TIDMSURE
RNS Number : 3980H
Sure Ventures PLC
31 July 2019
Sure Ventures plc ('Sure Ventures' or 'the Company')
Portfolio Update
31 July 2019
Sure Ventures plc, a London listed venture capital fund which
invests in early stage software companies in the rapidly growing
technology areas of augmented reality ('AR'), virtual reality
('VR'), Internet of Things ('IoT') and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
in Fintech is pleased to provide an update on its investment
portfolio.
SURE VALLEY VENTURES
Sure Ventures made a EUR4.5 million commitment to Sure Valley
Ventures Fund ('Sure Valley') representing an interest in Sure
Valley Ventures of approximately 22.17% (assuming no other funding
commitments are made). This commitment was made at a price of
EUR1.00 per share; the last recorded Sure Valley Ventures dealing
NAV as at the 30th of June 2019 was EUR0.98.764.
Sure Valley Ventures has several investments across the AR, VR,
IoT and AI in Fintech sectors:
-- VR Education Holdings Plc - http://immersivevreducation.com/
VRE is a ground-breaking developer of Virtual Reality ('VR')
software and immersive experiences with a specific focus on
education and enterprise learning and development. VRE's core
platform is the Engage VR platform that enables educators to
develop VR education experiences and enterprises to develop
corporate learning and development VR simulations for workplace
training.
The company has released five major products to date:
-- Apollo 11 VR: immersivevreducation.com/apollo-11-vr
-- Titanic VR: immersivevreducation.com/titanic-vr
-- Berlin Blitz: immersivevreducation.com/1943-berlin-blitz
-- Engage VR: immersivevreducation.com/engage-platform
-- Raid on the Ruhr:
https://immersivevreducation.com/raid-on-the-ruhr/
-- WarDucks - www.warducks.com
Founded by former Facebook employee, Nikki Lannen, WarDucks'
mission is to build incredible, high quality, fun augmented and
virtual reality games. The company has six bestselling titles under
its belt, the latest two of which were Top Ten on PlayStation VR.
To enable the company take this product to the market it completed
a series A round of EUR3.284 million in Q1, with new investors EQT
investing EUR2.58 million, Suir Valley following on to maintain it
percentage with EUR453,858.32 and existing investors making up the
remaining investment. The transaction completed on the 29(th) of
March 2019. This represented a 4x uplift in our initial
investment.
-- Wia - www.wia.io
WIA is a ground-breaking Internet of Things (IoT) cloud platform
https://www.wia.io/product, enabling developers to turn any type of
sensor device into a secure, smart and useful application in a
matter of minutes. WIA is the easiest and fastest way to link
sensors and devices to develop IoT applications. WIA's end-to-end
platform provides full device and application management, security,
data capture and storage, analysis, control, as well as the
seamless integration of enterprise systems. WIA also just lunched
its own hardware product called the "Dot One"
https://www.wia.io/dot-one as an entry level device for first time
makers.
-- ProVision - www.provisioncameramatics.com
ProVision is the leader in CameraMatics solutions for commercial
fleets, ProVision delivers products that allow fleet managers to
reduce fleet risk, increase driver safety and comply with growing
governance and compliance regulations. ProVision has merged 4 key
technologies: video input systems (cameras and scanners), smart
processing systems, communications systems and unique algorithmic
IP to deliver intelligent driver and fleet safety systems. To
support further growth and USA market entry the company has started
meeting investors to lead its series A round and we expect the
company to complete that round before the end of Q4 2019.
-- NDRC Arc Labs - http://www.arclabs.ie/
The NDRC@ArcLabs investment was structured as a subscription as
a limited Partner to the Accelerator. The purpose of the
Accelerator is source and develop 30 start-ups over two years that
Suir Valley has the right to invest in. The Accelerator is running
three calls for 10 start-ups over 2 years in areas that are related
to the fund's investment strategy of AR/VR, IoT and AI. As a result
of the Accelerator's programme significantly overlapping with the
Fund's investment areas we see this Accelerator being a source of
proprietary deal flow.
-- Artomatix - https://artomatix.com/
Artomatix has patent pending AI software technology that cuts
the cost of content creation for animated movies, video games and
AR/VR applications by over 85% through AI automation. Given that
the typical cost of a CGI movie, such as Avatar, is $300 million, a
AAA video game such as Destiny is $330 million and a typical
animated movie is $175 million and can take 4-6 years to develop,
Artomatix has the potential to revolutionize these industries. Suir
Valley invested EUR750 thousand in preference shares at a pre-money
of EUR11 million and also purchased EUR150 thousand ordinary shares
at pre-money of approximately EUR3.5 million. These ordinary shares
have been converted to preference shares to bring our total
shareholding in the company to just over 10% fully diluted. The
company was also awarded a 3.2m euro grant from the Irish
governments disruptive Technology Fund and the Fast Track to
innovation fund (EU) in December which is being put to good use.
Gareth - do you want to include the DTIF funding here?
-- Nova Leah - https://novaleah.com/
Nova Leah is the leader in cyber security for connected medical
devices and is an IoT investment by Sure Valley Ventures. Nova Leah
sells directly to the top medical device manufactures typically in
Boston, MA and the west coast of the USA. The company's first
product Select Evidence helps medical device manufacturers identify
and address cyber-security issues throughout the manufacturing and
release process of their connected medical devices. Sure Valley
Ventures invested EUR750,000 in the company for 10.62% of the
business fully diluted. Subsequent to our investment which closed
on the 5(th) of October 2018 the company was successful in the
Irish government Disruptive Technology Fund (DTIF) programme for
1.5m euros.
-- Admix Ltd - https://admix.in/
Admix has developed what is called a Supply-Side Platform (SSP)
which enables developers to monetize their content by creating,
managing and sell advertising inventory. Being an SSP, Admix is a
broker that sells developers (think WarDucks) 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. Sure Valley Ventures
invested $500 thousand at a pre-money of $5,000,000 for a
shareholding of 7% fully diluted in the business, with a right in
the investment docs to get to 10% at the next round should Sure
Valley Ventures choose to.
-- VividQ Ltd - https://www.vivid-q.com/
VividQ is a deep tech software company with world-leading
expertise in 3D holography: the next generation display technology.
Holography has long been considered the ultimate display
technology. The science fiction ideal of engineering and
manipulating light to produce 3D projections appealed to the
imagination of millions through franchises such as Star Wars or
Star Trek. Holography overcomes these issues, and paves the way for
immersive 3D without the need glasses at all. VividQ disrupts
existing ways of creating 3D images, such stereo or
autostereo-display, to power the next generation of holographic VR
headsets, AR smart glasses, and automotive head-up displays. Sure
Valley Ventures invested GBP500K in preference shares at a
pre-money valuation of GBP6.5m for a total stake of 5.23% fully
diluted.
-- Ambisense - https://ambisense.net/
Ambisense's Ambilytics(TM) platform optimises the delivery of
environmental risk assessment on some of the world's largest
infrastructure projects across industrial, Oil & Gas and Waste
Management verticals, partnering with global multinationals such as
CEMEX, SGS & Arcadis. Ambilytics(TM) encompasses both IoT and
AI solutions, combining information from remotely deployed field
devices with contextual data sources such as weather, satellite,
geophysical and operational data to build machine learning
models.
Ambisense has developed a toolkit to enable customers to build
fully customisable, web-enabled instruments to acquire and analyse
the data required quickly and cost-effectively. Each element can be
tailored to different needs whether a client wants to measure gas,
air or water quality or anything in between.
DIRECT INVESTMENTS
Investments made directly by Sure Ventures plc:
Immotion PLC ('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. Sure
Ventures made a GBP500,000 investment in February 2018. As
previously announced, Immotion listed on the Alternative Investment
Market in July 2018, at a price that represented a notable uplift
in the value of Sure Venture's original investment. We have seen
Immotion make significant progress with units being deployed into
Sea Life centres, museums, leisure arena's, zoo's and theme parks/
entertainment centres across the globe. They have partnered with
brands such as Lego discovery centres, Lego Land, Merlin
Entertainment, The O2, Intu properties, Madame Tussauds and
Landsec.
VividQ - In addition to the Sure Valley Ventures GBP500,000
stake into VividQ, Sure Ventures has also made a direct investment
into the company of GBP500k at the recommendation of the AIFM. The
board identified the opportunity as a suitable and complementary
investment for Sure Ventures' portfolio and agreed that this was an
exciting deep technology company that could have developed a
solution that changes the way that people view content in 3D.
Holography could be the next generation of display technology and
the types of companies that are early stage adopters of VividQ's
software offers shareholders an exciting opportunity.
Sure Ventures Director, Gareth Burchell said, "We are pleased
that the AIFM has added Ambisence Ltd to the portfolio and we are
happy with the construction that the AIFM are taking here. This is
an exciting time for us as a number of our portfolio companies are
approaching their series A funding round. The Immotion price has
lifted since the last reporting period which has contributed
heavily to the NAV improving from 83.03p to 90.3p. We look forward
to keeping shareholders informed of developments."
ENDS
For further information, please visit www.sureventuresplc.com or
contact:
Gareth Burchell Sure Ventures plc +44 (0) 20 7186 9918
Melissa Hancock / Gaby St Brides Partners (Financial
Jenner PR) +44 (0) 20 7236 1177
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, fintech
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 GBP400,000 over the next
12 months. Website: https://www.sureventuresplc.com/
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END
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