Cirata in Sheffield has raised £5.1m through an oversubscribed fundraise, as it looks to grow its AI capabilities.
The company, had originally targeted £4.6m through the placing of new Ordinary Shares.
“Cirata, today, is a transformed business – driven forward by an energised team, and pointed at a significant, growing market. We have rescued, rebuilt and recovered the business, to the point where in FY25 we delivered our first triple-digit sales growth year. Today, a significantly de-risked and restructured Cirata is operating at approximately less than 30% of its peak expense levels and we are proud to have placed a home-grown UK software firm on an increasingly clear, commercially-proven pathway to sustainable value creation,” said Stephen Kelly, CEO of Cirata ahead of the fundraise.
“The opportunity is not insignificant. With 127 issued patents and 18 pending applications underpinning our technology, we believe we are well positioned to carve out a strong market position as the live data company for the Agentic AI era. The team has purpose-built our Data Orchestration platform, Cirata Symphony, for the Enterprise AI age with direct strategic customer input. By 2029, we believe some 70% of enterprises will have deployed Agentic AI infrastructure – and we believe our products deliver the continuous, governed and always-on mobility of live data these use cases require.”
READ MORE – “Rebuild from the ground up” as Cirata reflects on WANdisco period
The money will be used to invest in Cirata Symphony; convert its business pipeline; and for “balance sheet stability.”
£2.7m was raised through a placing by Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited and Panmure Liberum Limited, with directors, senior employs and “certain persons resident in the US” raising an additional £2.5m.
Yesterday Stephen Kelly said of the raise:
“We are targeting this opportunity in-step with some of the largest names in enterprise technology, with approximately 43% of our next four quarter pipeline co-sourced via our proud partnership with IBM. And our pipeline grew by approximately 40% between January and April this year, including prospective marquee new logos, to stand at approximately $21m in annual contract value today.”
It’s been a major turnaround for Cirata, previously known as WANdisco, with the board saying in 2024 that it was rebuilding the firm “from the ground up.”
