Ever fancied owning a sliver of Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, or ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok?
These are private companies, normally open only to the money men and women of Silicon Valley, not to the average private investor here in the UK.
Shaires Holdings Ltd (AIM:SHR), an AIM-quoted investment company, reckons it can get you there.
It has unveiled an initial portfolio of private technology stakes worth up to $86.7 million, spread across seven names.
Alongside Anthropic and ByteDance sit payments group Stripe, humanoid robot developer Figure AI, Chinese model builder Moonshot AI, quantum and enterprise AI outfit SandboxAQ, and de-extinction specialist Colossal Biosciences.
The pitch is simple enough: the best technology businesses are staying private for far longer, so most of the money is made long before they ever reach the stock market.
Buying the shares, the argument runs, delivers exposure without lock-ups, accreditation hurdles or a friendly venture capitalist on speed dial.
To fund it, Shaires has opened a retail offer at $20 a share, matching a recently completed $28.5 million institutional placing and struck at an 18% discount to Wednesday's $24.50 close.
Access is not cheap, mind. The Anthropic interest, for example, would be acquired at a $965 billion valuation.
Down 3% on Friday, the stock is up 17% in the past month and 163% over the last six.
Turning to the wider market, the AIM All-Share was flat this week, outperforming the FTSE 100, which fell around 1.7%.
Sticking with the week's winners
Thruvision Group PLC (AIM:THRU, OTC:DIGTF) jumped 80% after the security screening specialist landed its biggest contract in Asia to date.
The deal, worth more than £3 million, will see its people-screening systems installed at several major airports in South-East Asia.
The technology is aimed at screening airport workers and countering insider threats.
Sunda Energy PLC (AIM:SNDA, FRA:GHA0) shares surged 60% after its subsidiary secured a 10-year petroleum mining permit covering the Puka oil and gas field and the Oru prospect in New Zealand's Taranaki region.
The permit clears the way for Sunda to restart production at Puka and drill the Oru-2 exploration well.
Strip Tinning Holdings PLC (AIM:STG) jumped 50% after the automotive components maker won a £3 million grant from Innovate UK and the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK.
The award comes through the government's DRIVE35 programme and will help the company expand its UK manufacturing, build specialist skills and supply its cell contacting system technology to global partners.
Strategic Minerals PLC (AIM:SML) rose 34% as it began its biggest continuous diamond drilling programme to date at the Redmoor tungsten, tin and copper project in Cornwall.
The company is targeting 22,500 metres of drilling by the second quarter of 2027 as it works towards feasibility studies.
And now the fallers
80 Mile PLC (AIM:80M, OTCQB:BLLYF) shares were the week's worst performers on AIM, down 34%, after the company pushed back drilling at its Jameson Land project in East Greenland.
Work is now expected to start in winter 2027 rather than this year, with permits and regulatory approvals still outstanding.
The company also disclosed a formal warning from the Greenland government over equipment landed at Nerlerit Inaat airport, though it insists permission to store the kit was sought and granted.
Caledonian Holdings PLC (AIM:CHP) shares slid 24% after the company raised £612,000 at 1.25p, a discount to the previous close.
The money will fund the commercial rollout of Aspire, its multi-currency accounts and debit card arm.
Corero Network Security PLC (AIM:CNS, OTCQB:DDOSF) shares fell 23% in a head-scratching reaction to a first-half update showing revenue up 42% to $15.5 million.
The DDoS protection specialist swung to a profit of around $2.6 million from a $1.4 million loss, with annualised recurring revenue up 12% to $24.1 million.
The only obvious blemish was cash, down to $2.1 million from $4 million at the year end.
Open web's grand bargain breaks down
And finally, to the world of online publishing and Digitalbox, the owner of titles such as Entertainment Daily, The Daily Mash and TVGuide.co.uk.
It's currently dealing with problems not of its own making, which reflect the direction of travel for the internet.
Meta spent the second quarter demoting text-based publisher content in favour of short-form video, and search engines increasingly answer questions on the page rather than sending readers onward.
The bargain that funded the open web platforms supply traffic and publishers sell advertising against it, is breaking down.
The company's answer is a creator network, sharing revenue with third-party video makers whose content it distributes and helps shape.
Panmure Liberum has trimmed forecasts but kept its buy rating, arguing the brands remain undervalued.
The shares, currently changing hands for 5.18p, are worth 7.5p, the broker reckons.
