You might not think that edtech and jazz have much in common. But apparently, now they do. The latest proof of this was the appearance of Dev Clever (DEV) on JazzFM, the aftermath of which has seen the stock rise just shy of 10%. Perhaps of just as much interest to the edtech space, was the latest report in CityAM that Prosus has bought Stack Overflow, an online community for software developers, in a $1.8bn deal as it seeks to capitalise on the demand from online learning. Prosus is the largest shareholder in Chinese tech giant Tencent – all of which provides for a solid read across to Dev Clever.
Shares of blood diseases treatment developer Hemogenyx (HEMO), finally broke an extended streak of negative newsflow and sentiment, to do with funding issues and big pharma disappointment, with some solid home-grown news of its own. Here the company saw its shares rise 6% off the back of U.S. Approval and Issuance of a CDX Antibody Patent. The patent covers a method of use of a bi-specific antibody, the CDX, one of the Company's original and lead product candidates, for conditioning bone marrow/hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. It also covers a subset of sequences of monoclonal antibodies against target proteins existing on the surface of hematopoietic stem cells/hematopoietic progenitors, and/or a number of leukemias such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) as well as a protein that exists on the surface of immune cells (T cells).
One of the things that is noticeable after most placings on the stock market is that it can take a few weeks for the market to churn through the additional shares issued. This has been seen with graphene / graphite specialist Tirupati Graphite (TGR) since the company raised £10m at 90p in mid April. Indeed, the shares have found support at 90p since the fund raise, helped along by news in the interim regarding its new Graphene-Aluminium composite which has up to 95% the conductivity of Copper and could be a driver for the green / EV revolution. This is especially the case given the current soaring price of Copper. Shares of Tirupati closed up 3% higher at 95p.
With Crude Oil continuing to be a firm market, it has not been surprising that junior oilers have seen their share prices well bid. Indeed, some commentators were even suggesting that meme stock backers are adding the focus of their attention to Crude Oil, as it closed above $70 a barrel for the first time in two years. San Leon Energy (SLE), the Nigeria focused oil and gas specialist saw its shares rise another 8%. Last week its investee company Decklar, operating in the Oza Oil Field in Nigeria said it continues to make good progress on evaluations and negotiations for additional proven undeveloped oil and gas fields in Nigeria that have significant reserves and near-term production potential.
Sticking with the oil and gas space and there was decent news from United Oil & Gas (UOG), in the form of an update on the Abu Sennan Licence, Egypt in which United holds a 22% non-operating interest. UOG has won approval from the Minister of Petroleum of the award of a development lease covering the ASD-1X discovery, started production from the ASD-1X well with initial gross rates of 1,295 bopd (285 bopd net to UOG's working interest), and completed a successful workover at the ASH-1ST2 well, adding over 1,000 bopd gross (220 bopd net) to production from the ASH Field. Perhaps just as positive were reports of a new core NAV from Cenkos of 5.9p and a risked exploration NAV of 29.6, something which makes the present share price of United Oil & Gas at 4.3p appear rather tame.
Shares of Bezant Resources (BZT) remained steady as the copper-gold exploration and development company announced that a preliminary evaluation of data from its' recently completed airborne electromagnetic and magnetic survey over a large part of its Hope Copper-Gold licence block in Namibia has provisionally highlighted several potential strong drill targets. The helicopter-borne survey, covered about 3,000 line kms along a 130km strike extent of the Matchless Copper Belt and highlighted up to eight potential drill targets, based on first-pass overview.
On the Aquis market the star of the show was digital asset investment company KR1 (KR1). It announced that Automata, a portfolio project of KR1, has completed a successful US$2.4 million strategic funding round that included participation from IOSG Ventures and Jump Trading. KR1 invested a further US$200,000 into Automata in exchange for 5,000,000 ATA tokens. This investment comes in addition to KR1's seed round participation, announced in March 2021. KR1 now holds a total of 15,000,000 ATA, with the result being a 5% rise in the stock on the day.