Mercia reveals it has invested more than £20m of IPO proceeds
A YEAR after its IPO, specialist investment firm Mercia Technologies says it is making good progress despite making a post-tax loss of £800,000 in the six months ended September 30.
The firm said it has invested more than £20m of its IPO proceeds.
The Henley-in-Arden firm, which invests in technology businesses, told the London Stock Exchange this morning that some £4.4m was invested in 11 portfolio companies during the period and that it invested a further £0.8m into VirtTrade and a second tranche of £0.5m into Crowd Reactive.
Some £0.8m was pumped into new direct investments Edge Case Games, Impression Technologies and LM Technologies.
And around £6m was raised by Mercia Fund Management in third party EIS/SEIS funds to invest in developing the early stage pipeline.
A further £4.2m was invested post period end, including £1m into Intelligent Positioning, bringing the total invested since its IPO a year ago to more than £20m.
Additional university partnerships were secured during the period with the University of Strathclyde and Abertay University and a new office was opened in Edinburgh to support Scottish deal flow.
The firm’s investment portfolio increased in value by £4.6m to £29.2m and Mercia now has net assets of £80.2m.
Mark Payton, chief executive of Mercia Technologies, said: “These activities reflect the continuing execution of Mercia’s strategic plan, namely building an industry leading team with deep technology sector experience and successful exit track records, strengthening our position in the Midlands, the North of England and Scotland, whilst continuing to expand our direct investment portfolio.
“Mercia’s investments range from those offered by virtual reality software developer nDreams, through to next generation mobile communication connectivity via Smart Antenna Technologies.
“When appropriate, we will syndicate investment rounds with value adding co-investors. This approach is exemplified by the recent Edge Case Games investment, which Mercia syndicated with the large Chinese games developer and publishing house Seasun Games, part of the Hong Kong listed Kingsoft Corporation.
“In the 12 months since Mercia’s debut on AIM, we have made good progress towards meeting our stated strategic objectives and we expect this momentum to continue. To date, over £20.0m of the IPO proceeds have been invested and this amount is ahead of our original IPO projections.”
