Portfolio Update

RNS Number : 7336K

Merian Chrysalis Investment Co. Ltd

18 December 2018

 

Merian Chrysalis Investment Company Limited

18 December 2018

For immediate release

18 December 2018

Merian Chrysalis Investment Company Limited (the "Company")

Portfolio Update

·     Participation in Graphcore's $200 million series D funding round

·     Update on acquisition of the Initial Portfolio and The Hut Group

Participation in Graphcore's $200 million series D funding round

The Company is pleased to announce its investment of approximately $25 million in a $200 million series D funding round conducted by Graphcore Limited. Further information on the funding round is contained in a press release made by Graphcore this morning.

Graphcore is a leading artificial intelligence processor company, which has developed the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) and the related Poplar® graph software toolchain.   The IPU is a processor that has been designed from the ground up for machine intelligence applications and supports both the training and inference of deep learning models as well as other machine learning approaches. Based in Bristol, Graphcore's products can improve the efficiency and performance of artificial intelligence applications by between 10x to 100x, compared to existing hardware solutions. Initial markets are expected to include cloud and datacentre applications, where strong interest has been shown from leading companies. Graphcore has now raised a total of over $300M in capital and intends to utilise the proceeds of the funding to up-scale its operations to meet projected customer demand and to expand its global operations.

Nick Williamson, Co-fund manager commented:

"We are tremendously excited to announce our support of this British business as it attempts to shake up the machine intelligence market with its revolutionary new processor. We believe the machine intelligence market will show substantial growth in the coming years and that Graphcore is well positioned to generate material revenues. The business has had meaningful, global engagement with its technology and we look forward to working with the Graphcore team to deliver on this opportunity."

Update on acquisition of the Initial Portfolio and The Hut Group

Initial Portfolio

In its prospectus published on 11 October 2018 (the "Prospectus"), the Company announced its intention to apply 30 per cent. of gross issue proceeds of its initial issue toward the acquisition of the initial portfolio, comprising shares in TransferWise and shares in Secret Escapes (the "Initial Portfolio").

The acquisition of the Initial Portfolio has now become unconditional resulting in the application of 17 per cent. of the net issue proceeds to the acquisition of shares in TransferWise and the application of 13 per cent. of the net issue proceeds to the acquisition of shares in Secret Escapes. The Company is currently in the process of completing certain formalities required for registration of the relevant shares in its name which are expected to be finalised in the coming weeks.

The Hut Group

In the Prospectus, the Company advised it was in advanced negotiations that, if successful, would allow the Company to make an investment in The Hut Group. The Company is pleased to confirm its entry into a share purchase agreement to acquire shares in The Hut Group for approximately £9.5 million. The Company currently anticipates completion to occur by the end of 2018.

Portfolio composition

Assuming completion of the transactions detailed above, the Company will have deployed almost 60 per cent. of the net proceeds of the initial issue.

The Company continues to explore a range of further opportunities and will update the market as appropriate.

For further information, please contact:

Merian Global Investors: Will Gold / Amelie Shepherd	[phone]
Liberum:                              Gillian Martin / Christopher Britton	[phone]
Maitland Administration (Guernsey) Limited:   Elaine Smeja / Gareth Smith	[phone]

LEI: 213800F9SQ753JQHSW24

A copy of this announcement will be available on the Company's website at https://www.merian.com/chrysalis/. Neither the content of the Company's website, nor the content on any website accessible from hyperlinks on its website for any other website, is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement nor, unless previously published by means of a recognised information service, should any such content be relied upon in reaching a decision as to whether or not to acquire, continue to hold, or dispose of, securities in the Company.

This announcement may include "forward-looking statements". All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this announcement, including, without limitation, those regarding the Company's financial position, business strategy, plans and objectives of management for future operations (including development plans and objectives relating to the Company's products and services) are forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and accordingly the Company's actual future financial results and operational performance may differ materially from the results and performance expressed in, or implied by, the statements. These factors include but are not limited to those described in the formal Prospectus. These forward-looking statements speak only as at the date of this announcement. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect actual results or any change in the assumptions, conditions or circumstances on which any such statements are based unless required to do so by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, the Listing Rules or Prospectus Rules of the Financial Conduct Authority or other applicable laws, regulations

 

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