Sure Ventures
PLC
Q4 2024 NAV Calculation and
portfolio update
Sure Ventures is
a London listed venture capital fund which invests in
early-stage software companies in the rapidly growing technology
areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality ('AR'),
Virtual Reality ('VR') and the Internet of Things ('IoT'). We are
pleased to provide an update on the Company's investment
portfolio.
SURE VALLEY VENTURES FUND
(ICAV)
Sure Ventures made
a €7million commitment to Sure Valley Ventures Fund
('Sure Valley') representing an interest in Sure Valley
ICAV of approximately 25.9%. This commitment was made at a
price of €1.00 per share. The current NAV of the Sure
Valley Ventures ICAV as of Q4 2024 is €2.77 which has
increased 39.5% from its NAV as at Q3 2024 and the fund is fully
invested.
SURE VALLEY VENTURES
ENTERPRISE CAPITAL FUND (ECF)
Sure Ventures PLC has a £5m
commitment and owns approximately 6% of the overall fund. The
investment period is still at a relatively early stage, with only
20% of this commitment funded so far. The current NAV stands at
£0.6909 and the portfolio has grown and at quarter end consists of
9 AI technology companies.
Sure Valley Ventures Fund
(ICAV)
Updates on some of the notable ICAV
portfolio company's below:
Engage XR
Engage XR (Formerly 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.
Post quarter end, Engage XR announced
the launch of their Education Offering at Bett 2025, working in
partnership with Meta and Optima. This has been extremely well
received by the market, with the share price climbing to around 2p
on announcement (from 0.55p in Dec-24 NAV).
Infinite Reality Labs (Formerly LandVault)
SVV invested into Admix in 2018, at
the time the company was an advertising platform for metaverse
(e.g. AR/VR/Games/esports). The company was based in London and led
by Samuel Huber as CEO, Joe Bachle-Morris as COO and Mark Rich as
CTO.
In July 2024 the company announced
that they had accepted
an offer of $450m from Inifinite Reality (iR) Labs. This
offer is a share-for-share transaction in Infinite Reality which
intends to list on Nasdaq. The reported valuation of Infinite
Reality was $5.1BN, which was underpinned by a new fundraise of
$350m at the same time as the acquisition.
Two further material news events have
occurred since SVV's decision to hold the investment at the
acquisition price. On the 8th of January 2025, Infinite
reality announced they had raised $3BN on a post money valuation of
$12.25BN. To be prudent and after discussion with auditors, the
Fund Manager has applied a 20% illiquidity discount to the position
in our NAV calculation when considering its new
valuation.
The second material news announcement
was that iR have now engaged Nasdaq Private Markets to help provide
some liquidity to investors, ahead of the IPO (date still unknown).
SVV have been in contact with this team and discussion remain
ongoing as to any possible liquidity solution.
Zenos Technology (Formerly Virtex)
Zenos Technology Limited (Formerly
Virtex) is an application that enables Esports organisers to host
their existing formats on a 3D entertainment platform, offering
millions of viewers a completely new viewing experience. The
company was founded in 2016 by Christoph Ortlepp and Tim Mcguinness
and is based in London.
Zenos's alpha prototype is currently
accessible through the Oculus platform, preview program, with
tethered headsets. The beta launch version (end of Q1 2021) will
also focus on Oculus and Steam platform, as well as tethered
headsets. This allows Virtex to create the strongest visual
showcases needed to convince the major Esports
organisers.
In Q4, Zenos successfully delivered
on further client milestones and deliverables, continuing to
book break even months on a P&L basis. Demand for new
products around broadcast/live production software continue to grow
with first commercial wins expected in 2025. Noteworthy highlight
in Q4 was Zenos and FIFA collaborating on an immersive viewing
application showcase during their Rocket League World Championships
in Riyadh.
Sure Valley Ventures
Enterprise Capital Fund (ECF)
Some commentary on 3 of its
portfolio company's below:
Vortex IQ Ltd
E-Commerce merchants face
significant challenges in optimising their online store
performance. Traditional analytics and BI tools offer historical data without actionable steps, leaving merchants
guessing on improvements. Vortex IQ transforms this landscape.
Their proprietary AI workflows identify and analyse data, offering
clear insights and recommendations. Through their low-code/no-code
interfaces, they streamline implementation, eliminating guesswork
and saving up to 40% in time and operational
costs.
Vortex has been selected as a top 12
company for the Microsoft UK gen AI accelerator and has signed a
5-year partnership agreement with BigCommerce (NASDAQ Listed) to
resell Vortex IQ solutions.
JAID
Jaid is an AI-powered platform that
extracts critical data from diverse company and customer
communications. It organizes the data into meaningful, actionable
insights and seamlessly integrates into existing workflows. JAID
are working with major banks, wealth managers, fund administrators
and clearing banks on a global basis.
They have continued to commercialise
proof of concept studies this quarter and with a tool that assists
these financial institutions with the training of their data, to
ensure the full power of the technology drives cost savings and
efficiencies within their operational processes.
RETinize
RETinize is developing an innovative
software product called Animotive, that is harnessing the latest VR
technologies to transform the 3D animation production process. The
team have spent 30 years in the global film and TV industry,
creating and producing hit shows for the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, ABC
and CBS, amongst others.
The company has announced a new
update, which implemented a new combined Quest pro and Occulus
lip-sync face tracking type that creates more natural eye movements
without the need for eye tracking. They also added a floor mark
system to snap characters back into starting position, and new
tally lights on top of cameras to improve live streaming
capabilities.
SURE Ventures PLC NAV
Calculation
The NAV of Sure Ventures PLC for Q3
2024 is 181p, which represents a 30.2% increase for the period.
This Increase was largely due to the valuation achieved by the
Infinite reality $3bn raise at a $12.25bn valuation, to which we
have applied a 20% discount illiquidity discount in the Q4
valuation. We have also accrued a performance fee for the
first time due significant uplift in NAV.
Gareth Burchell-Director Comments
"We are delighted with the
performance of the Sure Ventures NAV calculation this quarter and a
30.2% increase highlights the potential rewards that can be
achieved in the fast-growing technology areas we invest in. The
Sure Ventures board would like to congratulate the Sure Valley
Ventures team on their performance and look forward to continuing
to update shareholders on progress.
Infinite reality and a number of
other portfolio companies in the ICAV are now looking at exits and
an AI focused software portfolio is being built very thoughtfully
in the Enterprise Capital fund. Recent news regarding DeepSeek AI's
technological advancements, demonstrates the pace at which the
industry is growing and that the hardware, which ultimately enables
new software Companies to evolve, is improving at an incredible
pace."
For further information, please
visit www.sureventuresplc.com or contact:
Gareth Burchell
Sure Ventures plc
+44 (0) 20 7186 9918
