South Yorkshire AI firm Intelliam AI made its stock market debut this morning, floating on the Aquis Stock Exchange in a move that valued the firm at nearly £18m.
The firm, which uses AI to improve operating efficiency in the manufacturing sector, raised over £5m with the listing, the proceeds from which it will use to acquire 53 Degrees North Group Limited, a consultancy firm.
Dealings in ordinary shares started at £0.005 each under the ticker symbol INT.
The listing is one of the first AIM and Machine firms to list on the Aquis Growth Market, a primary market for small and mid-cap firms.
Intelliam already works with some of the world’s largest food and drinks firms, including the sweet and pet food giant Mars, for which it uses its machine learning technology to drive productivity improvements.
Tom Clayton, Intelliam’s CEO, said: “We are delighted to be joining the AQSE Growth Market at a time when we have combined our established manufacturing asset management consultancy with our more recently developed and launched Intelliam AI platform.
“We believe that this platform has immense and proven potential to reduce unscheduled manufacturing downtime, improve producer operating efficiencies and thereby increase our clients’ profitability.”
The float comes despite Intelliam’s chair, David Richards, being asked by his former employer to repay hundreds of thousands of pounds by the board of his former company, Wandisco.
Richards was boss of the tech firm, which he left shortly before the emergence of a major fraud which involved booking nearly £100m of false sales.