Riverfort Global Opportunities (RGO ) kicked off the week with a decent combo of an investment and placing. The deal was a €1.4 million investment in Smarttech247, a leading global artificial intelligence cyber security business with a focus on threat detection, investigation and response, with over 50 customers, including the Institute of Cancer Research UK and Aryzta Global. Having big names on board clearly underpins the investment, both in terms of Smarttech247 clients, and the arrival of serial investor Chris Akers to underpin the £1.64m funding at 1.7p a share. The icing on the cake so far is that the stock has been trading well above the placing price, 2p plus, something which suggests a thumbs up from the market. Even better, situations where the share price remains above the level of a fund raise are only normally seen in the strongest of stocks – so Riverfort’s perception in the market can now be regarded as A List currently. Riverfort jumped 7%.
Also delivering significant news, and what is likely to be an ongoing process at this particular level, was waste to energy group Powerhouse Energy (PHE ) Still surfing the Green Energy / ESG / EU virtue signalling Gravy Train as far as all things environmental, the latest from its DMG® technology licensee Hydrogen Utopia International underlined the momentum in this space. Here we learned of an exclusive non-transferable licence for the application of its DMG® technology in Greece and Hungary. Under the heads of terms HUI will pay Powerhouse €250,000. Greece and Hungary follow on for HUI after Poland, with other key nations in Europe likely to go the same way. Powerhouse shares rose 8%.
Following on in the same vein as far as newsflow momentum has been Open Orphan (ORPH ), the sprawling pharma services company. Given the rise from under 5p in its present incarnation to close to 40p now in not much more than a year, the latest from Executive Chairman Cathal Friel’s group looks likely to cement its title as a stock market darling. hVIVO a subsidiary of Open Orphan, has signed a £3m contract with Imperial College London, as part of a Wellcome Trust funded initiative to manufacture a SARS-CoV-2 challenge virus. Under this agreement hVIVO will develop a new SARS-CoV-2 challenge virus based on new emerging variants of the virus, which will be used in future hVIVO run human challenge trials to allow direct comparisons of vaccines or antivirals against different COVID-19 variants. Open Orphan recently pleased the market with its intention to spin off parts of the business to extract further shareholder value.
Retail investors love a good turnaround story, and arguably one of the sharpest, at least in terms of the share price of late has been at media, data, information, internet, security, and technology company Iconic Labs (ICON ). Here the good cheer was provided by news that it has entered into a non-binding letter of intent with Ott Ventures. Iconic is set to acquire a controlling stake of unmanned drone company, Sting Industries payable in a combination of convertible notes, warrants and cash, and provide a long-term financing facility to meet Sting's working capital needs. Shares of Iconic Labs were up over 35%