SMALL CAP MOVERS: Seraphim Space raises $100m to build real scale

Investment trusts are not typically where you look for the future. The sector is associated with Victorian-era capital preservation, steady dividends, and the kind of portfolios that move at a glacial pace.

Seraphim Space sits conspicuously in this company. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, the firm backs autonomous drone swarms, microgravity drug development, and satellite infrastructure for an AI-driven global economy.

Its shares are up 25% this year and 170% over the past 12 months, a performance that says something the firm does not need to say itself: UK investors, when given a credible vehicle, will back genuine frontier technology.

The new $100 million early-stage fund, backed by the British Business Bank and the National Security Strategic Investment Fund among others, extends that thesis into private markets.

Valued at £380 million, and with 149 portfolio companies, nine unicorns, and over £10 billion raised across its ecosystem, Seraphim has built something rare, a specialist space investor with real scale.

The wrapper may be conventional. The conviction behind it is anything but.

Now, onto the wider market. The AIM All-Share had another quiet week, nudging 0.9% higher to 818.77. Yet again, it trailed its benchmark, the FTSE 100, which advanced almost 2% to continue its push into record territory.

IQE has been in an offer period since September, with the company disclosing in January it was in talks over bids for the whole group and certain assets. No offeror has been named. That ambiguity, far from cooling interest, appears to be sustaining it.

Thursday brought a flurry of Takeover Panel disclosures. Deutsche Bank filed under Rule 8.5, followed by River Global, which revealed a sale of nearly 2 million shares. Peel Hunt then disclosed trades of over 10 million shares in each direction.

The activity suggests positioning rather than resolution. The market is clearly pricing in something. Whether that something arrives is another matter.

Shares in the Cardiff semiconductor maker have climbed 84% this week and 274% year to date.

Shares in Anglesey Mining jumped 61% after the company eliminated nearly all of its debt, reducing £4 million in liabilities to just £100,000 secured against a residential property.

The clean-up frees the company to focus entirely on Parys Mountain, its copper-zinc-lead-gold project in North Wales, with exploration, shaft dewatering, and a pumped storage scheme all now in prospect.

There was some relief for investors in SkinBioTherapeutics, which has seen the exit of its CEO and has launched a forensic investigation into how royalty income was booked. Off 52% since the start of January, the stock rose 49% this week.

Hardide, which applies advanced tungsten carbide coatings to components used in aerospace, energy, and industrial applications, rose 41% over the week after the company announced a £1.8 million order from a major North American energy customer. The board now expects to at least double 2024 revenues ahead of schedule.

The week’s biggest faller, down 44%, was TomCo Energy after it restructured its partnership with Valkor into a 50:50 joint venture through Greenfield Energy.

Valkor will convert $399,750 of loans into shares at 0.1 pence each, a premium to market, while TomCo is raising £550,000 through a placing to fund working capital at a big discount. Go figure.

Stake building by the spread-betting firm SpreadEx appears to have lit the blue touchpaper beneath Gfinity, the esports company, with the shares up almost 30%.

A bout of profit-taking appears to be behind the fall of Crism Therapeutics, which this week received Japanese patent protection for ChemoSeed, its biodegradable chemotherapeutic drug implants tech. The shares, which have doubled in value in the past year and are up 41% since the start of 2026, fell 26% over the last five trading days.

Finally, Eco Buildings Group, the AIM-listed modular construction company behind Glass Fiber Reinforced Gypsum panel technology, is mobilising a new manufacturing production line in Senegal through a local joint venture, marking its first operational foothold in West Africa.

The company’s GFRG system builds structures reportedly up to five times faster than conventional methods while cutting emissions by up to 40%, a combination it is targeting at affordable housing, social housing, and commercial developments across multiple markets.

The Senegal expansion represents the clearest signal yet that management is moving from technology development to international production at scale. The market liked the news with the stock up 7% this week.

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