GHS.L Regulatory News (GHS)

8 May 2007 07:02

NewMedia SPARK PLC08 May 2007 For Immediate Release 08 May 2007 NEWMEDIA SPARK PLC ("SPARK" or the "Company") Investment Update NewMedia SPARK plc (AIM: NMS), the venture capital investor, today provides aninvestment update ahead of the announcement of the Company's Preliminary Resultsin June 2007. Highlights : New Investments • Additional investments since February 2007 totalling £5.9m including; • £2.1m in Unanimis Consulting Limited (Unanimis), founded in 2001, London based Unanimis is the UK's leading digital advertising business with major clients including eBay, the London Stock Exchange and the AA. • £1.7m into DEM Solutions (DEM), formed in 2003 but based on IP developed over more than a decade, now a leading provider of computer aided engineering software for the modelling of particles in industrial processes. Revenues have tripled over the last year from customers such as NASA, John Deere and Astec Industries. • £400,000 in Notonthehighstreet.com, founded in 2006, a UK-based shopping website that supports and markets the products of over 500 of Britain's most creative small businesses. • SPARK has also invested £1.75m, of a £5m round, in a start up venture backing some of Europe's best known internet entrepreneurs. For commercially sensitive reasons the details will not be released until summer, at the earliest. SPARK lead the transaction which includes several high profile and very successful entrepreneurs. Portfolio Highlights •Aspex - a UK-based fabless semiconductor company, in which SPARK invested in 2000, developing leading-edge software programmable Extreme Processors. Aspex announced that DALSA, an international leader in high performance digital imaging and semiconductors with more than 1,000 employees world-wide, has selected Aspex's Linedancer (TM) processors to power its "4K Lab-in-a-box" image processing workstation. This is expected to be Aspex's biggest contract win to-date. •Skinkers - the market leader in push technology, has unveiled LiveStation, a peer-to-peer Internet broadcast technology co-developed by Skinkers and Microsoft Research. LiveStation integrates Microsoft Silverlight with Skinker's peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies to set a new standard for cost effective delivery of high-quality live video content. Exits •Sale of Touch Clarity Limited, ("Touch Clarity"), a leading on-demand provider of automated behavioral targeting, to Omniture Inc. NASDAQ:OMTR), the fastest organically growing software company and a provider of online business optimisation. SPARK's book value for its stake in Touch Clarity at 30 September 2006 was £0.3m and the expected proceeds from the sale amount to up to £1.9m. Andrew Carruthers, Chief Executive of SPARK, commented: "We are pleased with the overall performance of our existing portfolio,especially our larger investments such as Aspex, IMI Mobile, Skinkers andKobalt. We are also delighted by the quality of new investment opportunitieswhich we are seeing, and are pleased to be working with some of Europe's bestentrepreneurs in the digital media sector, who, in some cases, are returning tous to finance their latest ventures after previously successfully exits. We willcontinue to seek out new investment propositions to balance the SPARK portfolioin terms of stages of investment and industry sectors, while directly helpingour existing investee companies with ideas and initiatives to enhance theirvalue. We look forward to updating shareholders in full on our progress and thatof our investee companies in June." Unanimis Founded in 2001, London based Unanimis, is the UK's leading digital advertisingbusiness. Unanimis offers advertisers the opportunity to maximise their returnfrom internet advertising and offers web publishers a completely outsourcedsolution to delivering significant advertising revenue. The Unanimis client listincludes eBay, The London Stock Exchange, Gumtree and The AA. Unanimis has been one of the UK's fastest growing media and technology companiesand with the UK online advertising market growing 40% over the last year andexpected to continue to grow strongly, Unanimis is ideally positioned to exploitthis growth. Further information is available at: www.unanimis.co.uk DEM Founded in 2003 by Dr John Favier, DEM has quickly become the leading providerof 'discrete element' modelling tools for industrial processes. Used in a widerange of industries such as pharmaceutical, chemical, mining, oil & gas, energy,agriculture and food processing, in which over 70% of processes involveparticles (rocks, sand, coal, pharmaceuticals etc), DEM Solutions' software("EDEM") reduces the need for expensive prototyping, and helps improve processefficiency and save energy. The first version of DEM's software was launched in October 2005, since whichtime the company has sold to many of the worlds leading companies across a broadrange of industrial sectors including space, (NASA), manufacturing & agriculture(John Deere) and asphalt/minerals handling (Astec Industries).. In addition, DEMsoftware has been adopted by world leading industrial research groups atuniversities such as the University of Cape Town and University of Queensland.. The investment round led by SPARK includes Sigma Capital Group plc who were thelead investor at the previous round and Scottish Enterprise acting through theScottish Co-investment Fund. Sales have tripled over the last year, and theinvestment proceeds will be used to further expand the sales and marketingresource and develop new software releases. Further information is available at: www.dem-solutions.com Notonthehighstreet.com Notonthehighstreet.com, launched in April 2006, sells high quality originalproducts from more than 500 of Britain's best small businesses. The business wasfounded by ex-Publicis and Conde Naste employees. Such has been its rapidsuccess that, in less than a year, it now sells over 10,000 carefully selected,quality products in its unique online market place. The brand targets ABC1consumers in the UK, giving an original product offering and service that is notavailable on the high street. The online shopping market is growing at a rate ofmore than 30% annually and with its unique product offering Notonthehighstreetis well positioned to capitalise on this growth. Further information is available at www.notonthehighstreet.com - ENDS - ContactNewMedia SPARK plcAndrew Carruthers, Chief Executive Officer 020 7851 7736 Jay Patel, Executive Director 020 7851 7737 Buchanan CommunicationsIsabel Podda 020 7466 5000 About SPARK NewMedia SPARK is a quoted venture capital organisation based in central Londonfocused on early stage investments in the technology, media and telecomssectors. SPARK's portfolio has a particular emphasis on digital media, softwareapplications, technology and communications. As an investor, SPARK expects toadd significant value to its investments through active support and strategicdirection. SPARK has been listed on London's Alternative Investment Market since1999. Recent successful exits for SPARK include the sale of Mergermarket to Pearsonfor £120m, the sale of Footfall to Experian for £36m and the sale of Elata toQualcomm for $57m. Further information is available at www.newmediaspark.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange