IP Group updates investors on solid progress

Intellectual property-based business developer IP Group issued a statement on Wednesday morning, updating the market on its position and progress since 31 December, as investors headed for the company’s London offices for the annual general meeting in the afternoon.

The FTSE 250 firm said that, as at 30 April, the fair value of the group's portfolio was £652.1m compared to £614.0m at 31 December.

It said that reflected a net fair value increase of £29.3m and portfolio investments of £8.8m during the period.

“The fair value increase in the period of £29.3m was due to a net increase in the fair value of the group's holdings in AIM-listed portfolio companies, which increased by £16.1m in the period, and a net increase in the value of the group's private portfolio companies,” the board said in its statement.

“From the quoted portfolio, the most significant increases arose from Xeros (+£7.4m), Diurnal (+£4.7m), Actual Experience (+£4.0m) and Ceres Power (+£3.6m) offset to a degree by hVivo (-£5.7m) and Tissue Regenix (-£5.2m).

“The most notable fair value change in the private portfolio arose from Ultrahaptics Holdings Limited, whose recently announced fundraising resulted in a direct unrealised fair value gain to IP Group of £8.8m and a fair value gain of £3.2m to IP Venture Fund II, the latter of which is included within the Group's consolidated results.”

The group's portfolio now comprised holdings in 50 intellectual property-based companies categorised within the ‘focus’ or ‘development’ stage, a further 41 early stage companies and three multi-sector platform holdings.

Over the period, the group deployed capital totalling £8.8m to 14 portfolio companies and opportunities.

The board said significant developments in the group's portfolio companies since 31 December included Ultrahaptics recently announcing that it had completed a fundraising of £17.9m to support its global expansion and entry into virtual and augmented reality markets.

“The funding was supported by both existing shareholders, including IP Group and Woodford Investment Management, and new investors, Cornes Technology Investments Limited and Dolby Family Ventures.”

Actual Experience announced it had raised a total of £17.5m - before expenses - by means of a conditional placing in March.

“The proceeds of the placing will enable Actual Experience to put in place the resources to support its channel partners as they commence the deployment of its technology into their global enterprise customer base,” the board said.

Xeros Technology Group announced the launch of Symphony Project, providing manufacturers of conventional commercial washing machines with 'open source' access to Xeros' “innovative” polymer technology.

“Xeros has developed a simple retrofit pedestal that integrates Xeros' cleaning system into conventional machinery whilst causing minimal disruption to the manufacturing process.

“This provides a gateway for the incorporation of Xeros' technology into any commercial washing machine.”

Avacta Group announced that an evaluation of its Affimer technology by a large, global diagnostics developer had successfully concluded and that the third party had taken exclusive rights to several Affimer reagents for an undisclosed sum.

“This is the first such evaluation to conclude and it has led to an agreement to provide exclusivity for certain Affimers which are relevant in a large diagnostic market,” IP Group’s board explained.

“This is an important commercial step and a validation of the significant potential of the licensing business model.”

In the US, the firm’s first two portfolio companies from US university partners, Exyn Technologies and Uniformity Labs, raised a combined £5.4m in new post seed financing rounds via the private placement of ordinary shares.

Looking at the books, the group had cash of £93m as at 30 April, alongside a diversified portfolio valued at £652m and net assets of £797m.

The group's 'hard' net assets - that is, excluding goodwill and intangibles - were £720m or approximately 127p per share.