Member Info for JPJPJP

A £75k contract for Acuity from Sopra Steria that "is ultimately serving the British government" was announced by RNS in Feb 2026

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ACRM/contract-win/17473486

The relationship between Sopra Steria and the British government seems to be getting a bt bumpy.

https://www.stotles.com/resource/blog/what-does-the-sopra-steria-vs-dwp-lawsuit-mean-for-public-sector-suppliers

and, today, Sopra Steria has filed a claim in the courts against DWP, DEFRA, The Home Office and the MoJ.

https://caseboard.io/cases/8e3b8ef5-f4c0-4241-b0e6-a449dea9563c

I wonder if how likely it is that there will be any more money for Acuity from Sopra Steria's work for the British government?

"did they mention anything on the defence channel partner"

Nothing specific, but David painted the Defence Investment Plan as being something positive for the company.

No sign of Angus today (which is good). It tried to be upbeat and, of course, promises jam tomorrow "strong 2nd half public sector pipeline"

No mention of any sales of Stream Cloud. Hyping Risk OS (the next new product). A Channel Partner manager who can walk on water is coming soon.

Claims profitability every month since October 2025 (which is good), but no mention of cashflow positive.

Staff numbers today = 14 on payroll + 3 freelancers.

No further equity raises are planned unless an acquisition opportunity arises (I think that is pretty much what they said last time - and then did a raise anyway).

My takeaway is that the company is in a better place than it has been previously, but that it has taken longer (and more cash) to get here. As others on this forum have said many times before: they need to get some sales over the line. The importance of doing that is increasing every single day.

"Jesus, Angus salary for being a buffoon as chairman"

You may recall the "Statement re business and directorate" released 13 June 2025

https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/drumz_plc/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=199&newsid=1954708

It specifically mentioned the Chairman role.

"As part of the changes, from the start of June the role of Chairman has reverted to being a non-executive role, at a salary of £60,000 pa of which one sixth will be deferred until 31 December 2025. It will include responsibility for identifying and delivering complementary acquisitions. The other two non-executives remain on salaries of £15,000 pa and these are entirely deferred until 31 December 2025. Deferred pay at 31 December net of taxes will be invested in the Company's shares."

"JP. If you look on linked in they only seem to have about ten employees ?"

The specific wording of the line in the audited accounts says "The average number of employees (including Directors) of the Group was:" 21 for the year ended 31 Dec 2025. (My post this morning states 25 for the prior year. That was a typo by me, the accounts say 26 - apologies).

A lot could have happened between 31 Dec 2025 and today, so maybe a question for the investor presentation on 2 July is "How many employees (including Directors) does the Group have today?"

A few things that caught my eye in the notes to the accounts at first glance. There may be other things that catch other eyes.

1. There is a line "Billings to customers" 2024 = £2,,554k vs 2025 = £1,226k. That has a knock on effect on "Deferred income to be recognised after 1 year" 2024 = £1,090k vs 2025 = £373k.

3. 21 staff vs 25 staff last year

6. Exceptional costs £133k "relate to a multi-year supplier contract from which the Group is no longer expected to derive any value and is therefore now considered onerous"

9. Weighted number of ordinary shares in issue 2025 = 191,042,195 vs 2024 = 137,013,405. That is 54,028,790 (39.4%) more shares.

12. The goodwill arising on the 2023 acquisition of Acuity Risk Management is still on the books at £5,154k. The methodology used proposes that it is worth £7,300k.

15. Trade and other receivables 2025 = £306k vs 2024 = £672k

Https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ACRM/final-results/17661069

"2025 was a year of disciplined execution and meaningful strategic progress. We held revenue stable at £2.1 million while reducing administrative costs by a third, which transformed our trading performance and cut operating losses to £194,000 from over £1 million the prior year. Importantly, we entered the new year with £1.9 million of contracted future revenue, since grown to £2.1 million by the end of the first quarter, giving us strong near-term visibility.

The first half of 2026 has built on that foundation. The launch of STREAM® Cloud in March 2026 has broadened both our capability and our addressable market, taking us into the private sector mid-market for the first time. We’ve unlocked partnerships as a strong distribution channel. Alongside this, our recent fundraise of £453,000, including an oversubscribed retail offer, reflects the confidence of our shareholders and provides the resources to invest in the new Risk OS software, and strengthen our sales and marketing efforts.

Looking ahead, we are particularly excited about our AI-native Risk OS software, which will represent where cyber risk management is going rather than where it is now. We’re determined to capture the opportunity to lead a growing cyber GRC market segment.”

The retail offer element of the cash raise was subscribed: £53,396 versus the £50k target.

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ACRM/result-of-oversubscribed-retail-offer/17651610

The caseboard page, now corrected, with Close Brothers Ltd as the applicant

https://caseboard.io/cases/a92abbc2-222e-4e5e-98a7-be0560f02aa4

A response from Close Brothers investor relations

"Having made enquiries, we can confirm that this is an administrative error in the court file. Close Brothers, via an external law firm, appointed administrators to enforce a debt against a customer in default. The application was made correctly and the appointment was made by the court in respect of the relevant customer, but there appears to be an error in the court file. To be clear, Close Brothers Limited has not filed for administration. We are investigating how this error occurred and expect it to be rectified as a priority.

Maritz

With kind regards,

Close Brothers Investor Relations team"

Yes, it is most likely Close Brothers Ltd as the appointer, in the late stages of chasing an unpaid loan from a borrower, and something has gone wrong with the filing - maybe as LIBERTY2 describes, or some other clanger dropped elsewhere in the process.

If that is the case, it will be cleared up pretty promptly this week.

Whatever it is, that is the sort of mistake that could lead to a stand up meeting with no biscuits in some workplaces.

There are examples of Close Brothers Limited filing as the applicant. This one, for instance, where the Company is one against which Close has a secured charge.

https://caseboard.io/cases/268ce5e8-ed42-4f33-a477-62912d4735e6

It was Close Brothers Limited appearing in today's filing as the company, rather than the applicant, that caught my eye.

Close Brothers appears on the client page of the solicitors attached to the court filing, Glovers

https://www.glovers.co.uk/clients/

What, if anything, is going on here then?

https://caseboard.io/cases/a92abbc2-222e-4e5e-98a7-be0560f02aa4

Application - Notice of Appointment to appoint an administrator for Close Brothers Ltd

Something I have mentioned before has come back to my mind.

Could there be some customers that are put off buying an ACRM product because they are worried that ACRM will not be around to support it in future?

If IT and Purchasing get together to assess cyber security products, once they start to look at the financials of prospective suppliers, would ACRM's accounts / repeated fundraises and lack of cash be enough to cause some potential customers to choose a more financially robust supplier?

The retail offer, part of the latest fundraise, is priced at 0.75p.

It aims to raise £50k that will be used for working capital purposes.

It is proposed that each offer share has a warrant attached, exercisable at the Issue Price for a period of 1 year.

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ACRM/retail-offer/17643154

Another fundraise.

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ACRM/fundraise-of-approximately-ps400-000/17642720

The placing (c. £320k) and Directors subscription (c.£50k) have raised £370k and there is £50k worth of shares on offer to retail investors.

However they dress up the reason for the raise, the RNS states that the company had net cash of £322k as at 31 Dec 2025. As the Directors have been careful to avoid the "cash generative" goal in recent appearances, I wonder how much cash they had on hand before this placing?

New product development is all well and good of course. But in the time I have been a shareholder, the company has launched three new products: Storm, VMH and Stream Cloud. None of which have yet set the market on fire, have they?

How big an ask is it to expect shareholders to believe that the next new product will succeed where the last three appear to have not?

The contract expansion announced today is, of course, good news.

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ACRM/contract-expansion/17627365

Whilst it does not actually tell us how much the expansion is worth versus the previous arrangement with this existing customer, it does tell us that the overall contract value is over £100k across three years.

STREAM Cloud was launched twelve weeks ago today.

So far, there has been no announcement that a single instance of it has been sold.

16 March 2026

With regulatory requirements tightening across the UK and EU, and boards increasingly demanding visibility of cyber risk, the timing is right. STREAM® Cloud gives these organisations a fast, guided route into professional risk management, with a clear path to our enterprise platform as their needs evolve. This is a commercially attractive model that we expect to contribute to improved new customer acquisition and recurring revenue growth."

Today, almost 7 weeks later.

If the market need is so significant and the product is as good as the launch RNS and subsequent communications from the company claim, why hasn't the first sale been announced yet?

Is it unreasonable to expect that a flagship new product, first touted for launch in June 2025, supported by a sales function refocused on the cyber security market for almost a year, and a programme focused on the most productive partners, should have racked up its first sale more quickly than this.?

A sense of restrained optimism from David and Duncan today?

I think they are as keen as any other shareholder to land more sales and, my impression is, that they believe they can and will.

I am looking forward to hearing of the first few Stream Cloud customers going live, hopefully soon. Having launched on 16 March, the impatient part of me was hoping that a launch customer was lined up in advance, or that there was someone very close to the business end of the sales pipeline.