Tekcapital raises £3.8m at 10p to accelerate portfolio growth

 (TEK ) unveiled that it has raised a total of £3.8m (US$5.28m) before expenses to ramp up investment across the group’s portfolio companies and to accelerate their growth.

The UK intellectual property investment group conducted the raise in an oversubscribed placing of 38,000,000 new ordinary shares of 0.4 pence each in Tekcapital at 10p a share.

Specifically, the funds will be used to increase investment in Tekcapita’s core portfolio companies Belluscura plc, Lucyd ltd, Salarius Ltd and Guident Ltd, all of which have ‘capable management, proprietary technology and have addressable markets greater than US$1B.’

It said £1.25m will be used to exercise warrants and options held in Belluscura plc, a medical device company which offers patented oxygen enrichment technologies, which will thereby increase Tekcapital's equity stake by around 70% to approximately 17.1m shares.

Belluscura was recently granted 510(k) clearance and marketing authorisation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its X-PLOR2 portable oxygen concentrator. 

This clearance is a premarket submission made to demonstrate that the stated device to be marketed is safe and effective and substantially equivalent to a legally marketed device.

X-PLO2R™, which is expected to be commercially launched in 2021, has patented technology which delivers up to 95% pure oxygen to patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Tekcapital, the UK intellectual property investment firm which holds c.17.8% interest in Belluscura, has described the US FDA clearance as ‘a transformative development’.

To date, Belluscura, which operates as a UK-based medical device company focused on developing oxygen enrichment technology, has exclusively licensed, acquired or jointly invented 18 patents and applications in the field of concentrated oxygen generation. 

According to data collected from Global Market Insights, the medical portable O2 market is expected to grow from $1.6bn in 2018 to US $2.4bn by 2025 with a CAGR of 8%. Belluscura is also currently investigating a potential listing on the AIM Market of the LSE.

The remainder of the funds raised will primarily be committed to Tekcapital's portfolio of companies; Lucyd, Salarius, and Guident as well as for additional working capital.

Commenting on today’s placing, Clifford M. Gross Ph.D., Executive Chairman of Tekcapital stated, "We are pleased with the current placing from existing and new shareholders, which will enable us to rapidly accelerate the growth of our portfolio companies.”

He added, “We anticipate that each of these companies will make significant progress in 2021 as they continue to execute their go-to-market strategies. We have committed to invest a further £1.25m in Belluscura through exercising our existing warrants and options.”

Shares in Tekcapital have ticked up by over 5% in value since the start of 2021. Shares in the company were trading 24.14% lower this morning at 11p immediately following the news.

Today’s raise follows the recent FDA clearance of Belluscura’s Portable Oxygen Concentrator , X-PLO2R™, which is said to mark a “transformative development” for the group in that it offers both a vote of confidence from the US FDA ahead of its commercial launch of the system and enables Belluscura to enter the growing portable O2 market later this year. 

Reasons to  TEK

Tekcapital’s mission is to create value from university Intellectual property that is ready for mass markets:  

• TEK has the World’s largest network of University IP 
• TEK enables rapid value creation with market ready technology selection    
• Multi-Year track record of significant revenue and net-asset growth    

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