Draper Esprit PLC New Investments (1152E)

TIDMGROW

RNS Number : 1152E

Draper Esprit PLC

07 February 2018

Strictly embargoed until: 07.00 on 7(th) February 2018

Draper Esprit plc

("Draper Esprit" or the "Company")

DRAPER ESPRIT INVESTS IN THREE NEW INNOVATIVE TECH COMPANIES

EVONETIX, DROPLET COMPUTING AND KAPTIVO RAISE A COMBINED TOTAL OF GBP15.2 MILLION

Draper Esprit (AIM: GROW, ESM: GRW), a leading venture capital firm investing in and developing high growth digital technology businesses, announces that funds managed by the Group have recently committed a total of GBP6.6 million into three exciting new European based digital technology businesses: Evonetix, Droplet Computing and Kaptivo.

In aggregate, these companies have recently completed fundraising rounds totalling over GBP15.2 million.

About the three investments:

Evonetix was founded in 2016 in Cambridge to develop technology that enables the parallel synthesis of DNA on silicon arrays, to facilitate the fast-emerging field of synthetic biology, where there is increasing demand for high throughput and highly accurate DNA synthesis. The company's platform uses an addressable silicon array to direct the synthesis of DNA at many sites in parallel, followed by an error-detection process to allow the assembly of high-fidelity DNA at scale. Evonetix's platform offers the prospect of synthesising DNA sequences accurately without limitation of size, potentially transforming the world of synthetic biology by enabling scientists to engineer the next generation of medicines, as well as improved versions of products currently used every day.

Evonetix completed a Series A round co-led by Draper Esprit and Silicon Valley based investor DCVC (Data Collective) and including among others Hermann Hauser, the Cambridge-based scientist and entrepreneur.

Droplet Computing founded in 2014 in Kidderminster, is redefining application delivery with its patent-pending application container technology, enabling applications to be delivered on any device. Today's businesses are under pressure to transform and update but are being held back by applications - from legacy up to current versions. Droplet Computing decouples applications from the OS for online and offline use and delivers significant business value by providing costs savings and to user productivity.

Kaptivo is a Cambridge based company bringing analog whiteboards into the digital enterprise collaboration space. Kaptivo's mission is to enhance collaboration by providing a bridge between the physical and digital worlds. Their products provide whiteboard live streaming and image capture for enterprise and education markets. Kaptivo develops and applies leading-edge optical technology, image processing, and embedded computer vision software. Kaptivo has offices in Silicon Valley, California, and Cambridge in the UK.

Kaptivo recently completed a round of financing with Draper Esprit investing alongside Benhamou Global Ventures and Generation Ventures. With the new funding, Kaptivo will expand its global presence through channel and strategic partnerships, accelerate product development, as well as adding further world-class talent to its team.

Simon Cook, CEO at Draper Esprit commented:

"Draper Esprit continues to lead the way in UK and European tech funding. From synthetic biology, to productivity in the office and the educational environment, these three recent investments are great examples of emerging businesses that utilise their technology to transform the markets in which they operate. All have the potential to become global leaders and we look forward to providing further expertise and capital support to enable them to scale quickly."

*ends*

For further information, please contact:

 
Draper Esprit plc 
 Simon Cook (Chief Executive Officer) 
 Ben Wilkinson (Chief Financial Officer)   [phone] 
Numis Securities 
 Nominated Adviser & Joint Broker 
 Alex Ham 
 Richard Thomas 
 Jamie Loughborough 
 Harry Trueman                             [phone] 
Goodbody Stockbrokers 
 ESM Adviser & Joint Broker 
 Don Harrington 
 Linda Hickey 
 Charlotte Craigie 
 Richard Tunney                             [phone] 
Belvedere Communications (PR) 
 John West 
 Kim van Beeck                             [phone] 
 

About Draper Esprit

Draper Esprit is one of the most active venture capital firms in Europe, developing and investing in disruptive, high growth technology companies. We believe the best entrepreneurs in Europe are capable of building the global businesses of the future. We fuel their growth with long- term capital, access to international networks and decades of experience building businesses. Currently Draper Esprit is a shareholder in a diverse portfolio of companies including Trustpilot, Graze, Perkbox, PushDoctor and Graphcore.

Visit www.draperesprit.com

About Droplet

Droplet Computing is redefining application delivery with its patent-pending application container technology, enabling applications to be delivered on any device. Today's businesses are under pressure to transform and update but are being held back by applications - from legacy up to current versions. Droplet Computing decouples applications from the OS for online and offline use and delivers significant business value by providing costs savings, to user productivity and beyond.

Learn more at www.dropletcomputing.com or follow us on Twitter @dropletcom.

About Evonetix Ltd

Evonetix is developing a novel, highly disruptive approach to gene synthesis, the technology which underpins the rapidly growing field of synthetic biology. The Company was co-founded in 2016 by breakthrough innovation specialists Cambridge Consultants Ltd and Providence Investment Company Limited with key staff from next-generation sequencing company Solexa. Its executive management team has many years' experience in the development and delivery of successful biotech ventures.

There are two key components of the Evonetix approach: (i) a highly scalable platform, with up to 10,000 sites for DNA synthesis, at each of which there is independent, exquisite control of the synthesis process; and (ii) the ability to assemble DNA molecules with a very low error rate using a process of error detection throughout assembly. In addition, the approach will permit the synthesis of 'difficult' sequences, such as those with a high GC content or with repeats.

The company's technology is based upon a novel silicon array, manufactured with semiconductor microfabrication techniques and permitting the independent control required at the miniaturised reaction sites. This will allow massive parallelism in the DNA synthesis process and therefore very high throughput. The approach will be suitable for the large-scale projects of synthetic biology.

For further information see www.evonetix.com.

About Kaptivo

Kaptivo's mission is to enhance collaboration by providing a bridge between the physical and digital worlds. Their products provide whiteboard live streaming and image capture for enterprise and education markets. Kaptivo develops and applies leading-edge optical technology, image processing, and embedded computer vision software. Kaptivo has offices in Silicon Valley, California, and Cambridge, UK. Kaptivo is the trading name of Light Blue Optics.

For more information, please visit www.kaptivo.com.

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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February 07, 2018 02:00 ET (07:00 GMT)