AMPD Ventures Inc said it has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement for aggregate gross proceeds of C$6.94 million.
In a statement, Anthony Brown, CEO at AMPD said: "This positive response from existing and new AMPD investors demonstrates confidence in the company, recognition of the progress we have been making, and high levels of interest in our emerging Metaverse-related initiatives across AMPD's core infrastructure business, as well as the anticipated acquisition of Departure Lounge Inc."
The company intends to use C$2.5 million of the proceeds from the private placement to fund the ongoing operations of Departure Lounge post-acquisition and has increased the planned allocation to general working capital to AMPD from the private placement from C$2.5 million to C$4.4million, to accelerate the rollout of AMPD's High-Performance Edge computing environments around the world.
READ: AMPD Ventures increases proposed private placement to as much as C$5Mfrom C$3.5M previously
The private placement was announced on October 26, 2021, with the company initially expecting to issue up to 11,666,667 units at a price of C$0.30 per unit for aggregate gross proceeds of up to C$3.5 million. However, the company announced an increase in the size of the private placement on November 1, 2021, increasing the number of units to up to 16,666,777 units for aggregate gross proceeds of C$5.0M.
The private placement closed on November 25, 2021, and the company issued 22,639,663 units at a price of C$0.30 per unit, for aggregate gross proceeds of C$6,791,900.
Each unit in the placement is comprised of one common share of the company and one common share purchase warrant, with each unit warrant entitling the holder to subscribe for one share at an exercise price of C$0.50 per warrant share for a period of 24 months following the date of the closing of the private placement.
The expiry date of the unit warrants may be accelerated at the option of the company if, at any time prior to the expiry of the unit warrants, the volume-weighted average trading price of the underlying shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange (or such other recognized Canadian stock exchange on which the common shares are then listed) is or exceeds C$0.80 for a period of ten consecutive trading days.
In connection with the private placement, the company paid certain finders C$189,462 in cash, and issued 631,539 unit warrants as finder's fees.
Insiders of AMPD subscribed for an aggregate of 1.5 million of the placement units, for aggregate proceeds of C$450,000, comprising 6.48% of the total amount raised. Sheldon Inwentash directly subscribed for 500,000 units for C$150,000 and ThreeD Capital Inc., a public company of which Inwentash is the chairman and CEO, subscribed for 1 million units for C$300,000, decreasing Inwentash's direct and indirect holdings from 17.12% to 15.80% of the issued and outstanding shares of AMPD on a partially diluted basis, assuming the exercise of warrants and options held.
All securities issued under the private placement are subject to a four-month hold period.
Departure Lounge on schedule
As previously disclosed, AMPD has signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) with Departure Lounge Inc and its shareholders. Departure Lounge is a Vancouver-based company pursuing various technology and content initiatives related to the development of the Metaverse.
The LOI contemplates the acquisition of Departure Lounge by AMPD under a definitive share purchase agreement through which the company will acquire all the issued and outstanding shares. The acquisition may constitute a "related party transaction" as James Hursthouse is the current chief strategy officer of the company and one of the vendors in the acquisition.
The acquisition remains subject to completion of due diligence, execution of a definitive acquisition agreement, and receipt of any necessary regulatory and shareholder approvals.
AMPD Ventures specializes in providing high-performance cloud and compute solutions for low latency applications, including video games and eSports, digital animation and visual effects, and big data collection, analysis, and visualization.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com