Molten Ventures Share Discussion Threads

[robow] 20/4/2020 15:46

agree with that sentiment

[seagreen] 20/4/2020 14:47

Fascinating buch of investments...was as high as 6 quid until the Woodford debacle....worth a few in one's recovery draw ...

[investor0109] 19/4/2020 12:16

rik shaw- thanks for your mention of the Times article, very interesting. The most recent GROW trading update states that 80% of companies in their fund are in a good enough cash position to weather the current economic climate and as you mention, tech companies expected to fair better than other sectors. It appears that The Times has increased awareness of that.

[rik shaw] 19/4/2020 10:25

No known reason for share price rise on Friday but interesting that the Times today notes that UK technology funds have, on average, fallen just 2.7%.

That implies the drop here is excessive.

[investor0109] 18/4/2020 17:29

Mach100- agreed that GROW will do just that when markets begin to recover. Draper Esprit appears to be hugely undervalued at current prices, even when taking yesterday's move upward into account.

Does anybody here have a clue as to why the share price might have gained so much yesterday?

[mach100] 11/4/2020 14:12

Yes I can see this growing quickly when normality resumes. Looks healthy to me and will ride any market recovery up. Worth accumulating in doom for selling in boom.

[mysteronz] 21/3/2020 17:18

Back in here on Friday, luckily sold every stock on the 24th Feb including GROW.

This is pretty much on a 50% discount to the NAV so plenty of flex in the valuation.

Its illiquid so big swings either way.

5% position in a very (80%) cash portfolio.

[rambutan2] 18/3/2020 21:41

At current price of circa 300p I would hope that pretty much any vulnerabilities have been discounted away! Which isn't to say that in this mkt meltdown it won't drop further...

[lako42] 16/3/2020 12:16

What would you say are the vulnerabilities here in light of the current situation?

Been watching this for a while as a growth play.

[rambutan2] 11/3/2020 21:40

Makes sense:

11 March 2020

DRAPER ESPRIT PLC

("Draper Esprit" or the "Company")

Issue of equity following the acquisition of the balance of Draper Esprit's EIS business

Draper Esprit PLC (AIM: GROW, ESM: GRW), a leading venture capital firm involved in the creation, funding and development of high-growth digital technology businesses, announces that on 10 March 2020 the Company acquired the 28% interest it does not already own in Encore Ventures ("EV"), the partnership which manages Draper Esprit's EIS funds. Following the acquisition, the Company will own 100% of EV.

In consideration for the acquisition the Company will issue 796,812 new ordinary shares at 502p, being the closing price on 10 March 2020, representing a total consideration of GBP4.0 million. The acquisition consolidates the 28% legal interest the Company does not already own and represents a 60% beneficial interest. The acquisition will be immediately earnings-enhancing for the Company, as well as increasing the proportion of the Company's earnings attributable to management fees. In the year to 31 March 2020 , EV is forecasting revenues of GBP2.8 million and expects these to increase further in the year to 31 March 2021.

Draper Esprit's EIS funds have been the highest rated EIS by the Tax Efficient Review for the past 5 years with approximately GBP160.0 million of assets under management ("AUM").

The approach of Draper Esprit's EIS funds is to follow a co-investment strategy with the majority of invested capital committed to larger investment rounds, providing growth capital to 'scale up' companies with the potential to reach $50m-$1Bn+ valuations at the point of realisation.

Following the acquisition, the Company will own a 100% of the legal and economic interest in EV, as compared to the 72% legal interest and 40% economic interest currently held. Going forward, the acquisition will therefore eliminate the non-controlling interest line in the Company's financial statements, which amounted to GBP0.6m for the year ended 31 March 2019 and GBP0.4m for the six months ended 30 September 2019.

Commenting on the transaction, Martin Davis, Draper Esprit's Chief Executive Officer, said:

"Consolidating our ownership of our EIS business better aligns our group structure to support the continued scale-up of our business. One of our overall goals at Draper Esprit is to democratise investment, allowing a range of different savers and investors access to the returns that the high-growth companies in which we invest provide. Our market leading EIS funds already support this goal but, by acquiring the outstanding legal interest in the shares we didn't own, we have consolidated our ability to offer this while simultaneously increasing the fee revenue into the Draper Esprit plc business."

[brexitplus] 04/3/2020 12:48

GRAPHCORE

I am pleased to announce that Graphcore has secured an additional $150 million in new capital to secure our position as the leading pure-play machine intelligence AI processor company. This private placement has been supported by leading financial asset managers, growth equity funds and investment trusts and includes new investors Baillie Gifford, Mayfair Equity Partners and M&G Investments alongside existing investors such as Merian Chrysalis.

At the end of 2018 we closed a $200 million Series D investment and we have now extended that funding round with this additional $150 million private placement as primary investment. This brings the total investment in Graphcore to date to over $450 million with the most recent valuation at $1.95 billion. We are extremely well capitalized, holding over $300 million in cash reserves after this new D2 round investment, to support our continuing, major R&D investment and global expansion.

2019 was a transformative year for Graphcore as we moved from development to a full commercial business with volume production products shipping. We publicly announced our close partnership with Microsoft in November 2019, jointly launching Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) availability for external customers on the Azure Cloud, as well as for use by Microsoft internal AI initiatives. In addition, we announced availability of the DSS8440 IPU Server in partnership with Dell Technologies and the launch of the Cirrascale IPU-Bare Metal Cloud. We also shared news about some of our other early access customers which include Citadel Securities, Carmot Capital, and Qwant, the European search engine company.

During 2019 we were able to attract the very best software, silicon and hardware engineers to join our team, which has more than doubled in size. Investment in R&D remains a priority. Customer engineering teams and field and support engineering teams are ramping fast to keep pace with customer growth. We have expanded all of our facilities and opened in new geographies as we build a leading technology company delivering IPU products which we believe will be the industry standard for AI compute.

Demand for our IPU products is increasing amongst new and existing customers, and the outlook for our business in fiscal 2020 is extremely positive. The major investments that we have made during 2018 and 2019 will help us to meet this strong demand by extending the capabilities of our technology and ecosystem, and will support long-term revenue growth and returns for our investors.

2019 Highlights:

First full general availability release of the Poplar® software platform, a complete SDK for developers to run AI models on IPU products quickly and easily

Microsoft Azure IPU-Cloud open for customers (launched November 2019)

Production launch of Dell Technologies DSS8440 IPU Server for enterprise data centre customers in November 2019

Launch of IPU-Bare Metal Cloud service in partnership with Cirrascale

First public customers announced including Microsoft, Citadel Securities, Carmot Capital and Qwant

Major increase in R&D investment with headcount more than doubling

Major expansion of engineering centres in Bristol (UK HQ), Oslo (Norway) and our sales and support office in Palo Alto (USA)

Opening of Beijing sales, support and engineering centre (China), Cambridge engineering centre (UK) and Hsinchu operations facility (Taiwan)

[steve3sandal] 02/3/2020 13:54

Well somebody thinks the world will go on. Still trying to average my price down so getting closer to this. I started at 3something so you can see I’ve been foolish at 5 something.

[the runt] 02/3/2020 13:09

Portfolio update

Leads $83 million investment in Thought Machine and participates in $30 million Evonetix Series B funding round

Draper Esprit (LSE: GROW, Euronext Growth: GRW), a leading venture capital firm investing in and developing high growth digital technology businesses, today updates on participation in two portfolio company fundraises and broader valuation developments across its portfolio.

These include a £26.5 million leading investment in cloud native banking technology platform Thought Machine as part of a Series B funding round. Draper Esprit also participated in a $30.0 million funding round for Evonetix Ltd, the synthetic biology company.

Other Draper Esprit portfolio companies Graphcore and Revolut have also raised funds. Following these rounds, it is anticipated that the fair value uplift on Draper Esprit's holdings will be approx. £7.5 million.


Thought Machine
Draper Esprit today announces the £26.5m (including £16.5m from the plc) investment in cloud native banking technology platform Thought Machine as part of its Series B funding round.

The funding round, led by Draper Esprit with participation from existing investors IQ Capital, Backed, and Playfair Capital, successfully raised £63.8 million ($83.0 million) which will be used to drive expansion into Asia and North America, alongside continued investment into Thought Machine's core technology.

The technology aims to address the banking sector's dependence on legacy IT infrastructure through more flexible cloud-based solutions. The business works with a range of financial institutions including Standard Chartered, SEB and Atom Bank, employing more than 300 people from its headquarters in London.

It is anticipated that Thought Machine will become a core holding of Draper Esprit.

Evonetix
Evonetix Ltd, the synthetic biology company developing a desktop platform for scalable, high-fidelity and rapid gene synthesis, today announced the successful close of its Series B funding, raising $30.0 million in a round led by Foresite Capital.

Draper Esprit participated in the round, alongside existing investors DCVC (Data Collective), the Morningside group, Providence Investment Company, Cambridge Consultants Ltd., Rising Tide Fund and Civilization Ventures.

Evonetix will use the funding to accelerate internal development, including the integration of its technology to enable the synthesis of DNA on a chip.

Graphcore
Graphcore, the Bristol-based company developing a new processor and software for machine intelligence, has secured an additional $150 million in new capital in a private placement. The placement includes new investors Baillie Gifford, Mayfair Equity Partners and M&G Investments, alongside existing investors such as Merian Chysalis. The private placement extends Graphcore's strong cash runway, following a $200 million Series D funding round at the end of 2018. Total investment in Graphcore to date is now $450 million, with its most recent valuation at $1.95 billion.

Graphcore is now shipping production products in volume, and in 2019 announced a partnership with Microsoft to make a joint Intelligence Processing Unit available for external customers on the Azure cloud, as well as for Microsoft internal AI development. Graphcore is focused on expanding its R&D and engineering support capacity to keep up with customer demand and opening in new geographies.


Revolut
Revolut, the UK-based digital bank, has successfully completed its latest funding round, achieving a valuation of $5.5 billion and raising $500 million. The business continues to grow its user base, which now stands at almost ten million, and will deploy the funds to continue to roll out its service across Europe and broaden its range of financial products.


Martin Davis, Chief Executive Officer of Draper Esprit, commented:
"Our participation in the funding rounds of Thought Machine and Evonetix, alongside other leading investment partners, and the valuation uplifts from the Graphcore and Revolut fundraises, demonstrates the value in our portfolio and its continued commercial momentum: our strength is in the application of our patient capital model and expertise to support technologies which are revolutionising industries as diverse as banking and healthcare.

"Thought Machine has established a strong market position and a blue chip client base in a relatively short space of time and we believe it has significant potential to become one of Europe's most valuable fintech businesses. Evonetix is leveraging the best of the UK's expertise in DNA research to build this unique, ground-breaking DNA synthesis platform and we're thrilled that the company has drawn such a high-quality list of backers."

"I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Graphcore and Revolut on successful funding rounds. Graphcore's pure-play machine intelligence AI processor is now seeing significant commercial momentum and this new funding will support the continued ramp up in its R&D and customer traction. Revolut is at the vanguard of a group of disruptive and innovative challenger banks who are revolutionising the way we spend, move and manage our money.

"We're really excited to be playing a role in the continued development of all these companies."


Paul Taylor, Chief Executive Officer of Thought Machine, added:
"From Revolut and N26 to Transferwise and Freetrade, Draper Esprit has an unparalleled reputation of investing and partnership in European financial services.

"Cloud native banking is fast becoming the most common and desired target architecture for the world's banks and we are determined to build on our success to date as we embark on this next exciting phase of our development."

[the runt] 18/2/2020 13:59

Sounds nice - collective hysteria and illiquidity may get it even higher ;-)

[steeplejack] 18/2/2020 12:48

Jeffries have a forecast out this morning of 727p

[dplewis1] 15/2/2020 21:14

Be warned, entropick is a spam account from Too AIM Stocks - do not click the link.

[entropick] 15/2/2020 21:09

Draper Esprit (GROW) has exited its stake in electric vehicle charging company Pod Point, at a price ahead of its latest fair valuation. BUY

[steve3sandal] 14/2/2020 12:53

I think they inherited the PodPoint position but these deals will keep adding to their track record and much much better value than MERI.

[rambutan2] 14/2/2020 12:14

Nonetheless, an exciting investment:




And quality lead investor:

[p1nkfish] 14/2/2020 11:13

Wont move the needle much.

[the runt] 14/2/2020 10:41

Good to know, but a little bit underwhelming :-)

[brexitplus] 14/2/2020 07:21

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

Pod Point

Draper Esprit has sold its stake in Pod Point, the UK's largest independent provider of electric vehicle charging, to EDF Energy for a transaction value ahead of September 2019 fair value and representing a return of 2.3x, with an IRR of 39% over three years.

Since its foundation in 2009, Pod Point has shipped over 69,000 charging points across the UK and Norway and has also built an extensive network connecting electric vehicle drivers with almost 3,000 public charging bays at locations including branches of Tesco, Lidl and Center Parcs. Draper Esprit originally invested in the business in 2017.

The disposal of Pod Point brings the total value of cash generated by the Company from exits or partial exits to £36 million in this financial year.

Aiven

In February, Aiven, a Finland-based software company combining the best open source technologies with cloud infrastructure, raised $40 million in Series B funding in a round led by IVP, the leading US based VC firm. Aiven is a Draper Esprit portfolio company via the partnership with Earlybird Venture Capital.

Draper Esprit also invested further in the round with the Earlybird partnership and Aiven is expected to move to a core holding of Draper Esprit as a result of an approx. £8 million fair value uplift and further investment.

The investment will be used to accelerate the development of Aiven's platform and increase headcount to support growing demand. Aiven tripled its revenue run rate during 2019, adding 200 new customers and opening new offices in Berlin and Sydney.



Commenting on the developments, Martin Davis, Draper Esprit Chief Executive Officer, said:

"Draper Esprit has continued to build on the momentum we demonstrated at the half year stage."

"The disposal of our holding in Pod Point is a great outcome both for Pod Point and for Draper Esprit. We've worked closely with Erik and the Pod Point team through a critical point in the company's development as the electric vehicle charging market approaches the mainstream. EDF Energy is absolutely the best partner to support the Company on the next stage of this journey, as it looks to accelerate the role out of charging points, and help it become a market leader.

"We're incredibly proud of the progress Pod Point has made in building the most advanced intelligent charging network in the UK and we look forward to watching their continued momentum as part of EDF Energy.

"We're also delighted that Aiven has raised funds to support its continued growth and pleased that it is able to welcome IVP as a new investor.

"These developments demonstrate the strength of the Draper Esprit model: we support innovative growth businesses as they scale up and create value for our shareholders throughout the investment cycle."

[the runt] 11/2/2020 13:47

Not much strength behind the recent rises, but great speculative investment for medium/long-term hold. Chart looking good.

Edit: actually relatively big buys coming in

[steeplejack] 04/2/2020 18:58

Excellent company TransferWise.