Sondrel (Holdings) PLC (AIM:SND), the second float in London this month, saw its shares rise on its first day of dealings.
The UK fabless semiconductor business, which is an ARM-approved partner designing and producing integrated circuits and 'system on chips' for major technology brands, said it raised gross proceeds of £20mln in the initial public offering (IPO).
At the placing price of 55p, the Reading-headquartered outfit had a market capitalisation of £48.1mln on admission. The shares rose to 58p in early deals on Friday.
Chief executive Graham Curren, who founded the company in 2002, said the company's plan is to use the funds to hire more engineers for its design centres in the UK, Morocco, China and India, as well as investing in its 'Architecting the Future IP' platforms, accelerating sales in the USA and elsewhere, and strengthening the balance sheet.
Sondrel said its pipeline of revenue opportunities stood at more than £300mln at the end of July.
From unaudited revenues of £8mln in the six months to June 2022 and full-year 2021 revenues of £8.2mln, directors have ambitions to grow revenues to over £100mln in the medium term.
“Sondrel is well positioned to benefit from a number of industry and geopolitical megatrends and has a clear strategy to grow revenues to over £100mln in the medium term as demand for our highly complex ASIC chip solutions continues to grow," said Curren. “The differentiated design capability we have developed, designing down to 5nm, makes this a highly significant IPO for the UK semiconductor industry."
The engineering capability to design down to five nanometres (nm) is limited to Sondrel and a small number of Asian competitors, the company said.
Julian Morse, chief executive of Cenkos Securities PLC (AIM:CNKS), the company's AIM nominated adviser and sole broker, said the IPO was “testament to the continued willingness of UK institutional investors to support UK technology success stories and other high-quality businesses, even in the most challenging of market conditions.”