SMALL CAP MOVERS: Bitcoin treasury firms crowd into London's junior market
Yet there's a rash of them appearing on AIM and Aquis, and it seems people are willing to back these enterprises with some serious money.
Take The Smarter Web Company. Seeking to raise around £8million, it drew in £13.4million from professional and private investors in a massively oversubscribed fundraiser.
Part of the investment Smarter has raised will bankroll what it calls its Bitcoin treasury policy.
So, let's back up a bit. While the name may be unfamiliar, the concept is fairly easy to understand: A treasury pot of assets (in this case cryptocurrency) that is bought and built, presumably with the aim of asset appreciation.
In the case of Bitcoin, this might not be a bad bet. Since April last year, the crypto's value has increased by more than 75 per cent to top out at around $111,000 last month, though it has since eased back to around $103,000.
The start of the run coincided with an event called a halving, which effectively puts a choke on the mining of new currency and, by extension, supply - creating a squeeze on the price.
Experts reckon the current bull run has legs, with estimates suggesting the price could hit $200,000 by the end of this year and a barely credible $1 million by 2030.
Bulls on the cryptocurrency include Cathie Wood, the widely followed American tech investor.
Now, The Smarter Web Company isn't the only game in town. Far from it. There's been an explosion of start-ups or pivots to Bitcoin treasury.
Helium Ventures (out of one super-hot area and into another), Coinsillium (by AIM's standards a veteran of the crypto sector) Cykel AI and Vinanz, which is soon to change its name to London BTC Company.
Bluebird Mining Ventures, meanwhile, is riffing on the theme by becoming a gold and Bitcoin company.
Back to reality. The AIM All-Share enjoyed another very solid week as it advanced 1.5 per cent to 757.54, outpacing the FTSE 100, which nudged up 0.5 per cent.
Star of the show was Celadon, the weed-based pharma company, which continued its ascent after last week's news of a potential cash injection from an unnamed sugar daddy (or mummy). The stock ended the week 170 per cent higher.
Another top performer, up 57 per cent, was tech investor Blue Star Capital, which on Thursday capitalised on the strength of its share price by bagging a £250,000 cash infusion.
Shuka Minerals rose 43 per cent after inching closer to the acquisition of a zinc asset in Zambia, having received the green light from local authorities.
Empire Metals motored 37 per cent as it revealed progress towards delivering a maiden mineral resource estimate for the Pitfield Project, Western Australia, the world's largest undeveloped titanium discovery.
Now to the fallers. There was a familiar story behind the 48 per cent slump in the shares of sports analytics group 4Global, which is quitting the junior market citing a lack of liquidity and access to capital, and also saying, frankly, it is too expensive to maintain a listing.
Shares in technology group Trellus Health dropped 48 per cent after it used its prelims to reveal its cash reserves will only last until October. Not ideal.
Finally, EMV Capital is quietly carving out a niche in early-stage deep tech investing, and Panmure Liberum thinks the market is missing the story.
Core revenues rose around 67 per cent in 2024 to £2.9million, building on 44 per cent growth the year before, as EMV scaled up its operations and expanded assets under management.
Panmure points to a 'disproportionate' ability to create value for relatively modest cash input, especially where in-kind services are provided to early-stage holdings.
In the wake of results, the broker reiterated its 'buy' rating along with its 133p price target. The shares ended the week up 10 per cent, but well short of Panmure's valuation at 43.04p.
For all that's hot in the small- and mid-cap space go to www.proactiveinvestors.com.
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