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Agree on the background buyer. Lots of odd things happening. Had a few more myself today.

They’re just observations TF - might be drawing entirely wrong conclusions!

Any thoughts on what might be driving the buying interest, or why it all seems to be being done off market?

I think it’s actually AE Gubbie, which if you tap on it takes you here - https://www.aethos.org/

As an aside, Peel just ticked up the bid for no obvious reason. The trend continues….

The key messages I got were that ;

Lord H has worked hard to build a reputation, which he’s clearly very proud of

he remains keen to be relevant beyond sitting with a blanket over his knees in the Lords.

He can achieve that by supporting AI/cyber driven warfare in the modern age.

There’s plenty of start ups, but he chose us. Not something anyone wanting to be relevant and protect a reputation would do.

In the USA operations update we were told that ABDX this was one area of work; “Development of a test for an infectious agent in animals and humans, with a spin-out of leading US university”.

I notice that Hand, Tanya Quint and other at ABDX have been reacting to LinkedIn posts from Lyme Alert, an MIT spin out offering an LFT to detect Lyme disease in tics.

https://www.lymealert.com/home

So, this could be what ABDX were referring to in the update.

This may be nothing…..but.

I notice Morrama put this post out a couple of weeks ago

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eco-flo-test_slurry-to-seconds-activity-7366428919668940802-iUZ_?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAEuI5eIBooawepY_Ubn_CKcFOzTXAaBN1HA

The Morrama Instagram page has a similar post saying “ Eco-flo x Thermofibre at London Design Festival. Tackling plastic waste in diagnostics is a massive challenge. See the latest developments from the Morrama Lab.

Eco-flo is our exploration into how dry-moulded fibre can change the game.”

It seems to me from all this that Morrama may have developed a completely novel way of producing plant based product to compete with injection moulded plastic. As per the above, they talk about this in the context of diagnostics and call it Eco Flo x Thermofibre - it therefore seems to be IP owned by Eco Flo Innovations, which we own 25% of.

Creating a plant based housing for LFT’s is one thing, and was what I at least thought EcoFlo was all about.

But if, as part of doing that, theyve created a whole new method to compete with injection moulded plastic, which lets face it is used in a myriad of other applications, then that is quite another.

I had this reply from John Herring today

“ The team is a bit hesitant to pounce on this at the moment as the particular breach falls more into malware detection products - a crowded market - rather than specific to maintainer behaviors and project dynamics.  Don't want to be painted with that brush this early in the product launch - rather stick with our core value proposition.  We will be integrating with these products during the course of CY26 so our dashboard does display it for a wholesome picture and will promote it in that context.  The team is making good progress and we will probably do another Investor Meet Company in November to demonstrate the product and will be looking to be more proactive in announcements as we move into the new year.”

Who knows Gubbie! I’ve been reflecting and think Upfront or Loop are actually more likely to get on a NHS Supply Chain framework than a UKHSA one. But Abingdon Analytical seems a prime candidate for Lot 2.

OK - I did some more digging and according the UKHSA 2025 Pipeline Snapshot, published in April, the estimated procurement start date under the framework was 18 August 2025, and the estimated contract start date had slipped to 14 November 2025.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukhsa-2025-pipeline-snapshot/ukhsa-2025-pipeline-snapshot?utm_source=chatgpt.com

That would explain why no announcements have yet been made about which companies are in the framework. But I would still expect those announcements to be made imminently.

Interestingly, Loop got its CE mark at the end of July, just before the procurement process started. I can't recall exactly, but I am sure Upfront got UKCA well before that. Both companies and their products are registered on the MRHA Public Access Database, meaning they can be marketed in the UK.

No guarantees at all we or they will be awarded under the framework but as I say, well worth keeping an eye on particularly for Upfront I think given it has been fully supported by the NHS and IDAP throughout its development.

Worth keeping an eye on this

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/50b2ba51-9346-4292-8df0-b74a6c873408?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Its a £5bn framework tender UKHSA put out in December. Lot 1 in the framework covers CE/UKCA Marked and MRHA approved diagnostic equipment and consumables. Lot 2 covers R&D.

From what I can gather, applications will likely have had to be made by around the end of January 2025, with evaluation thereafter taking between 3-6 months. The framework contract start date is showing as tomorrow but, as of today, there have been no announcements whatsoever about which companies will be included in the framework. So you would expect announcements to be imminent I think, possibly today or tomorrow.

As far as I am aware both the Upfront and Loop tests now have the relevant marks and approvals, although I am not sure if they both would have had these in time to tender. But then I don't know they didnt either, or that the contractor would exclude them if they only achieved the marks during the evaluation process.

I suppose the point is that we might get imminent news to say that Upfront and perhaps Loop have been included in this significant framework under Lot 1, and could equally get news that Abingdon has been included under Lot 2. It might explain the steady stream of larger delayed buys we've been seeing here.

Don't know for sure - have written to John Herring to ask and, if so, to try and leverage it with some kind of marketing.

As far as I am concerned though;

1) OSS touches pretty much every software application the global population and critical infrastructure uses. It is universally relied upon as the bedrock of our increasingly tech society.

2) OSS has been steadily built through a wide range of code commits from across the globe, all of those being administered by a small number of administrators/maintainers. So, our whole society relies on it, for everything.

3) Anyone managing to "hack" the administrator or maintainer gets the ability to poison the well. Poison the well, and everyone that drinks from it is poisoned. That is pretty much everyone out there. "Cybergeddon" is what some caused the XZ Utils risk.

4) "Hacking" the administrator or maintainer is what happened with XZ Utils, and its what happened with Shai-Hulud.

So I would be surprised if Ranger couldn't detect it. It is, after all, precisely what it was designed to detect.

*shai-hulud

Of a serious oss supply chain attack driven by the compromise of a key maintainer, just like XZ Utils.

It’s called Shai-Hulu.

Happened this month and is being taken seriously by the industry

Some details here, but plenty more on the web about it.

https://linuxsecurity.com/news/security-vulnerabilities/npm-supply-chain-attack

Just the kind of OSS supply chain risk Ranger.ai was created to defend against.

Yep - can’t recall Bassi’s exact quote, but it was along the lines of “we have a couple of years headstart” and “if you want to protect the OSS supply chain then we are the only platform for you”.

The only major thing I can potentially see holding up a steady contract stream is budget delays.

Hi Neil

Have a look at the last IMC presentation, at about 25.5 mins into when he talks about our 2 initial customers, the USAF and a large governmental and commercial and IT services and systems integrator that has billions in USG contracts to secure cluster operations, delivered through OSS, and millions in other contracts.

The point is this. The integrator solutions are built on or delivered through OSS. They need to make sure that its supply chain behind all those OSS solutions is as secure as they can make it - that’s where we come in.

Here’s Leidos as an example, one of the major US IT integrators and, given its size and reach, my best guess as the one Bassi refers to.

“ Second, we work across Leidos to mature and finalize any in-flight repeatable, high-value offerings as rapidly as possible from our innovation efforts, IRAD projects in our Cyber Accelerator, and solutions from our STRATEGIC PARTNERS”.

By organizing our solutions and practices into consistent, modular units, we can quickly deliver value to organizations of all sizes. Our commitment to packaging current and future solutions in a scalable, easy-to-integrate architecture is designed to ensure customers always have access to the latest defensive cyber capabilities.”

“ Cybersecurity, when done well, is a team sport. While we excel in engineering, we rely on our technology partners, emerging research from academia, and proven internal and external collaborators to apply innovative approaches and new technologies. This collective effort strengthens our ability to deliver resilient, secure, and high-value solutions with the scalability, availability, reliability, and network-worthiness required for joint success. As an orchestrator of innovation, we must provide the vision and catalyst to bring these elements together for our customer's benefit and our sustained future growth.”

https://www.leidos.com/insights/driving-cyber-defense-innovation-through-automation-speed-scale-and-security

I’d add that this next quarter May well be the fun zone. Assuming the federal govt avoids a prolonged shut down then new budget monies will be available from 1/10 for at least 2 customers bassi said have already given us “the nod”, and of course others.

It’s the large integrator Im most interested in. If I understand it correctly, they will be providing OSS software solutions for integration into multiple government agencies - Ranger.ai will be of particular interest to them because it adds a security layer to all of those integrations. Put another way, we contract with them, they include Ranger.ai in multiple OSS solution stacks they integrate, and we get paid a slice on all of them.

Don’t know if anyone else was watching yesterday, but the auctions were the most interesting I’ve seen here in a long while. At least two were extended to full time (20mins not 10) and there was plenty of intra-auction movements on lot sizes and price, particularly on the sell side, as participants jostled to match price. True, the lot sizes were small but everything seemed to be about price discovery and it’s notable that the final UT meant we closed above 0.6 for the first time in a while. It will be interesting to see if we can hold above that next week given it has been acting as resistance.

In the last IMC Bassi referenced a Harvard Report which discussed how widely OSS is used, how critical it is to global sovereign and enterprise infrastructure, and how much it would cost to rebuild it from scratch ($9tn)

So I thought I’d post the report for info - https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/24-038_51f8444f-502c-4139-8bf2-56eb4b65c58a.pdf

Ranger.ai is specifically designed to help protect this critical and hugely relied upon infrastructure.

For info

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/upfrontdiagnostics_were-excited-to-announce-that-upfront-diagnostics-activity-7376922218737426433-xB2a?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAEuI5eIBooawepY_Ubn_CKcFOzTXAaBN1HA