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When you’re on a roll you may as well pedal harder. At least that seems to be the philosophy of Alastair Lukies, founding CEO of AIM-listed, mobile banking player, Monitise. After a successful £24m share placing just three months ago (see Monitise monitises investor interest), Lukies confirmed yesterday that the company is in talks with a number of investors over a £100m fundraising. Lukies also mooted a proposed move to the LSE main market next year.
If successful, the fundraising would be a notable vote of investor confidence in Monetise, whose market cap is currently around £350m. The company is still loss-making (see Monitise momentum masks larger losses) and although Lukies restated his confidence in hitting $110m in revenues this FY (to June 2013), he did not reiterate his previous forecast to reach EBITDA break-even by then. He also noted that the recently announced partnership with India-centric offshore services firm, Cognizant (see Monitise picks up an ‘Indian’ partner) has spurred talks with other IT players.
‘Mobile money’ is a hot global market, and you have to make bold moves if you want to stake your claim. Lukies has no shortage of ambition in that respect.
