IP Group PLC Portfolio company First Light raises £22.7m (0306W)
14 Août 2015 - 8:00AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMIPO
RNS Number : 0306W
IP Group PLC
14 August 2015
FOR RELEASE ON 14 August 2015
IP Group plc - Portfolio company First Light Fusion completes
GBP22.7m funding round
University of Oxford spin-out seeks to commercialise new
implosion processes and establishes Scientific Advisory Board
IP Group plc (LSE: IPO) ("IP Group" or "the Group"), the
developer of intellectual property-based businesses, is pleased to
note that its portfolio company, First Light Fusion Limited ("First
Light" or "the Company"), has completed a fundraising of up to
GBP22.7 million.
First Light, a spin-out from the University of Oxford, has
discovered new implosion processes that can achieve the high
temperatures and compression necessary for fusion reactions and
other valuable applications. The Company's approach has the
potential to dramatically shorten the timescale and cost of
achieving practical and affordable fusion energy. This fundraising
will allow First Light to further develop its modelling tools and
experimental capability and will fund collaborations with leading
research groups in the field.
The Company has also announced today that it has established a
Scientific Advisory Board to provide technical input and governance
for its ongoing development programme. The Board is chaired by Arun
Majumdar, who is the Jay Precourt Professor at Stanford University,
and consists of eminent figures in energy innovation including
Nobel laureate Steven Chu, the former US Energy Secretary.
The financing round will be completed in two tranches subject to
the attainment of certain milestones. Following the GBP14.0 million
first tranche of the fundraising, IP Group has an undiluted
beneficial interest of 34.9% in First Light that is valued at
GBP13.9 million and this has resulted in an unrealised fair value
gain to the Group of GBP6.4 million. The Group has committed GBP5.8
million to the first tranche. Other investors in the financing
round include a fund managed by Invesco Asset Management Limited,
clients advised or managed by Sandaire Investment Office and the
University of Oxford.
Robert Trezona, IP Group's Head of Cleantech, said: "First Light
is making excellent progress in developing its technology towards
eventual commercial application. The participation of such
high-quality investors alongside IP Group in this fundraising is a
testament to the achievements of the First Light team so far. The
Company's ability to attract world-class talent to its advisory
board is an endorsement of its scientifically rigorous approach to
developing its technology."
Nick Hawker, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of First
Light, said: "The Company has made considerable progress in the
last eighteen months, which has allowed us to raise significant
capital from leading investors in the science commercialisation
space. We believe that we have a differentiated approach to
developing technology for fusion and these funds will accelerate
our vision of affordable, practical and safe energy supply. We are
already working with a number of leading university research
groups, and we will use the new capital to expand this programme.
Rigour remains a critical feature of our work and, guided by the
new Scientific Advisory Board, we will maintain the highest
scientific standards in the development of our technology."
For more information, please contact:
IP Group plc www.ipgroupplc.com
Alan Aubrey, Chief Executive
Officer +44 (0) 20 7444 0050
Greg Smith, Chief Financial
Officer +44 (0) 20 7444 0062/+44
Liz Vaughan-Adams, Communications (0) 7979 853802
FTI Consulting
James Melville-Ross/Simon
Conway/
Victoria Foster Mitchell +44 (0)20 3727 1000
Notes for editors
About IP Group
IP Group is a leading intellectual property commercialisation
company which focuses on evolving great ideas, mainly from its
partner universities, into world-changing businesses. The Group has
pioneered a unique approach to developing these ideas and the
resulting businesses by providing access to business building
expertise, capital, networks, recruitment and business support. IP
Group has a strong track record of success and its portfolio
comprises holdings in over 90 early-stage to mature businesses
across four main sectors -- Biotech, Cleantech, Healthcare and
Technology. The Company is listed on the Main Market of the London
Stock Exchange under the code IPO.
For more information, please visit our website at
www.ipgroupplc.com.
About First Light Fusion Limited
First Light Fusion Limited is a lean, focused and agile
corporation researching energy generation by inertial confinement
fusion. The company was spun out from the University of Oxford in
June 2011 and is based near Oxford. First Light continues to work
closely with the academic community in the UK and internationally.
The company is well-funded by both institutional investors and
private individuals.
Inertial confinement fusion for energy generation is a
well-established research field and is being pursued in many
laboratories worldwide, perhaps most notably in the US at the
National Ignition Facility. First Light is exploring a number of
alternative research directions that harness the same fundamental
physics, with the prime focus being power generation. First Light's
work to date has included theoretical analysis, detailed numerical
simulation and experimental validation. This has allowed
description of the accessible parameter space and led to a clear
vision of the pathway to fusion.
First Light has also considered the costs and engineering
practicalities of a reactor implementing its technology and can
articulate a number of advantages over other approaches.
Additionally, the energy-focused processes being pursued form the
foundations of a new technological platform where secondary
opportunities exist in a number of alternative applications, for
example material processing and chemical manufacture.
For more information, please visit:
www.firstlightfusion.com.
About the First Light Scientific Advisory Board
The Scientific Advisory Board has been established by First
Light to provide technical input and a scientific governance
structure for its ongoing development programme. The Board consists
of members who offer extensive expertise gained through academic
research and industry experience. The Board is chaired by Arun
Mujumdar, who is the Jay Precourt Professor at Stanford University
and was the founding director of the US Advanced Research Projects
Agency - Energy ("ARPA-E"). He is joined by Steven Chu, the former
US Energy Secretary and winner of the 1997 Physics Nobel Prize;
Richard Dennis, former Director of Research and Development for
Doosan Babock Energy where he was responsible for power station
boiler development and investments in new energy technologies;
Richard Garwin, a prominent US physicist and current IBM Fellow
Emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Centre in New York; and
Steven Rose, Head of Plasma Physics at AWE Aldermaston and former
Head of the Imperial College Plasma Physics Group.
ENDS
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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