Hot Rocks Investments plc: Investment in Digital Payments Business

26 February 2025

HOT ROCKS INVESTMENTS PLC

(the "Company")

Investment in digital payments business

The Directors of the Company are pleased to announce that the Company has invested £75,000 in Endor Group Limited (“Endor”), trading as Universe Payments(www.universepayments.co.uk)

Endor is a UK-based cross-border payments business for corporates.

Businesses incur considerable friction undertaking Cross Border Payments due to the existing legacy payment infrastructure – SWIFT and the correspondent banking network. Endor, via its subsidiaries Universe Payments Limited and Universe Technologies Limited, disintermediates this infrastructure through the blockchain and associated digital (crypto) currencies resulting in hyper speed payments at a lower cost.

Endor’s achievements to date include obtaining regulatory permissions to carry out payment services on behalf of customers in both fiat and crypto in the UK and EU and successfully building a fully tested cross-border payments platform, including a crypto exchange. Endor is now ready to scale the business and will utilise the funding to invest in growth, where it has a book of customers ready to plug in with significant annual payment volumes.

The management team has very relevant experience at scaling cross border payment businesses from scratch including at Equals and BVNK.

Tony Quirke, the Chief Executive Officer of Endor, was former CFO of AIM listed payments company Equals. Equals acquired Tony and his fin tech business in order to pivot the Equals strategy and business model towards corporate banking and cross border payments, which resulted in revenues and market cap growth x5 in 5 yrs and yielding a x7 return for Tony and his investors. At PXP Financial, which was sold in 2017, Tony was part of the founder team that created a global payment processing business. Tony has also advised various fin tech/crypto scale ups including BVNK and Tap Global.

Gavin Burnell, Managing Director of the Company, said: “We are excited about the potential for Endor, are pleased to back this venture and look forward to updating the market with its progress.”

Following the above investment the company holds equity and / or warrant positions in the following entities:

 

D3 Energy

Electrum Discovery Corp

Elephant Oil Corp

Endor Group Limited

Laiva Gold Inc

Mafula Energy Limited

Minergy Limited

Mosi Copper Limited

New Horizon Oil & Gas Limited

Orcadian Energy Plc

Oscillate plc

Phoenix Digital Assets plc

Pilar Gold Inc

Rift Resources Limited

Royal Road Minerals Limited

Supernova Digital Assets plc

Trigon Metals Inc

Tucano Gold Inc

Unicorn Mineral Resources plc

WeShop Holdings Limited

The Directors continue to look at opportunities to diversify and add value for shareholders and are currently reviewing potential investments in a range of companies including copper and gold explorers, onshore and offshore oil explorers and web-based businesses.

For further details please contact:

Hot Rocks Investments plc

Gavin Burnell Tel: 0207 2644 546

 

Optiva Securities Limited

Vishal Balasingham Tel: 0203 981 4174