Portfolio Update

RNS Number : 9502X

Sure Ventures PLC

03 May 2019

 

SURE VENTURES PLC / ISIN: GB00BYWYZ460 / Ticker: SURE / Market: SFS / Sector: Investment

3 May 2019

Sure Ventures plc ('Sure Ventures' or 'the Company')

Portfolio Update

Sure Ventures plc, a London listed venture capital fund which invests in early stage software companies in the rapidly growing augmented reality ('AR'), virtual reality ('VR'), Internet of Things ('IoT') and Artificial Intelligence (AI) sectors, is pleased to provide an update on its investment portfolio.

SUIR VALLEY VENTURES

Sure Ventures made a €4.5 million commitment to Suir Valley Ventures Fund ('Suir Valley') representing an interest in Suir Valley of approximately 22.167% (assuming no other funding commitments are made).  This commitment was made at a price of €1.00 per share; the last recorded Suir Valley dealing NAV as at 29 of March 2019 was €0.9852.

Suir Valley has several investments across the AR, VR, IoT and AI sectors, with a number of additional investments made since the last update:

VR Education Holdings plc - http://immersivevreducation.com/

VR Education listed on AIM in March 2018. Its signature Titanic VR experience has now been launched on all major VR platforms and its 'Berlin Blitz' VR recreation of a British bombing raid in the Second World War premiered at the Venice Film Festival to positive reviews. It has subsequently released a new VR game, based on the IP of Berlin Blitz, titled Raid on the Ruhr. It's Engage VR education platform continues to make progress.

WarDucks - www.warducks.com

WarDucks is a Dublin based VR games studio, which already has six best-selling titles under its belt, the latest two of which were Top Ten on PlayStation VR.  The company is now developing a location-based AR mobile game in the same category as Pokémon Go, and has recruited several big names from the gaming industry to help achieve this. Suir Valley recently participated in a €3.3 million investment round, led by EQT, with funds raised to be used to drive the development of the new location-based AR game and expand its development team. As previously announced, this achieved a 4x unrealised gain on the initial investment.

Wia - www.wia.io

Wia is a ground-breaking Internet of Things (IoT) cloud platform, enabling developers to turn any type of sensor device into a secure, smart and useful application in a matter of minutes. The company recently launched its Wia studios platform for enterprises, which is a rapid prototyping platform and service for enterprise IoT. It provides a six-week prototyping process, where it takes care of idea exploration, definition, concept ideation, product build, user experience and installation. Last quarter Wia also launched its Dot One Maker Board product, which lets anyone discover the world of electronics and engineering and build their own smart devices.

ProVision - www.provisioncameramatics.com

The IoT based fleet manage system continued to develop its advanced technology and expand its client base of more than a hundred fleets across the UK and Ireland.  Its technology provides remotely accessible IoT solutions to manage and reduce fleet risk, enhance driver safety, increase fleet efficiencies and help operators comply with growing governance and compliance regulations.  The technology combines high quality vehicle camera and tracking technology linked to advanced cloud software.  The founders, Mervyn O'Callaghan and Simon Murray, have recently been shortlisted as finalists in the 2019 EY Entrepreneur of the Year programme in Ireland.

NDRC Arc Labs - http://www.arclabs.ie/

Suir Valley secured a partnership deal with a leading EU Accelerator, the Research and Development Centre at the Waterford Institute of Technology,  which is expected to provide first look deal flow for Suir Valley. The accelerator is expected to produce 30 companies in Suir Valley's focus sectors over the next two years and the fund will have the first refusal right to invest in any of these companies.   

Artomatix - https://artomatix.com/

Suir Valley led a €2.7 million investment round in Artomatix, which provides AI powered software that reduces the time needed to create 3D art by as much as 80%, thereby significantly reducing users' production costs. This technology could be game changing for the industry - the computer graphics market is expected to reach $US212 billion by the end of 2023. The company launched its first product at GDC in San Francisco in March 2019, resulting in 70 trial customers, including a who's who of the movie, games and AR/VR industries, and an initial sales pipeline of over $16 million. It has also been awarded €3.2 million in December by the Disruptive Tech Innovation Fund and the European Commission's Fast Track to Innovation Fund.

Nova Leah - https://novaleah.com/

Nova Leah is the leader in cyber security for connected medical devices and is an IoT investment by Suir Valley Ventures. Nova Leah sells directly to the top medical device manufactures typically in Boston, MA and the west coast of the USA. The founder, Anita Finnegan, is an expert in the area and originally built the technology in a top medical device software research group in DKIT, while doing a PhD, and later she spun out the technology and developed the market selling to several tier 1 medical device manufacturers. Subsequent to Suir Valley's investment in October 2018, the company was successful in the Irish government Disruptive Technology Fund (DTIF) programme being awarded €1.5 million. 

Admix - https://admix.in/

Admix is an advertising platform for AR/VR developers, based in London and is a new addition to the portfolio since the January update. Technically, Admix has developed what is called a Supply-Side Platform (SSP), which enables developers to monetise their content by creating, managing and selling  advertising inventory. Being an SSP, Admix is a broker that sells developers inventory programmatically at scale. Being programmatic automatizes the buying/selling process. Admix enables, for the first time, VR/AR inventory to become immediately available to thousands of advertisers connected to the existing ecosystem, which provides VR/AR developers with instant revenue. Suir Valley closed  its initial investment in November 2018.

Suir Valley has also recently led an investment in 3D holography company VividQ, with Sure Ventures also making a direct investment (see below)

DIRECT INVESTMENTS

Investments made directly by Sure Ventures plc:

Immotion - https://immotionvr.com/

Immotion is a UK based company that creates its own high-quality VR content and enhances the immersive experience by coupling this content with motion simulation. Since floating on AIM last July, the company has developed and launched nine new proprietary VR experiences. It has made continued progress across shopping mall real estate and has also agreed with Merlin Entertainments - the entertainment centres and theme parks operator - to a significant roll-out of its Cinematic Platforms across the majority of the Lego Discovery Centres estate plus a LEGOLAND hotel in Germany. Merlin has also agreed to extend the relationship to cover an initial trial in three Sea Life Centres. It has also created new proprietary content (such as Delta Zero) and a branded roller coaster experience for the Lego discovery centre in Manchester. In February, Immotion raised an additional £3.3 million via a placing and last month, following overwhelmingly positive response to its 'Swimming with Humpbacks' experience.  I, it also announced a deal to install aquatic immersive experiences at two major aquariums in the US.

VividQ - https://www.vivid-q.com/

VividQ is a deep tech software company with world-leading expertise in 3D holography, which has long been considered the ultimate display technology. The science fiction ideal of engineering and manipulating light to produce 3D projections has appealed to the imagination of millions through franchises such as Star Wars or Star Trek. While physically possible, the tremendous computing requirements to create full-depth holographic display made it unreachable for commercial applications. Until now. VividQ has developed solutions required for the mass adoption of holography. Its patented software framework allows for the real-time generation of holograms from 3D data and projection on available micro-displays. Since its inception in February 2017, the company has signed partnerships with the largest consumer electronics and embedded computing companies in the US, Taiwan and Japan, including Intel and Himax.

Sure Ventures Director, Gareth Burchell said, "We are very pleased with the new additions to the fund and would like to welcome both the Admix and the VividQ teams to our exciting, diverse  and expanding portfolio. Both companies offer new, innovative and impressive technologies in the VR/AR vertical. The quarterly NAV is down 9.52% at 83.03p, largely  due to the drop in the Immotion Plc share price, which fell from 8.60p at the end of December, to 5.125p as at the  quarter ended 29 March, subsequently recovering some ground this month to date. We continue to have great faith in the Immotion team and the strategy the board are executing. We congratulate Nikki Lannen and the WarDucks team on their successful fundraise during the quarter period and are very pleased with the 4x unrealised gain that has provided. We look forward to updating the market with the progress of our portfolio companies as they develop."

ENDS

For further information, please visit www.sureventuresplc.com or contact:

Gareth Burchell	Sure Ventures plc	[phone]
Melissa Hancock/ Isabel de Salis	St Brides Partners (Financial PR)	[phone]

Notes to Editors

Sure Ventures plc listed on the London Stock Exchange in January 2018 giving retail investors access to an asset class that is usually dominated by private venture capital funds. The Company aims to provide investors with a diversified exposure to three rapidly-growing markets: augmented reality/virtual reality, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things.  Sure Ventures is focusing on companies in the UK, Republic of Ireland and other European countries, making seed and series A investments in companies with first rate management teams, products which benefit from market validation with target revenue run rates of at least £400,000 over the next 12 months. 

Website: https://www.sureventuresplc.com/

 

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