SMALL CAPS: Scancell success could spell better fortunes for UK fundraising

It's been a tough eighteen months for the minnows in the market, with the financing taps firmly shut.

However, based on last week's action, someone may have found a can of WD40.

An example of this is Scancel (down 13% at 11:15 p.m.), which showed earlier in Friday's session that it had significantly upgraded its fundraiser, which was oversubscribed.

This meant it brought in £10.7 million, compared to the £6 million it was seeking. This figure could rise by a further £2m if an open share offer is successful.

In itself this means very little. Scancell has seen impressive clinical success with a cancer immunotherapy targeting melanoma, which means there's some buzz around the stock.

However, it is one of many fundraisers of late. We led last week's report with the Videndum (5% off at 321.25p), the maker of hardware and software used in film, TV and content creation, which raised £125m.

The one thing Scancell and Videndum's cash calls have in common is that neither had to radically lower the price of their shares to get investors to bite.

Ondine Biomedical (up 7% at 9.09p), the medical devices group, is in the process of doing so at a modest premium to the going price.

Add to that list Great Southern Copper and CleanTech Lithium, both of which brought in new money without having to massively cut their share price, and you have the makings of a story.

Good projects, assets or investment stories attract money, those looking for working capital to keep the lights on do not.

Where RUA Life Sciences who is on that continuum is anyone's guess. It raised quite a bit of money – £4m – but had to issue shares at a 44% discount at 11p to get rid of the fundraising campaign.

Turning to the broader market, the AIM All-Share was dying at 715.78, marginally underperforming the FTSE 100, which rose 0.28% during the trading week.

In the US, AbbVie has invested $10 billion in ImmunoGen, a specialist in antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) that target cancer cells more precisely, potentially reducing damage to healthy cells.

Although the deal had a huge impact on the stock prices of US companies developing ADC-based drugs, the impact was not felt on this side of the Atlantic as local champions BiVictriX marking time at 11.4pm.

AIM's best performance was in an adjacent area. Fusion antibodies discovers, delivers and reengineers proteins used in targeted drugs.

It rose 88% to 6.25p over the week, with shares buoyed by a partnership with the US National Cancer Institute, which will use Fusion's OptiMAL technology for cancer antibody discovery.

As for the losers, Totally, which provides primary healthcare, fell 51% to 4.7p as it revealed the financial impact of losing a key NHS contract, with revenues down 21% to £55.8m , resulting in a loss of £1.9 million. million.

Zondrel fell 47% to 7p on Friday after Siemens Industrial Software dumped a batch of shares in the British tech minnow, selling it at 6p per share.

MusicMagpiewhich buys and sells used smartphones, fell 28% to 14.29 cents after two potential buyers, including BT, walked away.

In a statement, BT said it 'does not intend to make an offer' for the company, while musicMagpie said Aurelius Investment Advisory Ltd has also said it does not intend to make an offer.

Finally, Resourcing Tomorrow is the conference of the year for small diggers, so it was good to see the miners doing well this week, even if the mood on the conference room floor was subdued.

Empire metals (up 53% to 10.74p) delivered even more impressive drilling results from its titanium assets in Western Australia. Anglesey Mining (up 38% to 12.88p), Hummingbird (up 24% to 12.65p) and Capital metals (up 21% to 4.8 cents) were all well bid.

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