching and workflow efficiency tools, in July 2025. The company unveiled AI Voice Agent to help businesses handle calls 24/7 in April 2025 and integrated WhatsApp into its platform in June 2025. Aircall expanded its partnership with Unlimited Tech Solutions in March 2026.

Why are we excited about them?

Voice remains one of the few enterprise workflows yet to be meaningfully digitised, and Aircall is well-positioned to own that transition. As AI converts calls from ephemeral conversations into structured data and autonomous action, the platform routing those calls becomes the value layer.

Aircall is not a casualty of the AI shift. It is the infrastructure AI voice agents run on. With 20,000 businesses already on the platform, a growing data flywheel reinforces model quality, improves routing, and deepens retention over time.

The business is operationally disciplined, scaling profitably while maintaining strong retention metrics. We see a credible path to Aircall becoming the default voice infrastructure layer for enterprise.

 

CoachHub

Location:

Berlin, Germany

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2020

Subsector:

EdTech

 

CoachHub empowers organizations to deliver personalized, scalable, and measurable coaching programs, unlocking the potential of employees at every level and driving real business results.

Updates from the Year

CoachHub launched AIMY 1.0 in February 2025, an AI coaching solution developed in collaboration with Microsoft, making coaching accessible to employees across all levels. The platform was built on validated coaching frameworks established by CoachHub’s Science Council and the International Coaching Federation. In November 2025, the company unveiled AIMY 2.0, just five months after the initial launch, with 60 global enterprises adopting the hybrid AI coaching model. The enhanced version features more sophisticated personalisation and contextual understanding, positioning CoachHub as a leader in AI-powered coaching at scale.

Why are we excited about them?

As AI absorbs more routine work, human judgment and adaptability become the differentiators that organisations cannot automate. Investing in people development is shifting from discretionary to strategic.

CoachHub’s thesis is well-constructed: coaching delivered as software scales in ways a consulting model cannot, and the data generated across thousands of enterprise sessions has the potential to become a genuinely valuable asset over time.

The platform makes personalised coaching accessible beyond the executive layer, which matters as skills obsolescence accelerates across every function. The market opportunity is real and the structural tailwinds are clear.

We are working closely with the team to sharpen execution and demonstrate measurable outcomes at scale.

 

ICEYE

Location:

Espoo, Finland

Sector:

Ai, Deeptech & Hardware

Year Invested:

2018

Subsector:

SpaceTech

 

ICEYE operates the world’s largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, providing near real-time, high-resolution Earth monitoring for disaster response, insurance, and government.

Updates from the Year

ICEYE announced its unaudited 2025 financial results on 12 March 2026, reporting revenue exceeding €250 million, profitability surpassing €100 million, and a backlog of €1.5 billion. The company doubled in 2025 and expects similar growth in 2026. In December 2025, ICEYE secured €150 million in new financing led by General Catalyst, valuing the company at €2.4 billion. The company established a joint venture with Rheinmetall in November 2025, Rheinmetall ICEYE Space Solutions, which secured a major multi-billion contract from the German Armed Forces in December 2025 running through 2030. ICEYE signed a procurement contract with IHI Corporation in October 2025 to build an Earth observation satellite constellation for Japan. The company launched four new Generation 4 satellites in March 2025 and announced partnerships with the Swedish Armed Forces in January 2026.

Why are we excited about them?

Most Earth observation companies sell images. ICEYE is building something closer to a live, continuously updated record of the physical world, and that difference is what makes the business compelling.

The core advantage is time. Every satellite pass adds another layer to an archive that grows more valuable the longer it runs. A competitor launching the same constellation today would still be years behind, because ICEYE’s data has already been collected and cannot be recreated from scratch.

For customers making high-stakes decisions around flood risk, infrastructure, or defence, access to that historical depth is what makes the product essential rather than useful. The radar technology also works through cloud cover, darkness, and poor weather, where optical satellites go dark entirely.

 

Thought Machine

Location:

London, UK

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2019

Subsector:

Fintech

 

Thought Machine’s Vault platform gives banks full control to build, launch, and run any financial product or payment scheme, replacing legacy infrastructure with modern, cloud-native technology.

Updates from the Year

Thought Machine announced strategic partnerships throughout the period to expand its cloud-native banking platform. In April 2025, the company partnered with Unisys to provide end-to-end core and branch banking solutions integrating artificial intelligence and biometric security features. In June 2025, Thought Machine launched a joint solution with DXC Technology to accelerate digital transformation for small and midsize banks, offering managed services for legacy core system modernisation. In August 2025, HCLTech and Thought Machine partnered to accelerate AI and cloud-led transformation of banks. General Bank of Canada selected Thought Machine in October 2025 for core banking system modernisation using Vault Core, and Banco Industrial’s Zigi has used Thought Machine to advance its digital platform. In January 2026, Thought Machine joined the Mastercard Crypto Programme.

Why are we excited about them?

The legacy systems and IT architectures that are still used by many banks are maintained at great cost but still have a limited future and will need root and branch replacement. Thought Machine provides the means to do that and is building a position as the technology leader in this space. Additional drivers of change that are accelerating the take up of new, forward looking IT architectures as provided by Thought Machine are the rise of regulated neo-banks (who do not have the historical baggage of legacy IT infrastructure), new product launches and initiatives including embedded finance, banking-as-a-service, and AI-native financial tools.

What separates Thought Machine from a conventional vendor is what its architecture makes possible for the teams building on top of it. Thought Machine’s product Vaults cloud-native, API-first foundation allows existing and AI capabilities to be integrated rather than engineered from scratch. In practice, that compresses both the time and the talent required to bring the next generation of financial products to market.

 

Aiven

Location:

Helsinki, Finland

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2018

Subsector:

Ai & Data, Cloud

Aiven delivers fully managed, open source data infrastructure on all major clouds, enabling developers to deploy, manage, and scale their data systems quickly and securely.

Updates from the Year

Aiven announced a strategic partnership with Ververica in June 2025, enabling companies to monetize their real-time data through combined streaming capabilities. On the product front, Aiven launched a Free Tier for Apache Kafka in late 2025, marking a significant move to make managed Kafka accessible at zero cost. In February 2026, the company released OpenSearch version 3 (3.3.2) on its platform shortly after the upstream release. Additionally, in March 2026, Aiven introduced automated, zero-downtime KRaft migrations, allowing customers to upgrade from ZooKeeper to KRaft seamlessly following Kafka 4.0’s deprecation of ZooKeeper support. In December 2025, Aiven also launched Valkey JSON module support on Aiven for Valkey.

Why are we excited about them?

Open source has effectively won the data infrastructure wars. Kafka, ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, and OpenSearch are the tools that the world’s best engineering teams reach for, not because they are free, but because they are genuinely superior to proprietary alternatives. The challenge is that operating them reliably in production, across multiple cloud environments and at enterprise scale, demands a level of resource that most organisations cannot sustain.

That is the problem Aiven solves, making the best open source data tools available as simply and seamlessly as a utility. As data volumes continue to grow and multi-cloud architectures become the norm, the operational complexity Aiven removes only becomes more pronounced. We believe the real value to customers isn’t just recovered engineering time, it’s the ability to redirect that capacity toward work that genuinely differentiates their business.

 

Form3

Location:

London, UK

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2018

Subsector:

Fintech

Form3 provides an enterprise-grade, cloud-native payments platform, enabling banks and fintechs to process payments in real-time, across multiple schemes, with unparalleled reliability and scalability.

Updates from the Year

Form3 secured additional funding with investment from BlackRock in January 2026 to accelerate product development and growth in the US market. The company expanded its strategic partnership with SumUp to bring real-time SEPA payments to millions of European small businesses. Form3 also delivered its Verification of Payee compliance solution for Mollie in January 2026, and separately signed IFX Payments for its Verification of Payee solution ahead of the October 2025 Instant Payments Regulation mandate. The company won the Best Technology Integration Award in partnership with Nationwide at the Card and Payments Awards 2025. Form3 also announced integration with IBM Cloud for Financial Services to bring instant payments capabilities to the platform.

Why are we excited about them?

Payment infrastructure is one of the last places enterprises take risks, which is precisely what makes Form3’s position so defensible. Their cloud-native, real-time payments platform sits at the core of some of the UK’s largest banks, with switching costs defined by regulatory complexity and years of integration work.

What compounds that position is data. Every transaction processed enriches Form3’s fraud signals, settlement patterns, and anomaly detection, creating a feedback loop that deepens with scale. With a strong foothold in the UK’s emerging account-to-account payments fabric, a growing US presence through channel partnerships, and consistent ARR growth, Form3 is mission-critical infrastructure at the centre of a structural shift to real-time payments globally.

 

RavenPack

Location:

Marbella, Spain

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2017

Subsector:

Fintech

RavenPack transforms unstructured data into actionable insights for financial institutions, enabling better investment, risk, and compliance decisions through advanced analytics and AI.

Updates from the Year

Ravenpack’s major new product “BigData” hit the market in 2025 and has delivered very meaningful customers wins and revenue in its first year from customers integrating Ravenpack into AI analysis and workflows. RavenPack secured a strategic investment from FT Ventures (Financial Times) in October 2025, alongside a landmark content licensing agreement to integrate premium FT content into its AI platform. In March 2026, RavenPack partnered with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) to integrate decades of global economic and geopolitical research into enterprise AI workflows. The company also established a partnership with Preqin, a provider of private markets data.

Why are we excited about them?

Financial markets are among the highest-value applications for AI, and RavenPack has spent over two decades building the data layer to support them. Their platform transforms unstructured news and financial data into machine-readable signals used by the world’s largest banks, hedge funds, and asset managers. That proprietary, time-series dataset takes decades to accumulate and grows more valuable as institutions accelerate AI deployment across trading, risk, and portfolio management.

Newer enterprise data products are gaining early traction, broadening the addressable market beyond core quantitative finance. As AI adoption in financial services moves from experimentation to deployment, RavenPack’s combination of data depth, institutional trust, and expanding product surface positions it as essential infrastructure for intelligent finance.

 

FintechOS

Location:

London, UK

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2021

Subsector:

Fintech

FintechOS empowers banks and insurers to create, onboard, and manage financial products rapidly and cost-effectively, using a no-code/low-code, AI-driven platform that integrates with core systems.

Updates from the Year

FintechOS announced FintechOS 8, described as the world’s first Unified AI ProductOps Platform, in November 2025 at its Elevate 2025 conference, with the full launch set for Q1 2026. The company reported 50% annual recurring revenue growth and is on track to achieve 300% year-over-year growth in US revenue, following the onboarding of customers including Vibrant Credit Union and Hanscom Federal Credit Union. In October 2025, FintechOS was recognised in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Retail Core Banking Systems, Europe. The company extended its partnership with Fort for global cybersecurity readiness in April 2025, and secured Microsoft AI Certification in March 2026. The FintechOS platform was also selected by PwC and Microsoft for their digital banking solution.

Why are we excited about them?

Every bank and insurer looking to deploy AI faces the same structural obstacle: data locked in legacy systems built decades ago. FintechOS addresses that problem directly. Their low-code platform enables financial institutions to build unified data layers and launch digital products in weeks, without replacing core infrastructure.

That positions them as a prerequisite for AI adoption in financial services, not a casualty of it. Insurance is emerging as a second major growth engine alongside banking, with strong NRR reflecting deep workflow integration and meaningful switching costs. Channel partnerships with Finastra and TechMahindra are opening US distribution. The logic is straightforward: before a bank can be AI-native, it needs to be digitally modern, and FintechOS is how they get there.

 

Isar Aerospace

Location:

Munich, Germany

Sector:

Ai, Deeptech & Hardware

Year Invested:

2022

Subsector:

SpaceTech

 

Isar Aerospace develops and manufactures launch vehicles to provide flexible, cost-effective access to space for small and medium satellites, driving European commercial space innovation.

Updates from the year

Isar Aerospace completed its first test flight in early 2025 and cleared final tests for its second Spectrum launch in December 2025, less than nine months after the initial test flight. The company’s second Spectrum rocket launch from Andøya Spaceport in Norway is scheduled. In September 2025, Isar Aerospace signed a launch service agreement with R-Space as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) Marketplace programme. The company also secured two launch service agreements with ESA and the European Commission as part of the Flight Ticket Initiative, becoming the first private European launch provider to do so. Isar Aerospace raised additional funding round in June 2025, bringing total funding to $594 million. The company has vehicles 3–7 already in production and a new 40,000 square metre facility near Munich opening in 2026.

Why are we excited about them?

Europe has a sovereign access to space problem, and Isar Aerospace is the most credible answer to it. Their Spectrum launch vehicle is designed from the ground up for the small satellite market, the fastest growing segment of the space economy, at a time when geopolitical pressure is making European governments and commercial operators increasingly uncomfortable relying on non-European launch providers. Defence spending and long-term industrial policy are driving that demand, not cyclical tailwinds. What excites us most is the team’s execution: vertically integrated manufacturing, rapid iteration, and a commercial mindset that mirrors what SpaceX did to the US launch market. Isar is building critical infrastructure at exactly the right moment in European space history.

 

HiveMQ

Location:

Munich, Germany

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2022

Subsector:

Cloud

 

HiveMQ is an enterprise-grade MQTT platform enabling secure, real-time, and reliable IoT data movement, empowering businesses to unlock value from connected devices and drive digital transformation.

Updates from the year

HiveMQ announced a strategic intent to become the leading Industrial AI Platform in October 2025, alongside the

appointment of Barry Libert as Chairman and CEO to implement this strategy. The company continued to release product updates throughout the period, including multiple versions of HiveMQ Edge and HiveMQ CE 2025.5. HiveMQ published its 2026 Industrial Data & AI Readiness Survey, highlighting adoption trends and challenges in industrial AI. Partner Zaether, a Stellix company, received HiveMQ’s MQTT Innovation Award for applying MQTT-based solutions in regulated manufacturing environments.

Why are we excited about them?

Every connected device needs a reliable way to communicate with the cloud. HiveMQ’s MQTT platform has become the enterprise standard for doing that at scale. MQTT is the de facto protocol for IoT messaging, and HiveMQ built the dominant commercial implementation, deeply embedded in mission-critical systems across industrial manufacturing, energy, and logistics.

The platform was developed in some of the most demanding production environments in the world, and that heritage is reflected in software designed for real-world conditions rather than controlled ones. With IoT device deployments continuing to accelerate and the industrial data economy still in its early stages, HiveMQ occupies a critical layer of the infrastructure stack.

HiveMQ’s strategic direction is to build upon Data Streaming with the addition of Data Intelligence and Agentic AI.

 

Riverlane

Location:

Cambridge, UK

Sector:

Ai, Deeptech & Hardware

Year Invested:

2021

Subsector:

Deeptech, Quantum

 

Riverlane is developing Deltaflow, the quantum error correction stack that enables quantum computers to scale and tackle problems intractable for classical supercomputers.

Updates from the year

Riverlane published a Quantum Error Correction (QEC) Technology Roadmap in March 2026, which the company states could accelerate quantum computing’s path to utility-scale by three to five years. In December 2025, Riverlane scientists published research in Nature Communications demonstrating how its Local Clustering Decoder (LCD) enabled quantum computers to improve speed, accuracy and throughput, allowing them to perform one million error-free operations with four times fewer qubits. The company also published a hardware decoder for real-time quantum error correction in December 2025, with Deltaflow 3 expected in late 2026 to introduce streaming capabilities for continuous, real-time error correction. Riverlane released a report highlighting the scale of the quantum error correction challenge, noting that global government funding for quantum computing has reached approximately $50 billion.

Why are we excited about them?

Riverlane published a Quantum Error Correction (QEC) Technology Roadmap in March 2026, which the company states could accelerate quantum computing’s path to utility-scale by three to five years. In December 2025, Riverlane scientists published research in Nature Communications demonstrating how its Local Clustering Decoder (LCD) enabled quantum computers to improve speed, accuracy and throughput, allowing them to perform one million error-free operations with four times fewer qubits. The company also published a hardware decoder for real-time quantum error correction in December 2025, with Deltaflow 3 expected in late 2026 to introduce streaming capabilities for continuous, real-time error correction. Riverlane released a report highlighting the scale of the quantum error correction challenge, noting that global government funding for quantum computing has reached approximately $50 billion.

SimScale

 

Location:

Munich, Germany

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2021

Subsector:

Software

 

SimScale is a cloud-native simulation platform enabling engineers worldwide to run high-fidelity simulations for fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and structural mechanics directly in their browser.

Updates from the year

Over the past year, SimScale strengthened its position as a leader in AI-powered cloud-based engineering simulation, announcing a partnership with nTop to enable the direct import of advanced geometry for faster engineering simulations, launching the general availability of advanced structural analysis capabilities alongside Hexagon (eliminating the need for expensive on-site hardware), and announcing a partnership with AI Engineering GmbH to add advanced fluid simulation capabilities to its platform.. In September 2025, SimScale was recognised as a Leader by G2 (the world’s largest software review platform), with a 96% customer satisfaction score. In the year, SimScale released its annual Engineering AI Report, showing that teams using AI for design are testing nearly 4 times as many options as before, with AI adoption among engineering teams nearly doubling year-over-year.

Why are we excited about them?

Engineering simulation has historically required expensive on-premises software and specialised hardware, limiting access for large enterprises. SimScale changes that by delivering CFD, FEA, and thermal analysis through a browser, at a fraction of the cost.

What sharpens our conviction is the emergence of the Engineering AI category. SimScale’s cloud-native architecture gives it a structural advantage over legacy incumbents, which are attempting to retrofit AI onto on-premise foundations. Synopsys’ $35 billion acquisition of Ansys validates both the strategic importance of simulation software and the appetite for consolidation among large players. SimScale is building the modern, AI-first alternative. In markets undergoing platform transitions, the cloud-native challenger has a strong track record of displacing established names.

 

N26

Location:

Berlin, Germany

Sector:

Cloud, Consumer

Year Invested:

2018

Subsector:

FinTech

 

N26 is a fully digital bank offering personal and business accounts, cards, and money management via a mobile app, making banking simple, transparent, and accessible for millions worldwide.

Updates from the year

N26 announced significant leadership changes: co-founder and co-CEO Maximilian Tayenthal stepped away from operational duties as of 31 December 2025, with CFO Arnd Schwierholz taking over on an interim basis. The bank appointed Mike Dargan, currently a UBS Group executive board member, as the new CEO effective April 2026. In December 2025, German regulator BaFin imposed new sanctions on N26, ordering increased oversight and operational limits following findings from a 2024 special audit regarding the bank’s business organisation. On the product front, N26 launched N26 for under 18s in January 2026, a kids’ debit card designed for children aged 7 to 17, managed through their parent’s N26 app.

Why are we excited about them?

Europe’s retail banking infrastructure is overdue for replacement, and N26’s cloud-native architecture gives it a structural advantage in delivering that. Built without legacy constraints from day one, N26 can launch products, enter markets, and iterate on customer experience at a pace incumbent banks cannot match.

That speed compounds into a broader platform position. What began as a current account has expanded into investments, insurance, and embedded financial services, deepening customer relationships with each addition. With over 8 million customers across 24 markets, N26 is operating at a scale where data and retention reinforce one another. The infrastructure advantage that enabled early growth is the same one that supports what comes next.

 

Manna

Location:

Dublin, Ireland

Sector:

Ai, Deeptech & Hardware

Year Invested:

2021

Subsector:

Consumer

 

Manna operates autonomous drone fleets delivering food and essentials directly to homes in minutes, revolutionizing last-mile logistics with safe, sustainable, and scalable solutions.

Updates from the year

Manna secured a $50 million Series B funding round, bringing total funding to $110 million. The company plans to scale operations across the United States and Europe and expects to create 400 new jobs in Ireland and the US. In January 2026, Manna reached 250,000 drone deliveries, reporting over 100% year-on-year delivery growth throughout 2025. During the reporting period, Manna expanded partnerships including a Deliveroo drone delivery launch in Dublin in June 2025 and a UK CAA Airspace Modernisation Support Fund award to advance shared airspace drone operations in Lancashire in May 2025.

Why are we excited about them?

Last-mile delivery is among the most expensive and carbon-intensive parts of the supply chain, and ground-based logistics has no obvious fix. Manna is building the alternative: a drone delivery network that is faster, cheaper per delivery at scale, and significantly cleaner than any road-based equivalent.

What distinguishes Manna is the commercial infrastructure around the technology. Live partnerships with DoorDash, UberEats, Just Eat, and Deliveroo provide distribution that would take years to replicate, with aggregators already driving a growing share of order volume. EASA and IAA approvals are in place, and US market access is progressing faster than anticipated. Manna sits at the centre of a $43 billion aggregator market, owning the delivery layer that none of them want to build themselves.

 

Modo Energy

Location:

London, UK

Sector:

Cloud, Enterprise & Saas

Year Invested:

2024

Subsector:

Ai & Data

 

 

Modo Energy provides energy market data, benchmarking, and forecasting tools for battery storage and renewables, supporting investment, risk management, and operational strategy worldwide.

Updates from the year

Modo Energy raised a $30 million Series B funding round led by Molten Ventures, with participation from ETF Partners, MMC Ventures, and Fred. Olsen Limited.

Between April 2025 and January 2026, Modo Energy delivered several significant product enhancements to its Terminal platform. It launched AI Analyst, an AI assistant embedded in the Terminal, and introduced an ERCOT nodal battery revenue forecast and tooling to create bankable real-time revenue forecasts for battery energy storage systems. It also published a new methodology for benchmarking optimiser performance in Australia’s NEM, supporting more rigorous asset performance analysis.

Why are we excited about them?

Energy markets are growing in complexity faster than most operators and investors can manage. Grid-scale battery storage is expanding rapidly, but the data infrastructure to value, trade, and optimise these assets has not kept pace. Modo is building it.

The platform provides forecasting, benchmarking, and analytics tools that are becoming the default reference point for asset owners, investors, and utilities across the energy value chain. Strong gross margins and a customer base that includes Tesla, Macquarie, and Schroders reflect both product quality and institutional trust. With a roadmap expanding into new geographies and asset classes, and electrification continuing to add complexity, the case for a single system of record across energy assets strengthens. Modo is positioned to be that.

 

 

 

Financial review

 

The Group delivered strong growth in Gross Portfolio Value and NAV per share in FY26, with effective execution across our strategic priorities and continued momentum across realisations, portfolio performance, and capital returns to shareholders.

 

Overview

The financial year was characterised by global headlines continuing to be dominated by macroeconomic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and evolving trade dynamics. While this caused some pressure on valuations through public market comparables in some sectors, strong performance and positive funding rounds in the portfolio more than offset this.

Against this backdrop, we remain focused and confident in our strategy and exciting portfolio of technology businesses. Positive industry tailwinds are emerging from the move towards European technology sovereignty and resilience, and from initiatives such as the Mansion House Accord, as well as broader efforts to increase domestic institutional participation in growth capital.

Looking ahead, our optimism is grounded in the strength of our portfolio. Our companies are innovative, future-focused, and aligned with the investment themes shaping tomorrow’s economy – including AI, space, energy transition, fintech, quantum and digital health. We believe this positions us strongly to deliver long-term value in today’s environment and beyond.

Financial Performance Highlights

In the financial year to 31 March 2026, Molten delivered strong growth in the underlying portfolio and continued realisation activity. Total Gross Portfolio fair value movement (excluding FX) was 13% or £172 million, with favourable foreign exchange movements of £16 million. Gross realisation proceeds for the year totalled £120 million, delivered at an average multiple of 3x on invested capital, including partial realisations of Revolut (21.0x) and ICEYE (12.9x) together with full realisations of Freetrade (1.5x) and Lyst (0.7x), all at or above holding values.

At 31 March 2026, balance sheet cash was £52 million, with £24 million of additional cash available for investment from the managed EIS and VCT funds. An undrawn revolving credit facility (‘RCF’) of up to £60 million provides further funding flexibility, subject to availability and certain drawing conditions.

Our evergreen balance sheet model allows us to use this liquidity to maintain a strong capital position and support a balanced capital allocation policy. In the year to 31 March 2026, we deployed £89 million into investments to support the growth and development of our portfolio, including new investments in General Index, Polymodels, MAIA, and Duel, as well as follow-on Series B investments in Modo Energy and Manna, and a secondary investment in Speedinvest Continuation Fund I. A further £22 million was deployed from the managed EIS and VCT funds.

We also returned £38 million to shareholders via the share buyback programme (FY25: £17 million), with a total of £60 million committed since commencement in July 2024. This action reflects our balanced, NAV accretive approach to capital allocation and focus on closing the discount between our share price and NAV through both investment and share buybacks.

As at 31 March 2026, NAV per share was 760p, up 13% from 31 March 2025 (671p). This was primarily driven by strong performance and funding rounds in the Core Portfolio, with the share buyback programme contributing 21p to the uplift.

Molten remains focused on cost discipline and operational efficiency. Operating costs (net of fee income) were 0.5% of NAV, comfortably below the 1% target, reflecting continued efforts to streamline operations and improve the cost-to-NAV ratio, while maintaining investment in key growth areas to support scaling and generate additional fee income.

Statement of comprehensive income

We recognised a profit after tax of £120 million in the year compared to a £1 million loss in FY25.

This was primarily driven by an investment fair value increase of £142 million (30 March 2025: £23 million). Fee income of £18 million was generated in the year (31 March 2025: £21 million), principally comprised of priority profit share (“PPS”), management fees from the managed EIS/VCT funds, performance fees, and promoter fees. PPS is generated from management fees charged on the underlying plc funds; as invested capital increases/decreases net of realisations, PPS will fluctuate accordingly.

We anticipate that income generated from management of third-party funds, including the scaling of our co-investment structures, will provide an additional positive contribution to further offset our cost base and enhance future profitability.

General and administrative costs totalled £25 million (31 March 2025: £28 million). These costs decreased 11% year-on-year, driven by efficiency gains following prior-year restructuring and transition costs, partially offset by ongoing setup costs for new third-party investment strategies.

Statement of financial position

The Gross Portfolio Value at 31 March 2026 was £1,525 million (31 March 2025: £1,367 million), an increase of 12%. The fair value increase £172 million is the net of £296 million of valuation increases, offset by £124 million of reductions.  This strong valuation growth was driven by the strong performance in the Core Portfolio, including ICEYE, Revolut, Ledger, and Riverlane, more than offsetting downward pressure on valuations from public market comparables in some sectors and specific write downs of £75 million across 5 companies.

Two companies in the Emerging Portfolio, Modo Energy and Manna, also advanced to the Core Portfolio following successful funding rounds, demonstrating the pipeline of high-quality companies which can progress through to the Core. The Gross Portfolio Value is an APM (see Note 34), and a reconciliation from gross to net portfolio value – which is recognised in the consolidated statement of financial position – is shown on page 142.

Portfolio companies successfully raised $3.75 billion during the financial year, including Revolut’s $3 billion round and a further $750 million raised across notable funding rounds from ICEYE and Manna, along with Molten-led rounds in Modo Energy, Polymodels, General Index, and MAIA. Core portfolio companies raised in excess of $500 million and the Emerging raised over $200 million. Revenue across the Core Portfolio grew by 40%, reflecting strong performance in most businesses. Cash runways remain healthy, with 88% of companies funded for at least 12 months and seven already profitable.

The Gross Portfolio Value is subject to adjustments for the fair value of any accrued carried interest and deferred tax liabilities that can arise at the investment vehicle level, to generate the Net Portfolio Value, which is recognised at fair value through profit and loss (FVtPL) in the consolidated statement of financial position.

The net fair value movement on investments, including foreign exchange movements, is reflected in the consolidated statement of comprehensive income. Carried interest balances are accrued to current and former employees and consultants of the Group based on the current fair value at the period end, and deducted from the Gross Portfolio Value. The Gross Portfolio Value table below reconciles the Gross to Net Portfolio Values and the movements between 31 March 2025 and 31 March 2026.

Deferred tax liabilities arising on the investment portfolio at group level were £13 million (31 March 2025: £13 million) (see Note 24).

Net assets in the Consolidated Statement of Financial Position at 31 March 2026 increased by £88 million (7%) from 31 March 2025 and NAV per share rose to 760p (31 March 2025: 671p), an increase of 13%. Executing share buybacks at a discount to NAV per share contributed 21p of the increase in NAV per share.

Valuations

Our robust portfolio valuations process follows the IPEV Guidelines, and we are committed to ensuring that our valuations are as accurate and responsive to the evolving business environment as possible.

This disciplined valuation approach has been borne out by our strong track record of realisations at or above NAV holding value despite challenging market conditions.  See Note 29 for further detail on the valuation techniques and a breakdown of how they have been applied to the portfolio. Our investment holdings typically benefit from the protective structure of preference shares to mitigate downside risk, without limiting our ability to capture significant upside as valuations grow. The governance surrounding our valuation process ensures objectivity, with external audit and validation adding further scrutiny to our approach.

Liquidity, Debt Facility and Capital Allocation Policy

Total Group cash available as at 31 March 2026 was £52 million (31 March 2025: £89 million) and £60 million remained undrawn on the Company’s RCF (31 March 2025: £60 million). In addition to balance sheet liquidity, our managed EIS and VCT funds also had £24 million of additional cash available for investment as at 31 March 2026.

During the period, we received cash proceeds from portfolio realisations of £120 million. A portion of this was deployed into investments where £79 million of the £89 million investments acquisitions have been settled in cash, with £10 million deferred into the following financial year. A further £22 million was deployed from the managed EIS and VCT funds. £38 million was returned to shareholders via the share buyback programme.

Molten manages liquidity risk by maintaining adequate reserves and ongoing monitoring of forecast and actual cash flows. Capital resources are managed to ensure that there is sufficient headroom for 18 months’ rolling operating expenses. The Group’s Extended Debt Facility, agreed in July 2024 with J.P. Morgan Chase Bank N.A. London Branch and HSBC Innovation Bank Limited, comprises a £120 million term loan and RCF of up to £60 million, both on a three-year tenor, secured against various assets, LP interests and bank accounts in the Group.

Drawdown of the RCF component of the Extended Debt Facility is subject to a maximum loan-to-value ratio of 12.5%, while the interest rate remains at SONIA plus a margin of 5.5% per annum. The value of the portfolio continues to be subject to periodic independent third-party valuation at the discretion of our lenders.

We have been compliant with all relevant financial covenants throughout the period and at period-end.

 

As at 31 March 2026, the £120 million term loan was fully drawn and the £60 million RCF remained undrawn. The drawn amount is recognised in the consolidated statement of financial position at 31 March 2026, offset by capitalised fees from the setup of the Extended Debt Facility, which are being amortised over its life. For further information, please see Note 23.

 

The Company’s capital allocation policy, as announced in June 2024, focuses on the most NAV-accretive uses of capital and balances the pipeline of exciting new investment opportunities with the ability to drive returns to shareholders through share buyback programmes, while maintaining sufficient reserves. The share buyback programme, which commenced in July 2024, was extended during the year, bringing the total committed since commencement to £60 million.  During the financial year £38 million was returned to shareholders via the programme (31 March 2025: £17 million).

 

The programme was financed through cash resources, acquiring a total of 10,049,610 ordinary shares for the year ended 31 March 2026 (31 March 2025: 4,871,767), which represent 5.3% (31 March 2025: 2.6%) of the Company’s issued share capital at year end. For further information, please see Note 26.

 

Summary

In summary, our exciting, resilient, and diversified portfolio has delivered strong growth in Gross Portfolio Value and NAV per share, with continued delivery on realisations and shareholder returns.

 

Looking forward, our clear focus is on maintaining this performance, and scaling the business by expanding our third-party co-investment strategies. As well as giving us further capital to deploy alongside the plc balance sheet these strategies are expected to contribute to our fee income and investment returns over the mid to long term, while further limiting any cost drag on investment returns and in due course becoming net income generative.

 

Andrew Zimmermann

Chief Financial Officer

 

 

Gross portfolio value table

 

Investments

Fair value of
investments
31-Mar-25
£m

Investments
£m

Realisations
£m

Non-

Investment
cash
movements
£m

Movement
in foreign
exchange
£m

Fair value
movement
£m

Fair value
movement
31-Mar-26
£m

Fair value of
investments
31-Mar-26
£m

Cost of investments 31-Mar-26
£m

Multiple of
invested
cost
31-Mar-26

Ownership
interest
range

Revolut

157.1

(49.7)

(3.3)

71.1

67.8

175.2

7.8

22.5x

A

Ledger

75.6

3.1

36.0

39.1

114.7

28.5

4.0x

B

ICEYE

43.2

(17.5)

(0.9)

76.2

75.3

101.0

21.1

4.8x

A

Aircall

70.7

(1.5)

14.4

12.9

83.6

14.3

5.8x

B

Aiven

71.8

2.9

(3.5)

(0.6)

71.2

4.5

15.9x

B

Thought Machine

 

70.1

 

 

 

 

 

0.7

 

0.7

 

70.8

 

36.5

 

1.9x

 

A

Coachhub

86.9

3.5

(27.6)

(24.1)

62.8

31.3

2.0x

C

Form3

59.4

59.4

30.1

2.0x

B

ISAR Aerospace

22.3

0.9

16.5

17.4

39.7

3.9

10.1x

D

RavenPack

39.2

(0.8)

0.5

(0.3)

38.9

7.5

5.2x

D

Riverlane

19.8

18.9

18.9

38.7

5.1

7.5x

B

FintechOS

29.0

2.2

1.2

2.2

3.4

34.5

31.8

1.1x

D

HiveMQ

24.9

1.0

4.0

5.0

29.9

25.1

1.2x

C

Manna

13.1

2.2

(0.3)

0.1

(0.2)

15.1

12.9

1.2x

C

Modo Energy

1.1

12.5

1.3

1.3

14.9

13.5

1.1x

C

Simscale

11.3

0.5

1.8

2.3

13.6

10.5

1.3x

A

N26

11.9

0.5

(1.9)

(1.4)

10.5

10.6

1.0x

A

Remaining

560.0

72.6

(52.4)

9.4

(38.8)

(29.4)

550.9

615.1

0.9x

 

Gross portfolio value

 

1,367.4

 

89.5

 

(119.6)

 

 

16.2

 

171.9

 

188.1

 

1,525.4

 

910.3

 

1.7x

 

Carry external

(87.5)

7.8

(31.0)

(31.0)

(110.7)

 

Portfolio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

deferred tax

(1.4)

(1.4)

(1.4)

 

Trading carry &

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

co–invest

 

 

 

Non–investment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cash movement

14.1

(14.1)

(14.1)

 

 

 

Net portfolio
value

1,279.9

89.5

(111.8)

14.1

16.2

125.4

141.6

1,413.3

 

 

 

 

* Fully diluted interest categorised as follows: Cat A: 0–5%, Cat B: 6–10%, Cat C: 11–15%, Cat D: 16–25%, Cat E: >25%.

 

 

Statement of Directors’ responsibilities in respect of the financial statements

The Directors are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulation.

Company law requires the Directors to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the Directors have prepared the group financial statements in accordance with UK-adopted international accounting standards and the company financial statements in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards, comprising FRS 101 “Reduced Disclosure Framework”, and applicable law).

Under company law, directors must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Group and Company and of the profit or loss of the Group and Company for that period. In preparing the financial statements, the Directors are required to:

  • select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
  • state whether applicable UK-adopted international accounting standards have been followed for the group financial statements and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, comprising FRS 101 have been followed for the company financial statements, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements;
  • make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent; and
  • prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the group and company will continue in business.The Directors are responsible for safeguarding the assets of the group and company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

 

The Directors are responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Group and Company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

 

The Directors are also responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the Group’s and Company’s transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the group and company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements and the Directors’ Remuneration Report comply with the Companies Act 2006.

 

The Directors are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the Company’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

 

Directors’ confirmations

The Directors consider that the Annual Report and Financial Statements, taken as a whole, is fair, balanced and understandable and provides the information necessary for shareholders to assess the Group’s and Company’s position and performance, business model and strategy.

Each of the Directors, whose names and functions are listed in Board of Directors section on pages 84 and 85 confirm that, to the best of their knowledge:

  • the Group financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with UK-adopted international accounting standards give a true and fair view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and loss of the Group;
  • the Company financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Accounting Standards, comprising FRS 101, give a true and fair view of the assets, liabilities, financial position of the Company; and
  • the Strategic Report includes a fair review of the development and performance of the business and the position of the Group and Company, together with a description of the principal risks and uncertainties that it faces.

By order of the Board

Andrew Zimmermann

Chief Financial Officer

8 June 2026

 

 

 

Financial statements

Consolidated statement of comprehensive income

For the year ended 31 March 2026

 

 

 

 

Notes

Year ended 31 March 2026

£m

Year ended 31 March 2025

£m

Movements on investments held at fair value through profit or loss

6

141.6

22.7

Fee income

7

17.7

20.9

Total investment gain

 

159.3

43.6

 

Operating expenses

General administrative expenses Depreciation and amortisation

Share-based payments resulting from Company share option scheme

8

15, 18

14

 

 

(24.5)

(0.5)

(2.6)

 

 

(28.4)

(0.3)

(4.9)

Total operating expenses

 

(27.6)

(33.6)

Gain from operations

 

131.7

10.0

Finance income

Finance expense

11

11

2.1

(12.2)

2.9

(12.7)

Profit before tax

 

121.6

0.2

 

Tax expense


12

 

(1.3)

 

(1.0)

Profit/(loss) for the year

 

120.3

(0.8)

 

Other comprehensive income

 

 

 

Total comprehensive profit/(loss) for the year

 

120.3

(0.8)

Profit/(loss) per share attributable to owners of the parent:

 

 

 

Basic profit/(loss) per weighted average share

Diluted profit/(loss) per weighted average share

13

13

69p

69p

(0p)

(0p)

 

The consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the accompanying notes.

 

Consolidated statement of financial position

As at 31 March 2026

 

 

Notes

Year ended 31 March 2026

£m

Year ended 31 March 2025

£m

Non-current assets

 

 

 

Intangible assets

15

10.4

10.4

Financial assets held at fair value through profit or loss

16

1,413.3

1,279.9

Property, plant and equipment

18

1.5

1.8

Total non-current assets

 

1,425.2

1,292.1

Current assets

 

 

 

Trade and other receivables

21

4.1

1.9

Cash and cash equivalents

20

51.7

89.0

Total current assets

 

55.8

90.9

Current liabilities

 

 

 

Trade and other payables

22

(13.2)

(13.1)

Financial liabilities

23

(10.4)

(0.3)

Total current liabilities

 

(23.6)

(13.4)

Non-current liabilities

 

 

 

Deferred tax

24

(13.0)

(12.7)

Provisions

 

(0.1)

(0.1)

Financial liabilities

23

(120.5)

(121.0)

Total non-current liabilities

 

(133.6)

(133.8)

Net assets

 

1,323.8

1,235.8

Equity

 

 

 

Share capital

25

1.9

1.9

Share premium account

25

671.2

671.2

Own shares reserve

26(i)

(62.7)

(27.8)

Other reserves

26(ii)

77.3

79.6

Retained earnings

 

636.1

510.9

Total equity

 

1,323.8

1,235.8

Net assets per share (pence)

13

   760

         671

 

The consolidated financial statements on pages 145 to 181 were approved by the Board of Directors on 8 June 2026 and signed on its behalf by:

 

 

Andrew Zimmermann

Chief Financial Officer

Molten Ventures plc registered number 09799594

 

 

Consolidated statement of cash flows

For the year ended 31 March 2026

 

 

 

 

Notes

Year ended 31 March 2026

£m

Year ended 31 March 2025

£m

Cash flows from operating activities

 

 

 

Profit/(Loss) after tax

 

120.3

(0.8)

Adjustments to reconcile profit/(loss) to net cash outflow in operating activities

27

(130.2)

(2.9)

Purchase of investments

16

(79.5)

(72.6)

Proceeds from disposals of investments

16

119.6

134.6

Net loans made to underlying investment vehicles and Group companies

16

(21.8)

(27.1)

Interest received

11

2.1

2.7

Net cash inflow from operating activities

 

10.5

33.9

 

Cash flows from investing activities

Purchase of property, plant and equipment

18

 

 

(0.2)

 

 

(0.4)

Net cash outflow from investing activities

 

(0.2)

(0.4)

 

Cash flows from financing activities

 

 

 

Loan proceeds

23

30.0

Fees paid on issuance of loan

23(i)

(0.9)

Interest paid

11

(12.2)

(11.3)

Disposal or transfer of shares by the Trust

26(i)

3.1

Acquisition of own shares

26(i)

(38.0)

(19.0)

Cost of acquisition of own shares

 

(0.1)

(0.2)

Repayments of leasing liabilities

23

(0.4)

(0.3)

Net cash outflow from financing activities

 

(47.6)

(1.7)

 

 

 

 

Net (decrease)/increase in cash and cash equivalents

 

(37.3)

31.8

Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year

20

89.0

57.0

Exchange differences on cash and cash equivalents

11

0.2

Cash and cash equivalents at end of year

 

51.7

89.0

Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash at year end

20

51.7

89.0

 

The consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the accompanying notes.

 

Consolidated statement of changes in equity

For the year ended 31 March 2026

Year ended 31 March 2026

 

£m

Note

Share capital

Share
premium

Own shares

reserve

Other
reserves

Retained
earnings

Total equity

Brought forward as at 1 April 2025

 

1.9

671.2

(27.8)

79.6

510.9

1,235.8

Comprehensive income for the year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Income for the year

 

120.3

120.3

Total comprehensive income for the year

 

120.3

120.3

Contributions by and
distributions to the owners:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share based payment expenses

14, 26

2.6

2.6

Options granted and awards
exercised

26

(1.7)

1.7

Options lapsed and expired

26

(3.2)

3.2

Disposal or transfer of shares by the Trust

26

3.1

3.1

Acquisition of treasury shares

26

(38.0)

(38.0)

Total contributions by and
distributions to the owners

 

(34.9)

(2.3)

4.9

(32.3)

Balance as at 31 March 2026

 

1.9

671.2

(62.7)

77.3

636.1

1,323.8

 

 

 

 

Year ended 31 March 2025


 

£m

Note

Share capital

Share premium

Own shares

reserve

Other
reserves

Retained
earnings

Total equity

Brought forward as at 1 April 2024

 

1.9

671.2

(8.8)

74.7

511.7

1,250.7

Comprehensive expense for the year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loss for the year

 

(0.8)

(0.8)

Total comprehensive expense
for the year

 

(0.8)

(0.8)

Contributions by and
distributions to the owners:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Options granted and awards
exercised

14, 26

4.9

4.9

Acquisition of treasury shares

26

(19.0)

(19.0)

Total contributions by and
distributions to the owners

 

(19.0)

4.9

(14.1)

Balance as at 31 March 2025

 

1.9

671.2

(27.8)

79.6

510.9

1,235.8

 

The consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the accompanying notes.

 



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