Ilika plc (LON:IKA) Chief Financial Officer Steve Boydell caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the placing of £15 million in more detail.
Q1: On Friday, Ilika announced that it had completed a placing of £15 million, what have the funds been raised for?
A1: The funding has been raised to drive the company’s roadmap across its portfolio of solid state battery programmes.
In rough numbers, £4 million has been earmarked to support the transfer of our miniature batteries, branded Stereax, into a third party fabrication facility. A further £4 million provides us with the option to dual-source this production at another fab and the balance is to support our contribution to our larger format battery programme, which we’ve branded Goliath, and enables us to strengthen the balance sheet and provide additional working capital.
Q2: Has the funding been raised mostly from new or existing shareholders?
A2: We’ve received strong support from our existing investor base who have taken approximately 60% of the placing with the balance coming from a small number of new holders, one of whom is a tier 1 investor who will have a disclosable 5% holding in the company once the deal has been completed.
Q3: Ilika has developed quite a retail investor base, will these investors be able to participate?
A3: Yes, so addition to the placing, we have announced an open offer of up to an additional £2 million. This has been done to enable all of our shareholders to participate on the same terms as the institutions as we recognise how important these investors are in supporting the company as we grow the company and commercialise our solid state battery technology.
