AGM Trading Statement

RNS Number : 4038V

Draper Esprit PLC

23 July 2018

 

23 July 2018

Draper Esprit plc

("Draper Esprit" or the "Company")

AGM Trading Statement

Draper Esprit (AIM: GROW, ESM: GRW), a leading venture capital firm investing in and developing high growth digital technology businesses, will host its Annual General Meeting at 10.00 am this morning.

Karen Slatford, Chairman, comments:

"We finished the year ended 31 March 2018 in a strong position and have maintained this positive momentum over the first four months of the new financial year.

Since 1 April 2018, the plc has invested £29 million across 8 transactions and a further £7 million from our EIS/ VCT funds.  This includes our £9.9m investment in Aircall, a leading provider of cloud-based call centre software in April, our £7.4m investment in May in Revolut, the leading fintech business, and the £3.7m investment in Finnish microsatellite manufacturer ICEYE which completed in May.

We have also today announced a £7m (£2.3m from plc) investment in surgical guidance company Endomag, the Cambridge-based pioneers of magnetic sensing equipment that successfully targets and removes cancer.

The Company continues to expand its fund of fund strategy with further commitments to a number of Europe's top seed funds including IQ Capital (Cambridge, UK) and Seaya Ventures (Spain). Since 1 April 2018 the Company has committed a further £8 million to 5 new fund of fund vehicles, taking the total committed to date to £18m across 9 funds. Doing so increases our opportunity to source the best deals from across Europe, providing us with oversight and access to seed stage companies for when they need to grow.

In addition, we have also continued to implement a strategy of scaling‐up and increasing our stakes in existing portfolio companies. During the period, we have increased our holdings in Ravenpack, a big data analytics platform for hedge funds, banks and asset managers, and Crate.io, an open source SQL database for real-time machine data.

Alongside this, the Company successfully raised gross proceeds of £115m in May via a placing and subscription. As part of this fundraise, we welcomed a range of new investors to our shareholder register including bluechip institutions as well as strategic investors such as British Patient Capital Limited and the Brunei Investment Agency.  In addition, a further £61m was raised from across Draper Esprit's EIS, VCT and secondary funds.

In addition, and as part of our broader growth strategy, Draper Esprit announced earlier this month that it had entered into a Strategic Partnership Agreement with the Earlybird Digital West group, a German-based investor in early stage technology businesses across Europe who perfectly complement our own investment strategy. Draper Esprit invested an initial €18m (£16m) in the latest Earlybird Fund VI and committed to invest a further c.€17m (£15m) per annum over the next four years in the fund.

The European technology market continues to experience an unprecedented period of growth and, with a deployment rate of £100 million a year, Draper Esprit is one of most active VCs within Europe. 

Our flexible approach to providing entrepreneurs with access to both long-term capital and our global networks continues to enable us to partner with the best businesses in Europe, delivering growth and scale across our portfolio and driving sustainable returns for our shareholders. 

Consequently, we remain well placed to maintain our position as a leading player in the European venture capital space and look forward to the future with confidence."  

- Ends -

For further information, please contact:

Draper Esprit plc                                                [phone]

Simon Cook (Chief Executive Officer)

Ben Wilkinson (Chief Financial Officer)

MHP Communications (PR)                                [phone]

James White

Vera Prokhorenko

Pete Lambie

About Draper Esprit

Draper Esprit is one of the most active venture capital firms in Europe, helping to build and invest in disruptive, high growth technology companies. We believe the best entrepreneurs in Europe are capable of building the global businesses of the future, by partnering with Draper Esprit and our sister Draper Venture Network with VC funds in 22 countries globally. We fuel their growth with long‐ term capital, access to international networks and decades of experience building businesses. Draper Esprit's portfolio includes global technology leaders such as Trustpilot, Ledger, Perkbox, Revolut, and Graphcore. Recent successful exits include Grapeshot, Clavis, Tails, and Movidius.

Visit www.draperesprit.com

 

END

 

 

AGMPGUCAMUPRPUP