A new player has entered the litigation funding market with access to capital of up to £10m to invest in small and medium-sized commercial claims, the Gazette can reveal.

Invicta Capital Funding, which launched in April, said it will fund claims worth a minimum of £100,000 in damages, and will finance smaller claims in some instances, as long as costs are proportionate to damages sought.

The funding will be provided by Treasury Capital, which has access to institutional investors. Invicta Capital Funding’s head of operations Christopher Deadman, a former sales director at funder Augusta Ventures, told the Gazette that Invicta had secured access to an initial allocation of £10m, ‘but with potential for a great deal more’ once this first tranche was invested.

He added that Invicta Capital Funding will consider all types of UK commercial disputes and arbitration, as well as applications for ‘portfolio’ funding of a book of a law firm’s claims. While it will not insist that the solicitors and barristers bringing the claim must work under a conditional fee agreement, it will ‘look favourably on cases where the legal team is prepared to share the risk and back their opinion.’

Earlier this year, the Gazette reported on a funding ‘bonanza’as the sector gains increasing traction among businesses, with litigation funders having committed £723m to legal claims in 2016.

However, new entrants in the market for funding lower-value claims are relatively rare. Augusta Ventures was the first funder to specifically target smaller claims, through its Trinity product launched in 2014 for disputes with a minimum value of £50,000. It is now very active in portfolio funding.

In 2015, insurer Acasta Europe also launched a product aimed at lower-value litigation.

Invicta Capital Funding, which is based in West Malling, Kent, has no connection to London-based Invicta Capital Limited.

Further details of Invicta Capital Funding will be published in the June edition of the Gazette’s sister publication Litigation Funding https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/litigation-funding.