Tern reports solid progress among portfolio companies

Internet-of-things (IoT) technology company Tern reported further significant progress across its portfolio companies in an update on Friday, with growth in recurring revenues and new contract wins.

The AIM-traded firm also announced unaudited valuation uplifts over the December-to-February period for Device Authority, Konektio, Talking Medicines and Wyld Networks.

It said Device Authority had continued its positive business momentum following the investment from Venafi in December, with the business being particularly focussed on growing its monthly recurring revenues through its subscription base, and its modularised licence platform ‘KeyScaler’.

In January, Device Authority entered into a partnership with embedded cybersecurity company Trusted Objects to integrate Trusted Object's 'TO-protect' software root-of-trust and Device Authority's KeyScaler.

FundamentalVR, meanwhile, continued to enter into further significant contracts in recent months including a £0.6m deal in interventional medicine, a £1 million contract in robotics-assisted surgical systems, and a £0.3m contract from a new client to create a virtual education facility.

Wyld Networks was performing “strongly”, Tern said, with further commercial traction including a connectivity partnership with Eutelsat Communications, Senet and TrakAssure, to form the ‘Multimodal IoT Infrastructure Consortium’ (MMIIC).

It added that Wyld joined the LoRa Alliance - an association of companies backing the open ‘LoRaWAN’ standard* for IoT in November, and in December LoRaWAN was officially approved as a standard by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

InVMA, meanwhile, was now trading as Konektio, and following the £2.125m equity fundraise in December had seen more strong demand for its ‘AssetMinder’ product.

Tern said Konektio also recently appointed Dr Ron Black, the former CEO of Imagination Technologies, as its new non-executive chairman.

Finally, following the £1.59m Talking Medicines syndicated fund raise on 1 February, Tern said Talking Medicines was focussing on expanding the subscription base for ‘PatientMetRx’, including in the United States via its recently-established office in New Jersey.

“Since our last portfolio update at the end of October, our portfolio companies have all made substantial progress, which I believe significantly increases the value that will ultimately be delivered for Tern shareholders in the form of exit proceeds,” said chief executive officer Al Sisto.

“We consider that this value is being built via increases in monthly recurring revenues and the significant market traction which, as can be seen in this update, our companies are enjoying.

“I fundamentally believe that the companies we have within the Tern portfolio all have very exciting futures ahead of them and 2022 will be a year of further significant progress.”

At 1346 GMT, shares in Tern were up 0.44% at 11.3p.