LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwired - Feb 6, 2017) - IP Group plc (LSE: IPO)
FOR RELEASE ON 06 February 2017
IP Group plc - US portfolio companies Exyn Technologies and Uniformity Labs complete £5.4m* ($6.8m) fundraisings
IP Group plc (LSE: IPO) ("IP Group" or "the Group"), the developer of intellectual property-based businesses, is pleased to note that its first two portfolio companies from US university partners, Exyn Technologies and Uniformity Labs, have raised a combined £5.4m* ($6.8 million) in new post seed financing rounds via private placement of ordinary shares.
Exyn Technologies develops fully autonomous aerial robot systems with multi-modal sensing capabilities to enable robust and reliable applications in the commercial market. Exyn is a spin-out from the University of Pennsylvania and was founded by Dr. Vijay Kumar, the Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering and former Director of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception (GRASP) Laboratory at Penn.
Uniformity Labs, a spin-out from Princeton University, is accelerating and expanding the adoption of industrial additive manufacturing (AM) by providing breakthrough materials, software and services. Uniformity Labs' proprietary materials and process technology have the potential to deliver improvements in AM printed part quality and reproducibility, print speed, and material diversity across all mainstream printing platforms.
Following completion of the financing rounds, IP Group's combined undiluted beneficial stake in Exyn Technologies and Uniformity Labs will be valued at £7.9 million* ($9.9 million). IP Group has committed a further £2.9 million* ($3.7 million) to Exyn Technologies and Uniformity Labs as part of these funding rounds which included both new and existing US and UK based investors. The Uniformity Labs transaction completed at the end of 2016 while the Exyn transaction closed in 2017.
Michael Burychka, IP Group Managing Director, North America, said: "These financing rounds for Exyn Technologies and Uniformity Labs provide further market validation of the maturation and quality of our growing portfolio of businesses in the US. We continue to see a strong pipeline of future opportunities at our US partner institutions and increasing support for our US portfolio from a growing base of investors."
Alan Aubrey, Chief Executive Officer of IP Group plc, said: "Exyn Technologies and Uniformity Labs are great examples of the unique and innovative technology, based on ground-breaking science, that IP Group seeks. We look forward to supporting them and to furthering our partnerships and portfolio in the US."