TIDMGROW
RNS Number : 7528U
Draper Esprit PLC
08 April 2021
8th April 2021
Draper Esprit plc
("Draper Esprit", "the Group" or the "Company")
Investment and exit update
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 in advance of full year reporting for
the year ended 31 March 2021. The Company will provide a full year
trading update on 26 April 2021 and will announce full year results
on 14 June 2021.
Key highlights are as follows:
-- Strong momentum continues, investing in new portfolio
companies across a broad array of technology applications and
several follow-on rounds in existing portfolio companies
-- Invested GBP162 million in year ended 31 March 2021
-- Increased investment cadence with GBP96 million invested in
the second half of the year, bringing the full year total to GBP128
million, with a further GBP34 million from EIS and VCT
co-investment
-- Earlybird partnership delivering good uplifts with Series C
and D rounds from Aiven and Sennder respectively
-- Realisations for the year total over GBP200 million with full
recent exit from Decibel by way of a trade sale to Medallia, and
recent partial realisation of Trustpilot adding to first half
realisations of GBP106 million
-- Strong deal pipeline with over GBP50 million of investment committee approved deals
In addition to the recent announcements in relation to
Trustpilot's successful IPO and Ui Path's significant funding
round, recent portfolio developments include the following:
M-FILES
In January, the Company participated in an $80 million
investment round in portfolio company M-Files. The round was led by
Bregal Milestone, a European growth capital firm, with current
investors Partech, and Tesi also participating. Draper Esprit first
invested in M-Files in 2013 and has participated in multiple
funding rounds supporting the company's continued strong
growth.
M-Files is an intelligent information management company that is
using AI technologies in its unique Intelligent Metadata Layer.
Thousands of organisations in more than 100 countries use M-Files
for managing their business information and processes, including
NBC Universal, OMV, Valmet, SAS Institute and thyssenkrupp.
SENNDER
In January, Sennder announced a $160m Series D round with
investors including Accel, Lakestar, HV Capital, Project A and
Scania. Sennder is an Earlybird VI portfolio company.
Sennder is Europe's leading freight forwarder, offering shippers
access to a connected fleet of thousands of trucks. It focuses on
the digitisation and automation of all road logistics processes. By
leveraging its proprietary technology, it has built an ecosystem
that leads the industry with a new degree of transparency,
efficiency and flexibility.
AIVEN
In March Aiven, an Earlybird VI portfolio company and part of
Draper Esprit's core portfolio, announced that it had successfully
raised $100 million in a Series C round valuing the company at more
than $800 million. The round was led by Atomico, with Salesforce
Ventures and World Innovation Lab joining as new investors
alongside participation from existing investors including
Earlybird.
Aiven will use the proceeds to bring new products to market,
increase contributions to developing open source technologies and
continue the company's international expansion.
Headquartered in Helsinki with offices in Berlin, Sydney,
Toronto and Boston, Aiven provides managed open source data
technologies, like PostgreSQL, Kafka, and M3, on all major clouds.
With Aiven, companies of all sizes, from innovative startups to
global leaders like Comcast, Fiverr, Vidio, Wolt and more, can have
a modern, fully-functional open source data infrastructure from
different regions in the world in minutes based on their needs with
end-to-end security, set-up, maintenance and 24/7 monitoring across
all major public cloud platforms.
Draper Esprit's gross fair value holding in Aiven increased by
approximately GBP32 million as a result of the fundraising round to
approximately GBP44 million (including new capital).
FREETRADE
In March Draper Esprit participated in a $69 million Series B
fundraising round for existing portfolio company Freetrade. The
round was led by Lane Capital and the funds will help to accelerate
Freetrade's growth in international markets and allow the team to
scale their product and technology.
Freetrade is a commission-free investment platform, founded by
CEO Adam Dodds, and CMO Viktor Nebehaj. The app launched in the UK
in 2018 and has scaled up to serve over 600,000 customers (as of 1
March 2021). Prior to this Series B funding round, Freetrade has
raised approximately $42 million (GBP30 million) in seven
crowdfunding rounds and a Series A led by Draper Esprit. Unlike
traditional DIY brokers in the UK, Freetrade does not charge
commission on individual trades, instead operating a 'freemium'
business model whereby the company charges monthly subscriptions
for a premium account, a stocks and shares ISA, and a SIPP.
Draper Esprit's gross fair value holding in Freetrade increased
by approximately GBP5 million as a result of the fundraising round
to approximately GBP20 million (including new capital). It is
anticipated that Freetrade will
join the core portfolio when we report our results for the year ended 31 March 2021.
DECIBEL
In March, Medallia announced that it had agreed to acquire
Decibel, an existing portfolio company, for $160 million in an all
cash deal. This acquisition represents a fair value uplift of GBP4
million, resulting in a return of approximately GBP14 million, with
a 1.4x multiple on invested capital.
Headquartered in London, Decibel is a SaaS business set up for
the future of retail. Its unique smart machine learning software
tracks customer interactions, collects +100 data points, locates
opportunities for improvement, prioritises them, and can even
trigger real-time responses to rectify issues. The software is
already being utilized by 250 major brands names including Lego,
British Airways, and Tesco.
New portfolio Investments:
RIVERLANE
In January, Draper Esprit led a $20 million Series A investment
round in Riverlane with a $12 million investment (including $7
million from plc), the ground-breaking quantum computing software
specialist.
This is an exciting new investment for Draper Esprit and is in
line with a heritage of supporting world-changing technologies as
they scale. Spun out of Cambridge University, the company develops
software that transforms quantum computers from experimental
technology into commercial products.
Quantum computers are designed to solve problems that are not
possible to solve on classical computers. This step change in
computing power will impact a variety of industries - from
pharmaceuticals to logistics - and as the quantum industry develops
it's vital that software is built on a solid foundation. Deltaflow,
the quantum operating system developed by Riverlane, creates a
thriving quantum ecosystem, offering software developers access to
a range of quantum computers to best meet their needs. Providing a
shared language for applications and quantum hardware development,
Deltaflow is the infrastructure for great engineering and
collaboration across the industry.
FOCALPOINT
In March, Draper Esprit, as sole investor, invested GBP6 million
in FocalPoint, the deep-tech company revolutionising the accuracy
of GPS and other global satellite positioning systems (GNSS).
FocalPoint operates out of Cambridge and Bristol, with founders
drawn from Cambridge University's Experimental and Theoretical
Physics department, BAE Systems and the European Space Agency. Its
world-leading IP solves the fundamental limitations of satellite
positioning systems such as GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou. Its
technology can measure the direction of arrival of satellite
signals on consumer grade technology for the very first time and
delivers 10x improvement in accuracy, sensitivity and integrity of
satellite positioning for any device.
The company plans to use the funds raised to accelerate
deployment of next-generation positioning technology into chipsets
and devices across mobiles, wearables, vehicles and IoT.
Martin Davis, Chief Executive Officer of Draper Esprit,
commented:
"Over the last few months, we have continued with the
application of our strategy of accelerating our capital deployment
to invest in high growth opportunities in our existing portfolio
and to secure exciting new investment opportunities. In the year
ended 31 March 2021 we have invested over 40% more than in the
prior year, with a notable acceleration even in the second half on
the first. We continue to be disciplined in our investment criteria
and also in managing the balance of the portfolio. The recent
activity just goes to show how much opportunity there is in the
European technology sector, making it a very exciting time for us
as an investor, as reflected in our strong deal pipeline. We have
helped 10 unicorns on their growth journeys to date and have
confidence that we will see many more."
-S-
Enquiries:
Draper Esprit plc
Martin Davis (Chief Executive Officer)
Ben Wilkinson (Chief Financial Officer) +44 (0)20 7931 8800
Numis Securities
Nominated Adviser & Joint Broker
Simon Willis
Richard Thomas
Jamie Loughborough +44 (0)20 7260 1000
Goodbody Stockbrokers
Euronext Growth Adviser & Joint Broker
Don Harrington
Charlotte Craigie
Linda Clarke +44 (0) 20 3841 6202
Powerscourt
Public relations
Elly Williamson +44 (0)7970 246 725 /
Donjeta Miftari +44 (0)7961 628 862
About Draper Esprit
Draper Esprit is one of the most active venture capital firms in
Europe, investing in disruptive, high growth technology companies.
We believe the best entrepreneurs in Europe are capable of building
the global businesses of the future. We fuel their growth with
long-term capital, access to international networks and decades of
experience building businesses.
Currently, Draper Esprit is a shareholder in a diverse portfolio
of 67 companies with 15 of those part of our core portfolio which
accounts for over 60% of our holdings. Our core companies include
UiPath, Aircall, Graphcore and Revolut. We invest across four
sectors: Consumer Technology, Enterprise Technology, Hardware and
Deeptech, and Digital Health and Wellness, with highly experienced
partners constantly looking for new opportunities in each. We look
for high-growth companies with strong IP, powerful technology, and
the management teams to deliver success. They operate in new
markets, with serious potential for global expansion. We also look
for businesses with the potential to generate strong margins to
ensure rapid, sustainable growth in substantial addressable
markets.
Draper Esprit provides an opportunity for public market
investors to access these fast-growing tech businesses, without
having to commit to long term investments with limited liquidity.
Since IPO in June 2016, we have deployed circa GBP500m+ capital
into fast growing technology companies and have realised over
GBP300m. In October 2020 we raised gross proceeds of circa GBP110m
to help us capitalise on a European VC market which is expanding
rapidly but is still less than one quarter of the combined size of
the US and European market by value. It will also allow us to
capitalise on the transition to a digital future that has been
given added impetus as a result of the recent pandemic.
For more information, go to https://draperesprit.com/
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