Molten Ventures Plc ($GROW)

[Audio Gap] to over GBP 70 billion. There's now 400 unicorns in the market. And when we talk about secondaries, that's quite an important point because illiquid parts in the market clearly need liquidity and as companies stay private for longer. That's very much a trend that we feel we can benefit from and support. Globally, we're in the midst of this generational shift in technology in Europe has been, for many years, a key generator of IP. And so the opportunity for us to invest in these businesses is very profound. The main theme that we're going to be talking to is the structural shifts that are occurring. And I think that's a very important point because these aren't cyclical, they're structural, and it's led to the recognition of the need for European sovereignty and resilience in it's defense, but also in the technology assets [indiscernible] so the underpinning assets, be that cloud computing, or be that payment infrastructure, there's a lot more focus on this and a lot more capital coming into this ecosystem. There still exists a structural gap to capital in the market, and this is exactly in the space where Molten is investing at the growth stage. We're thinking sort of 20 million-plus tickets. So our strategy of growing the plc balance sheet, but also growing our third-party assets is really to ensure we can consistently address this part of the market. So how do we take advantage of those opportunities? We've built a platform at Molten. We have 3 strategies for investing. The direct strategy has always been the core of what we do. That's Series A investing, but most of our capital going to Series B companies and the opportunities where the go-to-market strategies have been proven, again, that scaling gap won't be for tickets of investment are required. We believe that venture is a distinct asset class. So even if it's a pure portfolio approach for investment managers, we think that owning some access to private companies that are behaving in a differentiated way to other parts of the listed portfolio is an important factor. And there's clearly some resilience, which is applied to that. And venture has outperformed other asset classes over the long term. As we know [ we've ventured ], there's a big dispersion amongst managers. So putting your capital with a manager that has a 20-year track record through these cycles, I think is a compelling conversation. We also have our secondary funds, which, as I mentioned, we have a deep experience here of investing in this part of the market. We have invested in funds, entire funds and bought out those positions. We've done that with [ CCAM ] in their Fund [ I and II ] back in 2017, 2018. Same with early bird in 2019 on their Fund [ IV ] and the Digital lease fund. And those deals were really to give us access to key assets that we thought were attractive in the [indiscernible] portfolio. The main one was transfer-wise. And then in the Earlybird portfolio, there were Peak Games, and [ Smava ] and UiPath. So it gives you a sense of how we look at the portfolios and then we fundamentally value these underlying businesses, and that's how we price these deals. But it's providing liquidity to an illiquid part in the market that is the key factor here. And to do that well, you need the ability to [indiscernible] assets, but you also need the network to be able to access the deal flow, and that's something that we've had consistently. We've also done the same with individual assets. Trustpilot been a great example where in 2016, we own 4% of Trustpilot, and we've built that up to 14% by the time with their own IPO, and then we subsequently sold down as it was a public vehicle. So our ability to get access to later stage, very strong businesses that have a financial profile, which should deliver returns in a shorter period of time is something that's compelling. We think now [ we've ] 400-plus unicorns in the market is a very deep opportunity. So that's why we've added more strength to the team with the secondaries team we've brought in this year. And that team is going to raise third-party capital for that strategy as well. And we'll see more of that team in the market going after these opportunities. So that should generate for us more deal flow. There's a network effect that occurs between these 3 strategies of funder funds investing where we invest at the earlier stages as an LP into funds, and we get visibility of the underlying companies and we have proprietary deal flow and access, but also the technical expertise to call upon those GPs, feeding to our direct strategy, and that augments the secondary strategy. So I think it's important that when we use the word platform, we think about these 3 component parts being greater than the sum of their individual parts. So just touching on those strategic priorities that we outlined slightly more than a year ago. What I'm proud to say is that as we go through the presentation today, you'll see the significant demonstration of progress that we've had, the execution we've had against these priorities. So driving the NAV growth clearly has been an important factor. We've seen that in the results today, but also in the announcement this morning with ICEYE. Scaling our third-party capital. We've been very pleased to announce a cornerstone investor for our growth fund, but also progress with the Molten East fund. And as I mentioned, [indiscernible] will be expanding that capital base with their strategy and then redeploying our capital and to NAV accretive uses of capital. I think that's critical for us is that we really think around all those different opportunities that we're creating across the strategies as well as having buybacks for our own shares, which ultimately allow us to narrow the share price discount to NAV. So with that, I'm going to pass it over to the main event and then leave you to Andy to go through the financial highlights.

The main events, not often I get called that, which is good. Okay. So welcome, everyone. I'm Andrew Zimmermann. I'm the CFO of Molten. This is my second of these annual results now. And this has been anything more interesting and active year than the first one. So any further ado on to that. Too quick. So three main themes that I really wanted to cover. The first -- sorry. The first one is obviously accelerating portfolio fair value growth. So that's 13% for the year, starting to pick up a bit after '23 and '24, so '25 to a degree where it started to recover accelerating much more back towards venture type returns, which is what we want to see in the portfolio, as well as a long track record. We start -- need to start achieving that in discrete years. And then obviously, the ICEYE news today is a really good start for FY '27. We've also maintained strong realizations, which Ben alluded to there in terms of the cycle, and being able to recycle it to NAV accretive opportunities. So that has been really important to keep that going. And again, we've also announced this year, there have been some partial realizations in Revolut and then also ICEYE today as part of that deal. So again, we're on track already for this year, which is important. And then finally, at that point about narrowing the share price discount to NAV. Obviously, a year ago, I think our share price was GBP 2.57. So it's recovered a lot from there. Obviously, it still has a long way to go. We've pushed the bar a little bit higher by pushing NAV per share a bit higher, but I think that's a great thing. So obviously, we'd like to see more share price growth continue and start to compress that NAV again. So I'll call out individual points as we go along. So 13% gross portfolio net fair value movement, obviously well up on the 5% previously. Really starting to see that traction start to build mainly driven by the core, and I'll come on to that in a bit more detail. GBP 60 million of FX benefit, which obviously helped there as well this year, comprised of nearly GBP 300 million of write-ups and about GBP 120 million of valuation reduction. So there's always that net movement, but obviously, really positive that's substantially up. So that's meant our gross portfolio value and net asset value is well up again on the 31st of March last year. GBP 1.5 billion, just over GBP 1.3 billion. The cash proceeds from realization, again, building on the previous year where we had GBP 135 million. We had exits -- full exits in list and free trade, and then partial realizations in Revolut and ICEYE and then some other miscellaneous smaller ones. So that's obviously driven that forward. Important point to note is that they're all at or above the holding value. So that, again, just proves out that our valuations are robust. We invested GBP 89 million of that cash in the year. So we welcomed [indiscernible] General Index, Polymodels hub and Maya to the portfolio. We also did follow-on into some of our extreme portfolio companies like [indiscernible] and Manna, and they're up in the core now. So again, we'll come on to that. But [indiscernible], for example, we led the Series B in that round, which is exactly the space that we want to be playing in a direct investment. And we also did a secondary [indiscernible] Invest continuation fund. So again, mentioning that earlier in terms of the secondary strategy, and investing in the things that we think are the most NAV-accretive opportunities. To that end, we also did [ GBP 38 million ] of share buybacks in the year, and our share price was a little bit lower and the discount was wider. We still have about GBP 4 million of the most recent announced buyback tranche left to run. But at the moment, the discount has been compressed and the price has been higher. So we see other investment opportunities as being more NAV accretive ones and we've been deploying into that. And then OpEx, we reduced that year-on-year. So our general and admin expenses were just over GBP 24 million, which is [ down ] 14% on the previous year. That cost efficiency is important. We would want that to not be a drag on the return, but we're still maintaining investment in quality. So the secondaries team are a good example. We've been very efficient on our platform. But making sure we've got the right people in place to help us scale and build that sort of third-party AUM business. And you can see at 0.5%, we're well below our 1% target. And then finally, we ended the year, GBP 52 million of cash. Obviously, post year-end proceeds of revenue are not included in that. So there's another GBP 70 million or so of exit proceeds that have been added to that since. In addition, there's about GBP 24 million of EIS and VCT cash that's not been deployed, and an undrawn RCF of GBP 60 million. So we're in a really good solid cash position, able to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. And that means we ended the financial year with a NAV per share of [ 760 p ], which is at 13% up. Obviously, ICEYE news today as -- nearly [ 120 p ] per share to that, not this financial year, obviously, but a -- substantial. So this is just starting to show that our fair value growth is starting to pick up. So we target 20% returns through the cycle, and our record is 26% return. But obviously, we can't keep standing up year after year and not be hitting the 20% and just talk about the long track record. So that is really good to see that starting to spike up. Again, ICEYE news today on its own is probably about 15% in terms of -- obviously, in FY '27. So with the rest of portfolio traction, that should start to be accelerating up, which is obviously really important. Obviously, driven by macro tailwinds as well as the performance of the company. So some of the sectors like space, AI, quantum, are really benefiting from that sort of theme of [indiscernible] sovereignty and resilience. So that as those comps are helping to drive the valuations, as well as the commercial traction of those companies. So it's the core that's really driven the fair value returns. And you can see that nearly GBP 1 billion of the GBP 1.5 billion of gross portfolio values of those core companies. So about 16 companies, 65 -- nearly 65% of the portfolio evaluating. They are obviously the more mature companies, the ones that are really the winners, if you like, the Revolut's ledger, ICEYE, and they're really driving returns and accelerating. That 26% is much more what you would expect again for venture returns. So that's really pleasing to see that come back by the bigger companies in the portfolio, obviously, driving that. And a multiple on invested capital of 3.3x. And again, if you add in the ICEYE news from today, that's more like a 4x. So again, really positive. And then the remaining part of the portfolio are what we call the emerging, which are the ones that are growing up and to be the next version of the core and smaller investments and legacy ones. And then the fund investments, which is part of the pipeline, which Ben alluded to. So the performance in that was a little bit more mix. The emerging portfolio are obviously the smaller holdings, quite often, they're not as old. The venture model is high risk, high return. So there will be some valuation write-downs as we go along. There was about GBP 50 million of that written down in that emerging portfolio, which is over 80 companies, but really driven by 3 companies with specific events, [indiscernible] AI and [indiscernible], which is German sort of working capital logistics business, which, again, is just not quite taken off. The German government have pivoted their spending from construction to defense. So that one wasn't quite in the right place. But overall, the traction is and there's some positive companies there, which I'll come on to. The Fund of Funds, which is our early stage, our seed stage pipeline, really positive return in the year, which is pleasing to see because those are the ones that are [indiscernible] drive some of the graduation, if you like, into our emerging portfolio. We use those relationships with the fund to fund managers to build and look for the next opportunities for the [indiscernible] and Bs. And then the rest of the portfolio was positive as well. So a good overall return. Slightly negative overall, but obviously well outweighed by the core. And just a pleasing point to note is that Manna and [ Moto ] Energy graduated, if that's right term, from the emerging into the core in the year. So that's really positive. [ Moto ] Energy, we led the Series B. We've got a really strong conviction in that company. Manna, we've backed for a long time, as you've probably heard me gone about it many times. So that's really pleasing to see them start to hit their inflection points and grow and us put capital into them that enables them to elevate into the core. Realizations. Again, now that's more than GBP 250 million since March 2024. If you add on the Revolut one, that's another [indiscernible] or so and then an ICEYE secondary, which will happen later in the year, which we've talked about. Again, our average return over the cycle, [ 15% ], well above our target of 10%. But same point is the fair value growth, you want to be achieving that target in the discrete years now. So really pleasing to see where we're at for '25 and '26, and then a really good start already in '27. So we're confident with the progress for that. And that obviously really drives our evergreen model in terms of generating cash back to the balance sheet to invest in NAV accretive opportunities for shareholders. And then finally, the [ Fund ]. Still I think this is the best way to present this, but the scale on the right is obviously slightly different to the left because the companies on the left are particularly large in terms of the share of the core. Revolut, obviously, great commercial traction. Customer keeps growing. Customers are over [ 70 million ]. Revenue is growing still really fast, it's profitable. So that one has been valued off commercial marks, but also supported by a [ 75 billion ] secondary. So happy with that. Again, lots of good news flow about that one. If you read in the press, it sounds like they're maybe building towards another secondary. Ledger, which is the crypto hardware wallet software business, really good tailwinds in that sector. So their comps were helped a lot by that. Ledger itself has been performing really well. Revenue growing well. probably a little bit quieter with more in the Middle East now people not doing as much Bitcoin trading as they were, but still on a really growth trajectory. ICEYE, I don't really need to say too much about that is obviously exceptional commercial traction, really good, very happy with that one. That green 1 will now obviously accelerate massively. [indiscernible] because that's voice telephony customer relationship software the kind of thing that you think might be eaten up by AI, but actually, they've been buying AI companies and building it into their product, really sort of embedding themselves with customers. And they specialize in sort of smaller, medium businesses. So more than 26,000 clients, growing 25% a year revenue-wise. So actually a good example of how AI can be an opportunity for these companies. So that one is really pleased with. Coach hub was our only sort of write-down really in the core portfolio. That's obviously enterprise software [indiscernible] maybe isn't the top priority for some businesses when they come to the crunch. So their growth had really slowed down a bit. They've done a bit of a reorg in a restructure and they're building back to growth. So we'd hopefully see that one start to climb back up. ISR Aerospace. There was an announcement today about the new round investment and we [indiscernible] one of the participants. Again, space really hot topic. So they are benefiting from good comps in that sector as well, as well as great technical progress. They actually have their next launch scheduled for next week. I think they have their launch window. So keep an eye on that. That's a huge technical milestone for them. And then finally, I would just call out [indiscernible], I think is -- which is our quantum matter correction, software one. Again, describes how we play across the sector. We're in that middle layer rather than the actual quantum computers, the [indiscernible] correction software that plays across all of them. it's making really good technical progress and again, really benefiting from benchmarks and public comp multiples and lots of M&A in that base. So pleasing overall, you can see a lot of green in the chart, which is what we want. The yellow at the end is [indiscernible] and Manna, which is our investment into them. So again, really pleasing to see them come up into the core. So I think overall, really just a really strong year for FY '26. Good portfolio growth, NAV per share growth. Disciplined realizations, again. Some progress in narrowing the discount, which obviously was still going to work on [indiscernible] to this higher NAV now. And then the focus on the current year, which Ben is going to come on to in a lot more details about building this third-party platform and really continuing to execute on all the things that we said we would do.

Thank you, Andy. I'm going to go through a bit on the portfolio. And one of the points I want to reiterate is how we approach our investment thesis. As people know we invest across 4 broad sectors of tech, consumer enterprise, hardware detect and digital health. But they also cover these broad subsectors. And so we have domain expertise within the group for each of these sectors. Fintech, cyber, quantum, energy transition, space, crypto and blockchain, and HealthTech. And these are all of the structural drivers of growth that are globally disrupting markets. And we feel that our investors should get exposure to these. And it's almost impossible for them to get exposure through the public markets, certainly to the same degree. And it's very pleasing today when we have news of a company like an ICEYE where we've been investing since 2018, and people could start to see that growth coming through as those structural shifts emerge as key drivers for growth in those sectors. As of the portfolio, we believe, is very important. When we're investing in these companies, it's for the long term. So the average hold of our investments is going to be 8 to 10 years, let's say, and therefore, balancing your investments across those subsectors is going to be an important feature. And I think that it allows us to be more consistent about how we can realize assets more consistent about where those returns are going to come from effectively providing a portfolio of more shots on goal. So that kind of structural growth themes are reshaping our economies is really where we're trying to invest as a venture investor investing for the upside. The other factor that's relevant to that is, of course, AI. We're seeing a huge amount of disruption in the public markets from AI, taking market share from SaaS businesses, or the perceived threat certainly. And we've done an analysis of our own portfolio to see where that might be disrupted. And the work that we've done identifies actually, a majority of our portfolio will have opportunities from AI. We think that the public markets have clearly at a moment where the pendulum swings too far one way and everything gets tied with the same brush. But when you actually look at these underlying companies, where they have enterprise SaaS models, quite a few of those businesses will still have resilience in the events where they have critical client relationships, critical infrastructure for those enterprises that they're servicing, but also where they are bringing proprietary data sets. And so we provided that lens to our own portfolio. And once we've had that investment across those subsectors, and particularly where we like to invest in the enabling layers of technology, you can see that the majority of our portfolio is a net beneficiary. So that's 75% we anticipate. This is where AI compounds an existing data, or distribution or workflow advantage. We have 15% of the portfolio that we have categorized as manageable headwinds. This is where there's opportunities and threats. And the outlined [indiscernible] is a good example of that. And if the companies react well, then we believe that that can embed their existing customer relationships. And then the final we see as neutral is the 8%. Why did the winners keep winning? What is it that compounds in this area? So for us, those infrastructure layers, for example, a thought machine, core banking system, or Form 3, which is payment systems, or even something like a [ river lane ], which is software across all of the quantum layers. These aren't going to be disrupted by AI. They can add AI into the development. And so the kind of 0 to 1 is what we see as being accelerated with AI. But the 1 to 10 is those governance relationships, those customer relationships. And I think the ownership of that customer and relationship, all that critical infrastructure is what is going to be a point of differentiation, both in private markets, but also in public markets. And we see that across our portfolio. So I actually believe that our portfolio is well positioned to benefit from this. I think that strategy of investing across subsectors and having infrastructure layers and enabling less technology is proving to be very critical at this point in time, and that favors our portfolio that we've built. So just touching on some of the drivers of that core growth that Andy spoke to over GBP 1 billion in value in the [indiscernible] or just under GBP 1 billion of value, sorry, in the [ call ], but 2/3 of the portfolio value occurring there. These companies are more mature, and therefore, we're seeing the growth slowing to some extent, but that growth of forecast 30% is still well above what you would see in public markets. This is underpinned by strong gross margin [ over 70% ], and 7 of the 17 companies in the core are profitable. So it's very pleasing to see that resilience in that group and the continued growth and that is driving those gross portfolio value and NAV returns. Andy has touched on the emerging in some details. I won't spend too much time, but we've given a bit more clarity on the GBP 200 million of direct investments, how they break down in terms of their revenue maturity and also seeing the consistency of how we invest across each of these subsector themes. It's a longer tail of companies but over GBP 200 million of value, and then another GBP 150 million million of value in the fund of funds. So it gives people clarity on what's below the core. And much of these company supports that occurs here is where the team will spend a lot of their time. These are the earlier-stage businesses where the active management will make a significant difference. And so we're working with those companies to try and grow them, but also working with them if they're not going to be companies that move into the core to recycle capital and ensure that all investors and founders come out with a good outcome. So I think we can all agree that space is having a bit of a moment in the technology arena. And if you think about what's driving that, our investment thesis with ICEYE was based on the need for commercial constellations of satellites that can improve the intelligence that comes from optical imaging and synthetic aperture radar imaging in this case. The key benefit of their technology is that they can take images of the earth through cloud cover and at night. And now ICEYE is expanding that sensor suite to include things like optical and also the ground data stations that interpret the data. And what they've proved is that they're able to be the provider of choice to governments. And that's been the key driver of what's changing their profile of revenue growth. So in the '24 period, we had around GBP 130 million of revenue, that expanded to over GBP 250 million last year. This year, '26 forecast over [ 500 ] and expanding to over GBP 1 billion next year. So those are the financial profiles that's driving the uplift in their valuations as well as, of course, the supporting multiples from other space tech businesses. Their announcement today a financing round of a EUR 10 billion valuation has obviously uplifted our own NAV per share. It's not very often in the public markets you put out results that are already stale, but there we go. It's a good news story. So an NAV of [ GBP 7.60 ] has risen to [ GBP 8.77 ] implied at the valuation of that round. So we'll obviously work through our normal processes in September, but very much a strong increase for us. But ICEYE is not the only business that we've invested in. [ ISAR Aerospace ] is the German rocket launch business. That point on European sovereignty, NATO sovereignty really feeds through to these companies. So [ ISR ] will be the company we believe that can get to orbital launch and give the ability for NATO countries to launch their own satellites. There's clearly a bottleneck. We're seeing that in the SpaceX valuations. SpaceX is now booked up for launch for about 3 years, and there's a fairly active secondary market for those slots as well. So we can get [ ISR ] to have success with their subsequent launches and being able to prove repeatable access to orbit, then they will clearly have a strong valuation tailwind that goes with them. And then the other company that we've also been investing for many years is a British business, [ Sat View ]. Again, it's a satellite business, low earth orbit satellites. But their technology is distinct because it's thermal imaging. And if you're a nation state, or a defense organization, or even a commercial organization, having the images of the earth and then being able to see what's happening with the thermal images, you almost need to be able to align those 2 component parts. So we think that [indiscernible] system will start to consolidate into different sensors that allow for data to be acted on in real time. So we're very excited about this area. It's already 9% as of the year-end of our portfolio. And it's important for us to be able to demonstrate that all of those subsector themes that we've been investing in and giving our shareholders a great look through to exciting trends. One of the other trends that we've been investing in for quite some time is fintech, is maybe not getting spoken about quite as much as it was, but still very much a powerful driver of growth in our portfolio. The largest asset being Revolut, of course. They've come out with their own news over the weekend, or at least Bloomberg have come out some news referencing them over the weekend rather than the company. Largest component of this 25% is [indiscernible] with GBP 175 million of fair value, and then we sold down at [ GBP 63 million ] post the period end. But still remains one of our largest assets and continues to grow well. In the retail consumer side, we invested in a few assets. We didn't think this was a winner-takes-all market. It's such a deep market opportunity. So we did invest in [ N26 ]. So open through the forward transaction, we have exposure to and also not just thinking about the neo bank exposure, but how we can have financial inclusion through states like [ Crowd Cube ] that we've been an investor for many years, and on the Board of and also smarter in Germany, which is a consumer financing company. We then had a look at how would the incumbent banks need to react. The key differentiation of competition here was the [ Neo Banks ] had a much cheaper technology stack, which allowed them to engage customers with a better user experience, but also a lower cost per customer. And so we invested in [indiscernible] machine, which is a core banking system servicing Tier 1 banks, and we also invested in Form 3, which is a payment architecture. This is a great example of those payment and core banking infrastructure layers where we like to invest in those tech-enabling themes. Fintech OS is another example. Low code, no-code banking for other financial institutions, nonbank financial institutions that want to spin up their own financial products. So there's a lot of the architecture that allows some of these consumer-facing products to be driven. So finally, I'm going to touch on the outlook for the coming year. It's been quite a fast start to the year. I don't think we can underestimate that European sovereignty tailwind in the portfolio. As I mentioned, I think AI is a tailwind in the portfolio. There was clearly a period where everybody wanted exposure to pure enterprise SaaS themes. I think now these infrastructure seems, this investment across subthematics, which are being supported by this move for government to spend more on defense and resilience is really supporting what we already have exposure to. Post the period end, we've mentioned it already, the realization in [indiscernible] that drives more capital that allows us to make new investments. Some people have already mentioned that they've seen ICEYE aerospace announcing a new funding round today that we've participated in. This is exactly where we want to be supporting those core companies as they inflect their growth, and put meaningful investment tickets to work with this capital. We have a cornerstone investor for our Series B fund. We think it's very important to grow that third-party capital. So having that cornerstone in place is something that we'll announce more detail on in the coming weeks. But clearly, getting that third-party capital strategy moving, I think, differentiates us as a business, one for our ability to consistently deliver on high-quality companies because we have the debt for capital to do that. Also to drive fees back into the PLC vehicle, which offsets our cost base, but also I think it endorses us as an investment team having that read across with more capital coming in. ICEYE funding round this morning, clearly a fantastic uplift in the valuation. This is borne out of their execution as a business. So it's really product to them as a company, how they've executed, but also how they've been led by [indiscernible] and had that leadership, which has driven their ambition. And I think they very much now the #1 player in that ecosystem globally. And can expand that even further with those defense budgets increasing. And that now accretive use of capital point, this is our guiding staff or how we think about realizations, how we think about reinvestment, how we think about share buybacks. We're very much trying to drive that NAV. So announcing today that we've had a further uplift of 15% on the NAV is clearly something we're very happy about. As I mentioned, tailwinds. The capital that will come into this ecosystem will be driven by governments, but it will also be driven by pension funds. And we haven't touched on it too much today, but the NAV -- sorry, the [ Mansion House Accord ] pensions bill that came through Parliament a few weeks ago and the general kind of momentum that's been there has very slow to come, but there is momentum. And we feel that as an entity that has a public market listing. We have the governance. We have a level of relative scale, and we've proven that we can manage co-investment pools of capital. We think that our growth fund is very attractive for pension capital and giving the exposure into pan-European investments. So we're hopeful that we can build out our AUM and our asset base even further. So I think with that, we will move to questions from the floor. Thank you, everybody, for attending and for listening and for following us. It's clearly a great moment of pride for us to be able to come and speak to you with great delivery and execution.

Thank you very much, Ben. Andrew will start with questions in the room and then switch to those online for those joining us virtually, please submit your questions to the platform.

Will Larwood from Berenberg. A couple from me. Obviously, benefiting from the space exposure this morning. Just how are you thinking about that sector going forward, in particular, sort of thinking about valuations with more capital sort of in that sector? And then second part of that. Obviously, you mentioned the 3 areas that you're exposed at the moment. Are there any other areas that you're thinking within the space theme that you're looking at? And second question, just in terms of the exits that you've done in terms of [indiscernible] and ICEYE, GBP 85 million. What can we expect for realizations in FY '27? And then second part of that is most of you realize so far have been secondaries, rather than sort of M&A-type trade sales. Can you give us a little bit more indication on how the exit market is evolving outside of secondaries?

Sure. So maybe do [indiscernible]. I'll do the space one first. We'll touch a bit more on the realizations. So I think initially, when you have such a very rapid shift as we've seen over literally probably a year for governments changing their behavior and the capital flowing into a certain subsector of technology. It's the incumbent players that are going to benefit most. And I think we've seen that occur. The incumbent players like an [ ICEYE or an ICR ], we'll then look to how they can capture market value. And so their models will evolve over time as well. And I was in Finland last week with the ICEYE team, seeing some of their production plants, but also hearing the strategic updates from the management team, and they will add additional sensors onto their capability, and they will also manage that customer relationship to provide them with the intelligence that they need to service their own defense and resilience. And so we'll see those companies adapting. So I think that kind of sense of what can the market share be, how can their financials move alongside that is really how we think about it from a valuation perspective. And yes, the multiples of comparable public peers have moved, and that's been supportive. You could argue they've moved from a very low base. So [indiscernible] then us having a look at the recurring nature of revenues and trying to anticipate how far these companies can grow and scale. If we think about new investments in that ecosystem, there are a lot of companies coming through. I mean the U.K. is very strong in space. It has laboratories across Oxford, for example, where it's got labs focused on space. There's a lot of companies at the [indiscernible] campus there. South Hampton's already had quite a lot of space technology coming out. So it's one of those areas that when you shine a light, you realize that actually the U.K. is very strong at these areas already. And as we've seen, coming out of different laboratories across, in this case, for [indiscernible] Finland, the technology is there. So those companies will create or new companies will create new opportunities as well. And if you get into the space ecosystem, there's all of those adjacent supply chain components. I think in the public markets, [ Filtronic ] has been a great success as part of the SpaceX supply chain. So we'll continue to monitor that and think about how they can capture market share very much in the same way we do for any new investment. In terms of realizations, we have been trimming where we can get access to capital and secondaries. We think that, that's just a prudent portfolio management approach. Most of our realizations [indiscernible] 85% are through trade sales. and you will see that with single asset sales. We do get interest on our assets on a regular basis. Some of it transacts, some of it doesn't. [indiscernible] wrong or for whatever reason. So we just continue on that same approach of managing actively the portfolio. And certainly, in the core, you can see almost GBP 1 billion of value, quite mature companies, we would expect some of those to transact. When exactly it happens, what's the perfect timing, we don't know. We had ledger saying that they wouldn't go to public markets for an IPO. It was rumored that they would, but some of those IPO windows, of course, you understand better than me, but some of those IPO windows have to be favorable to make those transactions happen. But if it's a pure M&A scenario, it's more about the acquirer where they are in their own technology stack, what they're trying to achieve with the company's technology that they're bringing in.

It's Conor Finn from Barclays. A couple from me as well. Firstly, on the capital raising. So how much should we expect maybe over the next 12 months across a [indiscernible] growth fund and the secondaries? And then kindly, in relation to portfolio construction, obviously, you've quite a [indiscernible] approach. Would you be happier given, say, recent developments running a more concentrated book, say, in the future?

Yes, I might touch on those in reverse order. The -- if you'll see with [ ISR ] as an example and then [indiscernible] Series B investing, this is us putting more capital in at the point where we've got confidence and they're growing and scaling their operations. So more investment into those core companies at the right time is certainly what we focus on, and that's where I'm directing the team. So more Series B investing but also doubling down on our winners. That's certainly the strategy. I would like to narrow the portfolio a bit further. We've been working on that over the last 2 years, so it's coming down. But kind of conceptually a portfolio of around, say, 60 companies, of which 20 are the most valuable, and we keep doubling down on those assets as they scale is the way I would like to do that. So I think we've made some progress in that area through this year, and you'll see more of that coming together. In terms of the third-party capital, for the growth fund, we think about that where an average Series B investment in Europe is around GBP 20 million. I'm talking. And to put a portfolio together, you want 10-plus assets. So let's say, it's [ 10, 12, 15 ]. At the [ 10 to 12 ] level, you want to have a portfolio that can -- a portfolio size that can manage across that kind of portfolio construction point of different assets, but you also want to have the depth of capital. So at GBP 20 million each, you're probably talking at least [ 200 ] to get the fund going. And we would then want to have roughly 30% of follow-on capital into those companies. And so the way I think about the fund is [ 200 ] to get it going as a first close, ideally getting it to [ 300-plus ] thereafter. And I think for a first fund, clearly you could go beyond for growth funds. But for a first private fund, that would be a great success. In terms of the Molten East strategy, I think they will close probably sub EUR 100 million in the first instance, but then that will grow on second closing to take them over [ 100 ] and that might push up to, say, EUR 150 million. And then for the secondary strategy, they're targeting EUR 150 million in the first fund, but the debt for that opportunity is significant. And I think that, that can grow substantially beyond over time. The one thing I'll always reiterate on private funds, the time horizons are extended. It just takes a long time to raise them. So I don't want to anybody to be asking me in September, where that [ 450 million ] we talked about. It does take time, but we'll update on progress as we travel, and we're certainly seeing great momentum there.

I believe that's all the questions we have in the room. Sam, over to you online.

Yes. Several online. Hopefully, you can hear me okay. First one is from Matthew Lloyd, BNP. He says, when would you expect to see U.K. pension fund money deployed into [ UK BC ]? Do you have a view on the magnitude of flows from pension from money into venture capital over the next 5 years?

So just to give a bit of context. U.K. pension funds on the DC side, so this is defined contribution side, when the Mansion House Accord came out that we're talking about sort of GBP 500 billion of assets growing to [ GBP 1 trillion ] by 2030. So this is kind of the magnitude of the pool. But then you have to look at how much of that will go into private markets. The first signature, we're talking about 5%, and then that grew to 10% across private markets, so not just into the equity side. [ Interventure ] will be a smaller component. But already, you can see that it's kind of tens of billions of opportunity to come in. And these funds have next to no exposure so far. So the ABI, the association of [indiscernible] insurers have pulled their members, and that percentage went from [ 0.36% ] to up to 0.6%. So when you're talking about a target of getting to 5%, there's a long way to go, clearly. That -- there is momentum there. The pension bill has moved through Parliament and the local government pension funds are being amalgamated. They're trying to create pools of capital that can support the teams that have the experience to invest in private markets. So the processes are underway. What could that look like if they're going to hit their targets by 2030, there's clearly a lot of work to be done. And I think we are starting to see some movement there, but it's still incredibly slow. When the U.K. private capital pulled their members, there was a lot of saying, we're not actually seeing great traction at all. So it's still to come. But I believe it will, and I believe it has to. And it's really providing exposure to those pension fund members to this growth that we are seeing in the private markets that -- and also blunting of portfolios across different asset classes. So I think there's enough momentum that it will happen.

Next one from [indiscernible] Edison Group. Can you provide some additional detail on how ICEYE develops its data platform and analytical insights for its customers?

Yes. Good question. So obviously, with the [indiscernible] satellites in orbit, you have the synthetic aperture radar technology so they can take images of the earth. ICEYE then providing a technology on the ground that allows that data to be integrated. So they can see on one screen where the satellites are in geostationary orbit, and then they're working out -- sorry, low earth orbit, and then they're working out which of those satellites is best, able to take the images that the customer wants to take. They then want to take those images and they will use AI to interpret those images. So if it's a military buildup, which is a very obvious case, in Finland, they ran some NATO military exercises, and it was able to show exactly on the battlefield to the general, the military hardware was building up, what was moving, what wasn't moving, and it was able to identify what type of equipment that we're looking at. And some of those generals are feeding back saying we've never had anything of this capability. So warfare is moving much more into the visual on-screen aspects and decision-making in real time, but you can only do that with this technology. So the ICEYE technology that allows the customer to interpret the data is as important as getting the data itself.

Another one from Matthew Lloyd at BNP. He says, given the rapid commercialization of ICEYE and the [indiscernible] owns the data, are you beginning to see investment opportunities in new companies and business models that use that data?

It was interesting that the first use case for ICEYE that we're investing in was a commercial use case that continues, and there's a huge amount that they can go after here. So in the flooding and fire scenario, they were taking images of the earth looking at impacted buildings and selling that dates to insurance so they could pay out and quantify their losses. The Brazilian government we're using it for deforestation in the Amazon, for example, as well. And you could use it for a whole different set of use cases that they're looking at. So actually, ICEYE themselves are creating the products that the customers can use to interpret the data. But yes, I think as more data becomes available, just as we're seeing with AI, the interpretation of that data is being more advanced. And that's leading to new company creation of products that are available for enterprises.

Two from [indiscernible]. First one is, are there subsectors that you particularly doubled down on? And can you talk about the investment opportunity set available in these subsectors, dash new follow-on, question mark.

Subsectors, yes. So the team are very much focused on -- I think we had a slide at our Investor Day in February on AI infrastructure. So the middle layer that enables the data coming from large language models to be interpreted with the right levels of governance and the right kind of speed and accuracy, but also thinking about the kind of incredible cost that's occurring with the data usage on AI. So there's some little wear areas, AI infrastructure that they're very excited about. We're also looking into the fintech space at the kind of next iteration, so things like stable coins obviously, but also disruption in the wealth management space. We're seeing quite a lot of activity there. And then this kind of theme of critical infrastructure, everything is AI-enabled but critical infrastructure in digital health, for example, companies like [indiscernible] invested in a few years ago, whether it's creating an AI platform for pathology, or even more recently with IMU, where it's interpreting the data for immunology and layering on that AI capability. So there's a lot more to go in those areas.

[indiscernible], the second question is, could you chat through how you think about the ideal amount to sell down in assets you clearly still believe in and back? Would this change much once you have more third-party AUM?

Yes, it's a great question because I think it really unlocks the breadth of opportunity that we have with the platform we've built. So if we think about in the scenario of portfolio management, first of all, when do we sell down assets? We're thinking about, one, what is the value that's being offered today? Is it tomorrow [indiscernible] today, can the company go a 2, 3x return from there? So thinking about it in the context of our cost of capital. And then the second layer is thinking about the shape of the portfolio and ensuring it remains balanced. We're not outsized to one individual asset. And so we become a look through. So we've always managed positions like revenue in that context. And the other one that we're looking at is kind of where is our discount to our share -- to our NAV, so the share price discount to NAV. Clearly, if we're going to drive capital to buybacks, it's the opportunity cost of that capital, where can we use it. So there's kind of a few component parts to any of those decisions. As we build out the third-party capital, I think that broadens the opportunity for selling from EG to plc, to create liquidity to a third party, and we remain the manager of that asset. And so then you're creating more AUM through your own ecosystem. And I think that's something that will change over the next few years. Similarly, we follow on [indiscernible] assets, it might be Plc capital, if that's the right thing for the plc shareholder, but it might be third-party capital that comes into those companies. So we can manage the stages and opportunities in a different way.

The final two questions on the webcast come from Alex [indiscernible]. Firstly, he asks, can you provide further details or a breakdown on what the valuation uplifts were upon realizations beyond at or above holding value?

It sounds like an Andy question to me.

The -- I think we put them all in [ our RNS ] in terms of what they were. So I'd have to go back and check them. I don't add them to hand. But list was a smaller one, just above 1x, I think. Free trade was higher, I can't remember what it was now. And then Revolut 20x, for example, 21x.

I think at one point here is that when we're valuing the assets, we're clearly fair valuing them. So we'll move them up to the balance sheet date to an appropriate value. We always try to be slow to move them up, basically ensuring that you see them in line with the commercial traction. And then we're quite quick to move them down. That's been demonstrated over time. So as we sell those assets, we're selling them through an uplift. In each individual assets, it depends clearly where we were holding it at the time and whether we're getting a strategic premium for that asset. Today, we've seen ICEYE moving up 200%, because it's moved very rapidly. And so we'll see that in different scenarios. We don't tend to put out an average uplift on the assets because arguably [indiscernible] according to our auditors, if you're fair valuing them, you should have been pretty close to that anyway. But of course, you get upside surprises in technology that we've had this morning.

Very final question from Alex is, can you provide any guidance on what today's [indiscernible] Series D announcement will have on a portfolio in terms of GPV and uplift?

So we'll put our own statements out on that, probably tomorrow. There's a lot of news flow today. And obviously, ICEYE's announcement has gone slightly later in the morning. For us, it's an investment ramp. So we're putting capital into the business. So that's really just new capital, so reducing the cash and increasing the portfolio value. So we'll talk to that in more detail, but it's more about us doubling down to Connor's original question, doubling down on companies we believe in, putting more capital to work where we can see that upside opportunity.

Thank you. That's it for questions.

[indiscernible]. Super. Well, thank you, everybody. I appreciate your time this morning. Lots going on. We'd like to sequence our news flow better, but it's not always in our choice in our gift or other, but it's clearly very positive and gives us a great deal of momentum as we come into the new financial year. Thank you.