Pires investment Pluto sees solid asset growth

Technology investor Pires updated the market on the performance of one of its investments, Pluto Digital, which had grown its assets by around £30m over six months.

The AIM-traded firm said that since March, when the company raised £31m in new funds, Pluto grew its net assets by about £30m on a net basis, meaning that as at 30 September, Pluto's net assets totalled £61m, or 9.5p per share.

It said Pluto had progressed its business, working with London-based digital entertainment studio Maze Theory to release games incorporating ‘token economics’.

As part of the arrangement, Pluto was investing £4m in Maze Theory, and formed a new gaming blockchain and metaverse studio joint venture, Emergent Games.

Additionally, in September Pluto fully acquired the YOP platform, and had been actively developing the platform to help users to operate in and navigate the decentralised finance - or ‘DeFi’ space, which it said had been growing strongly.

On 8 April, NFT Investments announced it was no longer proceeding with its proposed acquisition of Pluto, and thus Pluto was currently pursuing other alternatives to access public markets, which would most likely be focussed on Canadian markets.

Pires currently holds 32,518,876 shares in Pluto and warrants over 24 million new ordinary shares in Pluto, subject to certain vesting conditions, of which six million have already vested.

“Pluto has made substantial progress in the DeFi, metaverse and non-fungible token (NFT) sectors since its inception around 12 months ago,” said Pires director Nicholas Lee.

“The audited net asset value per share figure represents a significant increase compared to the price of the most recent funding round, however, in terms of market valuation, companies similar to Pluto can often trade at a multiple of net asset value.

“It is important that Pluto makes its transition to the public markets in the optimum way and at the right time to maximise the creation of value for its investors and we, as one of the company's original shareholders, are fully supportive of Pluto's current approach.”

At 0942 BST, shares in Pires Investments were down 1.45% at 6.11p.