SensOre says discussions are progressing with “a number of parties” on new venture capital to fund its privatised AI-based technology business after a planned split from its lithium exploration interests in Australia.
The latter are to be held by rebadged Australian Securities Exchange-listed vehicle, Premier1 Lithium, and advanced with A$3 million of new equity funding under a proposal to be ratified by shareholders. Current holders are entitled to an in-specie distribution of shares in the technology company, which keeps the SensOre name, as well as retaining their Premier1 Lithium interests.
“Minerals technology has largely been the domain of unlisted companies with access to venture capital funding,” SensOre management said today.
“Unfortunately, SensOre has been unable to gain traction from institutional and retail investors on the ASX to match the depth of capital and interest from the largely US-based technology market.
“The demerger provides an opportunity to rectify this issue and unlock value for shareholders.”
SensOre CEO Richard Taylor said the company was aiming to be a “data as a service company” with attaching AI/ML and geoscientific software tools.
“We believe the business has global appeal and the intention, once separated, is to seek venture funding to expand the data cube and the data as a service business globally,” he said.
“The cash generated from existing operations along with further venture funding will assist greatly with the future development of the technology business over the coming years.”
SensOre has developed large data, or hyper, cubes with a massive volume of Australian geoscience data accessible via the company’s cloud platform. It says more geoscience data, in Australia and globally, are being acquired and “ingested” into the expanding, scalable data hyper cubes.
“Aligned with this is a range of machine learning and artificial intelligence tools that can be applied to geoscience data,” SensOre says.
“On a pro-forma basis the technology business is generating positive cash flow.
“Technology multiples are typically five-times revenue and have historically been higher.”
SensOre’s share price dipped a further 26% today and is less than a quarter of the level it was trading at in April this year.
