Molten Ventures Share Discussion Threads

[brexitplus] 28/10/2019 07:22

Draper Esprit (LSE: GROW, Euronext Growth: GRW), a leading venture capital firm investing in and developing high growth digital technology businesses, today announces an update on recent investments and developments in its portfolio.

RavenPack

Core portfolio company RavenPack, a leading big data analytics provider for hedge funds and banks, has raised $10.0 million from technology advisory and investment firm GP Bullhound as the company seeks to expand sales of its analytics platform in Asia. RavenPack's platform uses alternative data by creating sentiment indicators derived from news and social media that plug systematically into financial trading applications.

As a result of the valuation at which this latest funding round was completed, the fair value of the Company's investment in RavenPack has increased NAV by GBP18.3 million to GBP33.9 million.

Pollen

Pollen, formerly known as Verve, an invite-only marketplace that allows people to bring their friends to the best experiences and share rewards, has raised $60.0 million in new finance, bringing the total capital raised to date to $100.0 million. The funding round was led by Northzone with Draper Esprit participating alongside others including Sienna Capital, Backed and Kindred.

Draper Esprit plc invested GBP5.9 million in the round as part of a bridge in Q1 2019, as well as the original GBP3.0 million series A investment in 2017. As a result of the valuation at which this latest funding round completed, the NAV increased by GBP2.3 million to GBP13.2 million meaning that Pollen has joined Draper Esprit's core portfolio.

Sweepr

Draper Esprit led a $9.0 million funding round into Sweepr, investing GBP2.7 million from the plc in the Dublin-based customer experience platform for the connected home, alongside support from Frontline, a seed investor. The funds will be used to facilitate expansion of its workforce to 75 employees in 2020 alongside expansion into North America and Europe.

Interim Results

The Company will publish interim results for the period ended 30 September 2019 on the 26(th) November, where trading is expected to be in line with our stated financial target of 20% annualised portfolio return.

[rambutan2] 13/10/2019 19:21

New investment:

There are more than 200 million connected homes today, with many predicting that by 2023 we will have 6.4 billion smart home devices globally. As the cost of components (sensors and processors) have fallen, and the number of broadband connections have risen, the promise that connected homes will help us save energy, money and time has never been closer.

But the growing complexity of our connected homes, coupled with poor customer support, has led to consumer frustration and cost service providers (both internet providers and device manufacturers) billions a year to maintain. Although the technology is cutting-edge, the support service is not. Sophisticated technology has outpaced our ability to simply fix it ourselves. Enter Sweepr...

[rambutan2] 11/10/2019 18:50

Someone finally writes up that GROW is too cheap:

[liquidkid] 03/10/2019 11:01

Trustpilot is another funny sounding name for a unicorn.


Part 2/of... (Part 1/WPCT: 10404)

British Patient Capital Holdings & The Not a Bank, Bank -BBB.

Down the rabbithole searching for unicorns was not the wonderland imagined its really like a sewer. Out of the cesspit Revolunicorn appeared...

Britain's Sovereign Venture Capital fund, BBB 20.5% ownership in Government-backed UK challenger bank: Revolut.
Joins a list of Russian Oligarchs & Barings Bank of Nick Leeson fame (even kept the coat of arms.)

British Patient Capital (BPC) FinTech (not a bank) Investment Portfolio:

Balderton Capital (UK) LLP
portfolio: Revolut; ABC Preferred $250mn, Nutmeg, ZOPA, Betfair, crowdcube, GoCardless, PayWithMyBank, Prodigy Finance

Draper Esprit
portfolio:
Revolut; ABD preferred $9.9mn, Seedrs, Transferwise, Trustpilot, currencyfair, crowdcube, crosslend

Seedcamp Investment Mangement LLP
portfolio: Revolut; $16.1mn

Indirect Investments:
Crowdcube Nominees Portfolio: Revolut, B preferred $21mn
Seedrs Limited UK, Revolut, C preferred $18mn

Total NAV invested Revolut $315mn
Current Revolut Valuation $1.53bn

Of course Woodfeld is a player in this, amongst otherthings, Seedrs is in the porfolio.

[rambutan2] 30/9/2019 16:25

Some big trades this morning at around 410p mark. Perhaps an overhang finally been cleared.

[nimbo1] 29/9/2019 15:24

Started buying here again at 408... took half a position and will double up on successful retest and bounce off 4 or hold for 5+ again. Love volatility :-)

[brexitplus] 19/9/2019 16:54

Mysteronz, like most private equity funds it trades at a discount. I don’t know why but it is useful when a big sale goes through.

I think it is covered in an IC article about 5 months ago

“Intuitively, investors know many of the greatest growth stories are to be found among early-stage technology companies. Of course, knowing something doesn’t make it useful. And for retail investors, the gap between public and private markets can sometimes feel like a massive, inaccessible (and very lucrative) party. Getting a ticket seems to be getting harder: the oceans of private money washing around the global economy mean early-stage technology companies are delaying any entry to publicly traded markets for longer.

Investing exclusively in private technology companies, venture capital firm Draper Esprit (GROW) aims to sell tickets straight to the party’s VIP lounge. In this field, its track record is excellent. Since listing on Aim and the Dublin exchanges in 2016, it has returned at least 20 per cent per year, during which time it has more than tripled its money on the 10 exits it has completed. Naturally, investment casualties litter the sector in which Draper invests, which is also subject to volatile sentiment. Fortunately, the group’s rigorous selection process, strong network, and existing list of high-quality investments all provide considerable insulation, as well as massive potential.

You wouldn’t know this from Draper’s current price, however. With a market capitalisation of £544m, the group trades just below its trailing book value, if you add the £100m it raised in February’s 530p a share placing to the £450m of shareholder equity on the balance sheet at the end of September. Yet there is a list of reasons to think net assets will come in above the group’s market capitalisation when Draper reports its full-year numbers on 4 June.

For one, recent portfolio events suggest the value of Draper’s holdings of companies looks like it is continuing to rev higher whereas the current discount would appear to suggest the opposite. True, it has converted most of the recently raised cash into less liquid holdings in two Europe-focused private equity vehicles, Earlybird IV and Digital East Fund 2013. But one of the stakes acquired through the deal, New York-based automation firm UiPath, has just completed a funding round valuing it at $7bn (£5.5bn), suggesting the £13m Draper paid for its stake has tripled.

TransferWise is another portfolio company to reach unicorn status, following a recent secondary share sale which valued the cross-border payments group at $3.5bn. Having marked its fair value for the company at £27.7m as of March, Draper sold down its holding to £12m, helping it to payback its original stake within 18 months. Analysts at Peel Hunt reckon these updates have added 27p to Draper’s net asset value (NAV), taking book value to 519p, or an increase of 14 per cent since September.”

[p1nkfish] 18/9/2019 07:24

Downtrend doesn't show signs of being over, yet.

[rambutan2] 18/9/2019 02:10

Classic mkt inefficiency, just have to be patient, or use it as a chance to add. Especially makes no sense when MERI, with which it shares holdings, is trading at a big premium.

[mysteronz] 17/9/2019 18:48

I find it strange that its trading at such a discount to NAV, i guess thats the market for you. In buoyant times it traded at a good premium.

Any thoughts brexitplus? Not many people converse on this board

[brexitplus] 16/9/2019 19:37

Mysteronz, yes an excellent article and like you one of the reasons I am in GROW.

[mysteronz] 10/9/2019 20:41

A superb article on Graphcore, the biggest reason I am invested in GROW:

hxxps://www.wired.co.uk/article/graphcore-ai-intelligence-processing-unit

[mysteronz] 10/9/2019 20:26

Really interesting article

Can register and get a free article evey now and again:

[nimbo1] 16/8/2019 09:15

spead here is huge - no way am i buying shares at 485 when there is only a thin bid at 458. Like you I last bought in the 4's and sold in the 5's.

[steve3sandal] 14/8/2019 17:18

I don't mind if they bought them in the first place. I don't like greedy free/discounted insider share issues when compounded by the presentation of results which adjust those costs back out. They should just be honest, pay execs in £sd or shares and expense them. I agree with your antenna.
I quite like GROW as it offers something different to my portfolios. I bought a few to many after the Jan 19 placing and have since been buying at 4something and selling at 5something to reduce my average back down.

Last NAV 534p IIRC so 10% discount currently. They haven't really put an investment foot wrong yet. I'm a buyer if we drift towards Nov 18 low again. share price is news driven and we had that last month coinciding with recent high and director trimming. Not much happens in August (well apart from stuff). All IMO.

[bamboozler] 14/8/2019 15:15

Is anyone bothered by Chapman and Cook selling another big chunk of shares? I can see they both still have more than 1.3m shares each and seem to sell a tranche each year but chunky directors sells always make my antenna twitch. Any thoughts appreciated.

[rambutan2] 17/7/2019 20:47

For ref, and out of general interest. UK govt backed investor which holds stake:



And its big brother:



And newly published 2018/19 annual report:

[brexitplus] 15/6/2019 20:57

Thanks rambutan2

I watched the video earlier in the year. Really impressive.

[rambutan2] 14/6/2019 12:23

brexitplus, the FT’s Tech Tonic podcast had below episode on 19 dec last year.

Nigel Toon, founder and chief executive of Graphcore, talks to John Thornhill about the chip technology his company is developing and its potential to speed the advance of machine learning.

[brexitplus] 14/6/2019 09:44

Lots of editorial on Graphcore recently including from Bloomberg in May

“Chip designer Graphcore Ltd. is planning to hire 500 new staff and open a new office in Cambridge, the heart of the U.K. semiconductor industry.”

After due consideration I've taken a small position.

[rambutan2] 13/6/2019 21:12

Agree, pure efficient market!

And from a stock picking house:
We also initiated a small position in Draper Esprit, a listed venture capital firm investing in European technology companies. Whilst the market for funding private enterprises in the US is well-developed, it is much less so in Europe. Draper Esprit has the ambition to become one of the leading providers of capital to highly prospective European technology businesses. The management team has a long and very successful track record, and, it seems to us, that their model of permanent capital through the PLC structure might have some advantages to the traditional VC model (constrained by the timing of exits) in better capturing the long-term value inherent in great businesses. We view a handful of the company's current core portfolio holdings (such as the Bristol based machine intelligence chip maker Graphcore and the London headquartered money transfer service TransferWise) as potentially transformational opportunities capable of driving outsized returns for investors.

[nimbo1] 13/6/2019 21:00

Never ceases to amaze how stocks go in the doldrums for periods and allow accumulation then jump all at once. Not complaining.

[rambutan2] 13/6/2019 19:47

Up 7% with buyers paying 540p. So back on a premium and above the jan placing price. Happy days...

[rambutan2] 12/6/2019 16:49

Looking like the seller finally cleared out. And up we go...