Member Info for W13Ken

"...This helped boost the portfolio value by 58 per cent, highlighting not only strong investor demand and excellent market liquidity in technology companies, but also Draper’s ability to pick winners. Just three of the group’s 17 largest investments saw negative revaluations over the past year, and then only by a combined £3.6m, against a total fair value gain of £357.8m"

https://www.ft.com/content/86b37ff8-b1d0-41ef-adf7-64b251000b23

K3 Capital have been cautious with their forecasts but regularly beat and upgrade them due to great business during Covid and the successful acquisition of businesses randd and Quantuma. Revenue is rocketing and will improve once face-to-face meetings start and other complementary businesses are explored.

15th Dec: Revenue of c.£18 million
15th June: Revenue of c£46.0 million

4th March: Adjusted EBITDA* of no less than £12 million
14th April: Adjusted EBITDA* of no less than £13.25 million
15th June: Adjusted EBITDA* of not less than £14.25 million

This April Interim Trading update is not short but it shows you the professionalism of the CEO and CFO and how the business is doing in great detail. I bought again today and will continue to build my holding below 400p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s8l9A0MZXI

GROW is by far my biggest holding and I will be forever grateful that Steph mentioned the share on the Bellway board. In that spirit and without ramping, I suggest you might want to look at my second biggest holding, K3 Capital (K3c). They're a Bolton-based professional services specialist (offering M&A, tax advice, restructuring advice, forensic accounting etc) that just announced “exceptionally strong performance” in their full year update this week.

Like GROW they are on AIM at the moment but are expanding fast and would benefit from a move to the main market. Currently 370p - remember where you heard it first :-)

https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/2080557-k3-capital-beats-consensus-market-expectations-following-strong-year

Fyi CEO Martin Davis has said on 14th June that "Preparations to transfer our listing are well advanced and we expect to complete the move within the next couple of months."

If you're just talking GROW for now then I would take a position before they move to the main market in the next 2-3 weeks.

They are a little under the radar right now but there's been a change on that since Monday when strong FY results were released.

Hi ORuin, it makes more sense to start slowly, building up knowledge and research on companies that interest you and that have good financials and a positive future outlook.

There are lots of resources online to guide you but if you invest in individual shares especially then "Do your own research" You will be told this a lot but it's essential. It will help you retain confidence in a company when it hits a rocky patch and the temptation will be to sell and quit investing as a terrible idea.

Invest for the long term (3-5 years minimum), invest within the wrapper of a Stocks and Shares ISA (for tax benefits) and top that up each year with as much as you can reasonably afford. Then do not take money out of the ISA until you really need to, for a mortgage deposit, retirement etc.

Draper Esprit is not a bad place at all to start but you'll have to decide on your own risk/reward tolerance.

Finally for now, retain a healthy scepticism about bulletin boards comments :-) as they are rarely completely objective. Best of luck and remember if you are 2% up at the end of the year you'll be doing better than any savings account!

According to the Investor presentation of 14th June (slide 34) , SportPursuit investment £5.6m, valuation £18.5m, 3.3 Cash/NAV.

https://draper-esprit.s3.amazonaws.com/production/uploads/document/file/72/FY21_June_-_Annual_Results_Presentation_FINAL.pdf

Draper flying today! They have just announced that they are exiting form a holding in SportPursuit. I'm not sure that it was a good fit with other portfolio investments - quite low-tech: (This membership-based e-commerce business gives sports enthusiasts up to 70% off their favourite athletic and outdoor brands. The company sends regular offer-packed emails to over 2.5 million members - using its community to get the best deals.)

"The deal will result in SportPursuit shareholders including Draper Esprit, the listed technology company investor, and Scottish Equity Partners selling their stakes."

https://www.coastfm.co.uk/news/business/former-boots-chief-baker-adds-sportpursuit-to

"There's an exclusive group of companies in the stock market that stand out because they've got what billionaire investor Warren Buffett calls economic moats. Like medieval castles, their profits are fortified by impregnable business models... and there are signs that Draper Esprit (LON:GROW) might be one of them."

https://www.stockopedia.com/articles/why-draper-esprit-longrow-will-appeal-to-moat-investors-224699/

There's no question their governance is good due to their day jobs so they would benefit from moving out of AIM and into the main market when they can. Market cap just £260m at the moment - a bargain as they regularly top multiple regional leagues of finance companies used for M&A and other financial services.

Such an underrated company. Most people have never heard of them but they are low-risk yet but have consistently outperformed in the last year. Shares are up 68% in the last 6 months but are still 43% undervalued according to Simply Wall Street (Fair value 643p). I've just topped up again and they're now my second largest holding after Draper Esprit (GROW).

"Bolton-based professional services specialist K3 Capital Group, announced in a full year trading update today that it delivered an “exceptionally strong performance.”

https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/2080557-k3-capital-beats-consensus-market-expectations-following-strong-year/

Good 5-minute update from CEO Martin Davis and CFO Ben Wilkinson. More unicorns have been created in the last quarter than in the previous 2-3 years.

https://draperesprit.com/news/draper-esprit-annual-results-fy21

Love this...

"Currently on the junior Aim market, Draper’s chief executive Martin Davis told the Evening Standard the company could be in the FTSE-100 in two years if it keeps growing at its current pace."

The smallest FTSE100 is about £4.8bn so Davis is predicting 300% growth in 2 years!

Also, behind a paywall in The Times but early comments show "An Aim-listed venture capital firm is raising £111 million from investors and is planning to move to the main market of the stock exchange as it seeks to capitalise on a “golden era” of European technology investing."

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/venture-capitalist-draper-esprit-cazoo-trustpilot-transferwise-b940426.html
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/venture-capital-group-draper-esprit-raises-111m-as-it-plans-move-to-ftse250-kp7lwnbbp

Updates on 8 games this week...

"Team17 has showcased a series of announcements for upcoming and recently released games in a reel of news that included confirmation of new, free content for Overcooked! All You Can Eat to celebrate the fifth anniversary of multi-award-winning franchise, a 2021 new-generation console launch for 50 vs. 50 strategic shooter Hell Let Loose and the end of its Steam Early Access period, and an Early Access launch for groovy, 1970s-set resource strategy game, Honey, I Joined A Cult."

https://invisioncommunity.co.uk/team17-presents-game-announcements-galore/

If all looks pretty incredible to me. Cash realisations up 416%, NAV up 34%, Net Assets up 56%, planned move to FTSE 250. We have bad news being delivered tonight but the Draper news deserves to get an excellent response.

Draper Esprit (LSE: GROW, Euronext Growth: GRW), a leading venture capital firm investing in and developing high growth digital technology businesses, today announces its final results for the year ended 31 March 2021.

Financial highlights

· Gross Portfolio Value of £984m (31 March 2020: £703m).

· £206m of cash realisations (year to 31 March 2020: £40m).

· 51% Gross Portfolio Value fair value growth (year to 31 March 2020: 10%).

· £128m invested, and a further £34m from EIS/VCT funds (year to 31 March 2020: £90m and £38m from EIS/VCT funds).

· NAV per share of 743p (31 March 2020: 555p).

· Net assets of £1,033m (31 March 2020: £660m).

· £161m available Plc cash, as well as £43m available from EIS/VCT funds. (31 March 2020: £34m, with c.£50m from EIS/VCT funds).

· £107m net funds raised during the financial year.

· £267m profit after tax (year to 31 March 2020: £40m).

Despite disappointment at the drop back to the 730s iin May it was a chance to top up at near NAV.

The climb since then has put us within 7% of the all-time high and tomorrow's FY update should see GROW head into the 900's for the first time.

Comfortably my largest holdimg and I'm very optimistic for the future.

Yes Steph, very optimistic about Monday and the rest of the momth. Hoping for 900p+.

I 've looked at previous Edison reviews and can't see a Ledger contribution to NAV listed as above the original £17.7m, perhaps becausd crypto is so volatile. But that investment must have grown in 3 years and should continue heading up.

https://draperesprit.com/news/securing-cryptoassets-and-blockchain-applications-our-investment-in-ledger

Seems Draper is taking part in the Series C funding too.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210609005985/en/Ledger-completes-a-380-million-Series-C-fundraising-valuing-the-company-at-more-than-1.5-billion-to-strengthen-its-position-as-the-leading-secure-gateway-to-digital-assets

Draper invested £18m in Ledger 3 1/2 years ago.

https://www.sharecast.com/news/aim-bulletin/draper-esprit-puts-18m-into-blockchain-firm-ledger--3083135.html

Draper crypto holding Ledger aiming high with a Series C fumding.

“It’s a $1.5 billion valuation that we’ve reached through this round, but the reality is that our real target is a $100 billion valuation, and the reason why we think it’s going to be a $100 billion valuation is because the market’s going to be really huge,” Pascal Gauthier, chairman and CEO of Ledger, told The Block. “Comparing bitcoin to gold is fun, but this market is going to be the whole value in the world going onto blockchain at one point, the whole value in the world being tokenized… Ledger is ideally and uniquely positioned to be that secure gateway to Web3.”

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/107775/ledger-380-million-series-c-raise-dan-tapiero-10t-fund