Versarien Share Discussion Threads

[ellissj] 22/11/2018 11:17

When the facts change : hexotene versus copper foam for example. The smarts change strategy ? Chinese experts value vrs products accordingly : Neill says ;

"Before entering into this MOU JHFI have undertaken significant analysis of our graphene products and we are delighted to note that they consider them to be world leading."

Neill and co acting in lth's interests. Aimo. Glalth. Best ellis

[magic beans] 22/11/2018 11:14

Anyone who wants to talk about FGR can join SPID on his regular forum at:

[ellissj] 22/11/2018 10:45

Laterals and thickness define 2D materials versus 3D graphenes. Imo. Best ellis

[loglorry1] 22/11/2018 10:44

Blood Sweat and Copper
I see NR on Twitter is claiming that he invested more than £4,000 in Versarien. He says on Twitter today


“Couple of minutes to reflect on some bs. I didn’t invest just 4K for my shares. When you start a company the shares aren’t worth anything on day 1, well maybe a £1 which is their notional value. I bootstrapped the business for the first years almost losing my house”

It has been reported here that he’s only invested £4,000


“In October 2011 he paid £4,000 for a 40% stake in Versarien Technologies, a start up venture. The very next month he raised cash from his mates at 125 times the price at which he had invested, raising around £425,000 from them over the next eighteen months at prices up to 375 times his entry price (the accounts stated “the directors consider that all share issues took place at market value”). In 2013 the loss-making metals venture was acquired and floated via a reverse merger for a paper value of £6.5 million with Neill’s four grand stake worth a cool £2 million. The source of this information is all publicly available at Companies House.

Today’s response from Neill on twitter is typical. He provides no links or detail to substantiate his claims that the £4,000 he invested in the company is the wrong figure. It is a very common tactic on AIM for founders to be issued with a large percentage of a company's share capital for a notional amount, whilst second and third round investors provide the actual risk capital. Sometimes, the second and third round investors do very well if a story takes hold, as it has done with Versarien. However, just because a story has taken hold does not mean the company is a success, especially if the shares subsequently crash, as delivery fails to meet expectations.

Neill has been asked before to provide links to public records at Companies House which show the mystery investment, he claims to have made but has never done so. That's the thing with accounts and share issue data - it's black and white.

It seems perhaps that Neill is counting, blood sweat and tears, and low or missed salaries, from the early days of Versarien rather than hard cash. It’s interesting to look at the Versarien admission document in this regard.


A quick search of the PDF shows ZERO entries for graphene. From reading the admission document some of the cash was raised to buy Total Carbide and some to further grow the business. The purpose of the Total Carbide acquisition was “primarily to access Total Carbide’s manufacturing assets in order to expand the Group’s production capabilities and meet demand for VersarienCu”. This new wonder material called VersarienCu is described in the document as

“a revolutionary micro-porous copper material called VersarienCu for use as a separate component in the manufacture of thermal management solutions”

“range of advantages being low-cost to produce, with high margins, and a manufacturing process which is robust, adaptive and highly scalable – factors that the Directors believe sets the company apart from its competitors”

“BCC Research predicts that the global market for thermal management technologies used in electronic devices and systems will grow from $6.8 billion in 2008 to $11.1 billion by 2013,

Its perhaps reasonable to assume that much of the early blood sweat and tears was involved in VersarienCu so how well did this product do?

It Flopped! By 2018 it was quietly dropped with this paragraph in the results

“We have taken the strategic decision to concentrate on graphene opportunities so are no longer looking to actively develop thermal copper foam, albeit that interest for it is still being shown in some sectors. Sales of traditional thermal and other aluminium products, have remained steady but are not expected to form a core part of the business moving forwards.”

Worth also noting that the graphene business came primarily from the acquisition of 2-DTech in April 2014 for £440K in cash and shares along with a multi-million pound cash raise

[ellissj] 22/11/2018 10:43

Indeed anley, i speculated UoC had the lead following discovery of quintons there. This is what ferrari said (advisor to vrs/cambridge grahene ltd). Imo. Best ellis.

'Andrea C. Ferrari, professor of Nanotechnology at Cambridge University and Director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre, adds: ‘The experimental proof of the existence and stability of such large quasi-particles confirms again how layered materials are a constant source of new physics. The next goal is to control and confine these quintons, with the dream  of using them in new quantum technology devices.'

[anley] 22/11/2018 10:31

"There is lots of good news to come."..........

and Super please carry on posting as you put it so much better than I can after yesterday's mind boggling Cambridge session.

This morning I now feel that Cambridge beats what Manchester is up to and the equipment budgets for all the new development of ideas etc are all in place even if we didn't recieve EU buget funds. That gives VRS a wonderful position to be in as I was told that few really good Uni's around the world have similar equipment and trained students to work on ground breaking grahene work. I am pointing a finger at one or two organisations.

May I take this opportunity to thank everyone who made our day exciting and enjoyable especially Jonathan.

[luckyorange] 22/11/2018 10:17

In my world squire, if you are willing to pay £10 for a beer you have plenty of money anyway 😉

[club sandwich] 22/11/2018 10:16

squire - well if you can afford to go on a 4-month holiday you're already rich by the standards of the overwhelming majority of people.

That's not a criticism, BTW - best of luck to you.

[luckyorange] 22/11/2018 10:15

Well, it is something I had thought about elliss but do the manufacturers at the low end really want it?

[squire007] 22/11/2018 10:14

I will have you know its 4 months and when i get back i will be rich lol :-) March 9th !! Lol

[club sandwich] 22/11/2018 10:14

"don't want a mac, too expensive for what I use the laptop for"

remind me how much this guy is worth? ;-)

[ellissj] 22/11/2018 10:11

Maybe a lappy with +nanene in casing ? ;) imo. Best ellis

[luckyorange] 22/11/2018 09:59

Amused by Neills tweets on his journey to this point, hard and worrying times overcoming obstacles and keeping everything together.

Amused because he is referring to the 'book' and looks like the prologue is now written and behind him and chapter 1 is just beginning, good times ahead!

An aside o/t

My laptop has become useless due to the flex in the plastic and brittleness of it, they are only designed to last a few years and the flex tends to push on the internal components unless you have it absolutely flat (Toshiba). However, I am putting up with it for the moment, it is an annoyance but finding an alternative (don't want a mac, too expensive for what I use the laptop for)is not easy.

[flatcoat1] 22/11/2018 09:57

Exactly club. People keep saying pc have maxed out but they still get faster. Have reached limitations of silicon which is why university are now looking at graphene to get CPU thousands of times faster

[ellissj] 22/11/2018 09:35

Yes i've seen that factor mentioned too occults. Certainly, it looks like we made him a great offer he couldn't refuse ! Imo. Best ellis

"2.The opportunity to take up the Head of Research position bringing the graphene subsidiaries together is something I could not have dreamed of."

And these projects/discoveries is why we made the offer we did per rns 'working at forefront and 'very cutting edge!' ? Imo.

"Neill Ricketts, CEO of Versarien, commented: "I am delighted that Stephen has been appointed to the newly created role of Head of Research.  He has been working at the forefront of graphene and other 2d materials development for some time and his leadership of our R&D function will ensure that Versarien remains at the very cutting edge of the development of 2d materials and their applications."

[occultusverum1] 22/11/2018 09:26

ellis, I noticed that tweet as well last night. All very intriguing.
I wonder if the process has something to do with getting the platelets to all align in the same direction. I've read a couple of things which suggest that this is very important for the final material.

[club sandwich] 22/11/2018 09:24

"CPU development has been following Moore's law for decades now."

indeed. When HUGE (the HUman GEnome project) started - with a 16 year timeline - it was projected that computers as they then were would take something like 1000 years to crunch the data. But they gambled on Moore's Law, kept buying newer, faster computers, and the project finished on time...

[oldscallop] 22/11/2018 09:22

Timbo - (post 49581): Interesting post but I've just quickly Googled "graphite powder in concrete" and found a long list of research papers going back some years including this: hxxp://dpi-proceedings.com/index.php/dtmse/article/viewFile/7244/6831.

I don't have time to research further at the moment but it looks as if graphite can help make stronger concrete - doesn't need to be graphene.

I think graphite has been getting a bad press on here recently. It's a perfectly respectable material for the things that it's good at.

[club sandwich] 22/11/2018 09:22

lovat "CS - whilst revenues are important it’s forecast profits that will ultimately form the basis of the market cap."

well with (currently) c.98% margins that shouldn't be a problem ;-)

[squire007] 22/11/2018 09:20

Got the bow going lol ... price ticked up and my mate is late starting !!! What a plonker ... :-)

[ratpat999] 22/11/2018 09:20

Couple of minutes to reflect on some bs. I didn’t invest just 4K for my shares. When you start a company the shares aren’t worth anything on day 1, well maybe a £1 which is their notional value. I bootstrapped the business for the first years almost losing my house
This is the kind of person our CEO is and he will deliver our dreams !

[potsol] 22/11/2018 09:16

Definitely some accumulation going on ratpat

[ratpat999] 22/11/2018 09:13

8.57 to 9.00 nice round numbers , looked like a nice accumulation by 1 investor,not many shares around this morning max I can buy at moment 15,000