AQSE Half Yearly Update H2 2024

As we approached the end of what was a tumultuous year for markets with global economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and elections in many parts of the world, we took a moment to reflect on how far we had come.

Despite the hurdles of 2024, we were encouraged by some positive trends emerging on our market. Notably, trading levels on the Aquis Stock Exchange have seen a significant increase of 21%, and fundraising efforts have also gained momentum reaching £118m raised. These are promising indicators of resilience and growth, even in a testing economic environment.

November’s showcase event provided an excellent opportunity to highlight the innovation and determination driving our market, and we look forward to building on that moving forward. As we look ahead, we remain optimistic and excited about the prospects for this year.

Thank you for your continued support. We are enthusiastic about the future and confident that, with the support of the Aquis community, we will continue to achieve success.

IntelliAM AI Plc is a software company leveraging the power of AI and machine learning in the manufacturing industry to increase operating efficiency of the existing assets of the Company’s manufacturing clients. IntelliAM joined our Access segment on the 3rd July 2024 raising £5m.

Zentra Group Plc transferred from the London Stock Exchange Main Market to the Access segment of AQSE on the 11th of December. The group is a property development and management company based in Manchester with international operations particularly in Asia.

H2 also saw both Ananda Pharma (August) and Valereum (November) transfer from the Access to the Apex segment. This brings the year total to five companies that have graduated to our upper tier.

Invinity Energy Systems PLC announced its new Motherwell manufacturing facility was officially opened. The Company says this facility, is approximately six times the size of its existing facility in Bathgate and will increase Invinity’s UK assembly capacity to over 500 MWh per year, support the creation of more than 40 new jobs in the region and enable faster and more efficient delivery of vanadium flow batteries across the UK, Europe and further afield. Read more

Oberon Investments Group plc announced that it has conditionally raised approximately £2.5m before expenses, through a conditional placing via Oberon Capital of 71,428,566 shares at a price of 3.5p per share. Read more

Cooks Coffee Company Limited provided a trading update covering the Company’s Esquires branded franchised coffee focused stores for the 22 weeks of its financial year ended 1st September 2024. The Company highlighted the following:

Time To ACT PLC announced that its GreenSpur business has won a design contract to develop an optimised wind turbine generator for XFlow Energy. Based in Seattle, USA, XFlow is an innovator in the renewable energy sector, specialising in the design of an innovative vertical-axis wind turbine. Their flagship 25 kW VAWT has been engineered to reduce the cost of wind energy generation while maintaining high efficiency and structural integrity. Read more

IntelliAM AI plc announced it has won contracts with Hovis for its consultancy reliability services. This includes contracts for 3 Hovis sites in East London, Nottingham and Glasgow, and project services for all Hovis manufacturing sites. The Company reports these service and project orders will be worth more than £100,000 over a 12-month period, starting October 2024. Read more

All Things Considered Group Plc announced the delivery of the first major project for ATC Experience, a Group offering launched in 2023 to create and distribute artist-led digital and in-person experiences for global audiences. The live theatrical show, titled Hamlet Hail To The Thief, is a co-production between ATC Experience, Factory International in Manchester and The Royal Shakespeare Company. Bringing together Shakespeare's great tragedy, Hamlet, and Radiohead's seminal album, Hail To The Thief, to create an innovative, new live experience combining theatre, music and movement. Read more

Ananda Pharma Plc announced that two of its patent-pending cannabinoid medicines, MRX2 and MRX2T, will be used in two National Institute for Health and Care Research and NHS co-funded Phase IIIa epilepsy clinical trials, involving up to 500 patients in total. The trials will be run by investigators at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital. Read more

DXS International plc announced its first NHS commercial contract for its leading-edge AI ExpertCare Clinical Decision Support solution. This unique digital solution “automates” the gathering of all “relevant” patient and treatment information to enable the prescribing clinician to conduct all hypertension medicine reviews faster and in accordance with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. Read more

EDX Medical Group Plc announced it has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with mir|detect GmbH to distribute its M371 testicular cancer diagnostic test in the UK and Nordic markets. The Company says the M371-Test is a simple blood test that enables highly accurate detection of critical biomarkers of testicular cancer in its early stages, the most common form of cancer among young men. Read more

SulNOx Group PLC announced that it has raised a total of £1.88m before expenses from a group of investors. The Investors have agreed to subscribe for a total of 3,302,076 new ordinary shares at a price of 46.6 pence per share raising £1.54m. In addition, one of the subscribers has indicated an intention to exercise 1,159,420 warrants at an exercise price of 29.0p per share, raising a further £336,232. Read more

We hosted “The Pub Test” twice this half of the year along with investor relations and communications group InvestorHub, both of which took place at iconic Shepherd Neame pubs in London. The evenings provided a more casual opportunity for investors to hear from a selection of companies quoted on Aquis and ask candid questions to their CEO’s.

In partnership with Republic Europe and PitchFlix, AQSE hosted the 2nd reverse pitch event where investors pitched their funds to female founded companies. We moved the event to Level 39 to cater for increased demand and were delighted with the variety of attendees, with businesses from all sectors.

Our first international event took place at the OTC Markets offices in New York in partnership with the Canadian Securities Exchange and OTC. Three Aquis companies made the trip with us and presented to the 70+ investor audience (SulNOx, Tap Global and Valereum) as well as five CSE listed companies. The event enabled Aquis and our issuers to access a new audience of investors, other quoted companies and an advisory community that we have not been able to reach before.

Aquis was also represented at the Stakeholderz panel alongside JP Jenkins, Peel Hunt, The Sustainability Group, and Terrafend. The discussion focused on Scaling for Success, Impact, and Exit, highlighting how sustainability, technology, and innovation are driving change in the investment landscape.

The third annual Showcase was another great success with 13 Aquis companies pitching to a full room. We were well-supported this year by a raft of new sponsors including City AM, IG, Laytons ETL, Sodali & Co, InvestorHub, Investegate, One Advisory, Redchurch Communications and MUFG (formally Link Group) as well as some of our corporate adviser members (Cairn Financial, Guild Advisory, First Sentinel and Novum Securities).

Our panel of judges who participated in the institutional investor session as well as the selection of a winner, dedicated their entire day to the showcase (Close Brothers, Gresham House and Premier Miton), and Simon French, Economist at Panmure Liberum was a real hit with his economic review. For a taster of the day watch the City AM video here.

We also had the best headline in City AM the following day, which you can see below:

This was the third “Journey to IPO” of 2024, and we welcomed Guild Financial Advisory, Laytons ETL, Gerald Edelman, Capital Plus Partners and Adsure Services PLC to present to an audience of prospective companies on navigating an IPO on the Aquis Stock Exchange. The event attracted numerous founders who are considering an IPO and who we are now in regular communication with.

AquisID in partnership with ScribeStar has now been launched and you can see more information on our website here. AquisID will create further differentiation and efficiencies through a digital platform to streamline the admission process for exchange, companies and advisers. For more information on this, please contact aqsebusinessdevelopment@aquis.eu

Panel with EISA and Female Founders Rise discussing exit strategies.

Aquis Exchange PLC International Women’s Day breakfast show debate with Debate Mate.

Journey to IPO