SMALL CAP MOVERS: Seeing Machines is on a mission to eradicate transport fatalities

Seeing Machines is an AIM-listed technology company on a mission to totally eradicate transport fatalities.

Lofty ambitions, but recent business highlights and an eye-raising valuation from broker Cenkos suggest potential in the company’s AI-powered, vision-based and driverless technology.

‘We believe Seeing Machines should trade on a significant premium to its closest comparables Smart Eye and Mobileye, and that it is a global technology unicorn that is current share price belies,’ said John-Marc Bunce at Cenkos this week.

In October, Australia-based Seeing Machines inked a $65million, or £55million, deal with Canadian auto parts maker Magna to develop and co-market a driver and occupant monitoring system underpins his optimism.

The new product will embed a camera in the rear view to monitor both the driver and occupants of vehicles.

‘We view Seeing Machines’ recent deal with Magna as a game-changing moment that signals the start of a period of significant value creation, cashing in on more than 20 years of technology development,’ said Bunce.

Cenkos’ punchy price target of 24.3p is a 350 per cent premium to today’s 6.8p, but the market was adopting a wait-and-see approach with the shares down 4 per cent on the week.

Touchstar, a supplier of mobile data computing solutions and managed services did better after it announced a ‘substantial order’ on Tuesday.

Petrochemical Distribution, its largest client, has given it the work, which is worth in excess of £1.5million in its first year.

‘Following this award, the company’s order book stands at £2.3million, a significant increase on the £1million reported in the company’s interim results released on 15 September 2022,’ it said.

Tintra also made ground, up 2.6 per cent to 225.7p following a promising business update.

Fintech arm Tintra Money submitted an application and documentation to the UK Financial Conduct Authority to become an authorised electronic money institution.

Biome Technologies, though, was the star of the bunch jumping nearly 50% this week after meeting revenue expectations, but this was largely seen as a correction after shares tanked 70 per cent in September.

Overall, the junior market’s top 100 shares comfortably outperformed their larger counterpart over the past week, with the AIM 100 up 1.4 per cent compared to a slight dip by Footsie.

Among the fallers, Brand Architekts shares were smeared lower after the British beauty brand boutique reported lower sales and wider losses for the past year.

Underlying operating losses for the year to end-June grew to £1.8million on revenue down 15 per cent excluding the acquisition of Innovaderma.

Niche bank PCF nosedived 63 per cent to 0.42p on Wednesday morning after saying it would withdraw from the market because of its unsuccessful efforts to raise cash.

As a result, the board is proposing cancelling the group’s stock market listing.

According to a statement, the board ‘will continue to explore strategic transactions with bona fide interested third parties, however the directors have now concluded that it is in the best interest of all stakeholders for PCF Bank to commence a process of withdrawing from the UK banking market.’

Shares in The Gym Group dropped over 11 per cent after the company said some of its outlets are still struggling with the shift to home working.

In a statement, the operator of 24/7 low-cost gyms said membership stood at 838,000 as of 31 October 2022, a rise of 16.7 per cent from the start of the year.