Capital raisings wrap: Brainchip, Ovanti, Lake and VHM

The Australian bourse has seen several companies across varied sectors announce capital raising efforts today.

AI on-chip processing and learning company Brainchip Holdings Ltd (ASX:BRN) told the market it was hoping to secure A$25 million in total to enable commercialisation of its AkidaTM 2.0 technology and development of the TENNs algorithm.

Brainchip said it had completed a fully underwritten institutional placement worth A$20 million, plus the A$2 million sale of existing securities from LDA Capital.

Alongside this, the company said it would also seek up to A$3 million through a non-underwritten share purchase plan.

The price of shares for the placement, existing share sale and SPP will be set at A$0.193, Brainchip added.

Also within the tech sector, Ovanti Ltd (ASX:OVT) announced confirmation that sophisticated investors were on-board with its plan to raise $1,200,000 before costs through the placement of 300,000,000 ordinary shares, priced at $0.004 per share.

This, it said, would go towards working capital and further provisions for costs associated with litigations and investigations.

Over in the materials sector, Lake Resources NL (ASX:LKE) says it planned to raise $2,500,000 (cost inclusive) through the issue of 65,000,000 Lake fully paid ordinary shares to Acuity Capital at 3.85c per share, subject to shareholder approval.

The funds would support Lake’s progression of strategic priorities for the Kachi lithium project in Argentina’s Catamarca province, and the potential sale of non-core assets and lithium tenements located in other parts of the country.

In December last year, Lake announced completion of definitive feasibility on Kachi, suggesting a 25-year mine life together with a globally significant resource of 10.6 million tonnes of LCE4 (lithium carbonate equivalent).

Another resources player VHM Ltd (ASX:VHM) said it was on-track to raise $1.8 million via the issue of approximately 4.3 million new fully paid ordinary shares (at 42 cents each), through a completed placement targeting institutional, sophisticated and professional investors.

The company was also hoping to bank an additional $3 million through an SPP set at the same price as the placement, with both adding to the current kitty of $6.3 million in cash to progress development of the Goschen rare earths and mineral sands project in Victoria.

VHM is anticipating that it will gain ministerial approval of the Environmental Effects Statement for Goschen ahead of an FID for the project, with the latter to be achieved in the first quarter of 2025.

At 12:40, Lake Resources was trading 1.43% up, at 3.5 cents, VHM was flat at 58 cents, Brainchip was down 7.5% at 18.5 cents, and Ovanti was flat at 0.4 cents.