Saietta seeking additional funding as EV firm aims to capitalise on sales opportunities

Saietta Group plc, the maker of drivetrain (eDrive) solutions for electric vehicles (EVs), which has a facility in Oxfordshire, said it was seeking additional funding to underpin its working capital but also to capitalise on further potential sales contracts, including in India.

The company, which only floated in 2021, said, posting full year results to end March alongside an operational update, that it had now reached an "inflection" point.

READ MORE: Oxfordshire-based EV company Saietta Group targets Asian rickshaw market

Late in 2022, the firm reported, what it now views as a "major commercial breakthrough" - the signing of a development deal with a leading Indian original equipment manufacturer (OEM) - one of the largest manufacturers of light commercial vehicles (LCVs) in the country.

This agreement immediately triggered an engineering design services (EDS) contract for around £3.2 million of revenue spread over two financial years for eDrive solutions powered by Saietta's AFT motors for two product lines with indicative minimum volumes across the first five years of 80,000 units.

This has now matured into Saietta potentially providing eDrive solutions to the 'Lead OEM' for four product lines in 2, 3 and 4 wheel vehicles in the very large Indian lightweight vehicle sector, the company explained.

Tony Gott, executive chairman of Saietta, told investors: "At IPO just 28 months ago we planned to build Saietta organically based on revenues from sales of our ground-breaking axial flux technology (AFT) motors before scaling up into additional product lines. However, the market is transitioning to electric propulsion much faster than even we predicted, especially in Asia.

"As Saietta has now secured contracts from a leading OEM, the board has high confidence that a significant proportion of the material items in our sales pipeline will mature into commercial contracts within the current financial year.

"This includes market pull from the Indian 2 wheel (2W) sector for Saietta's all-new eDrives based on our radial flux technology (RFT) motors," he said.

Gott said this was "highly significant" given that in the 12 months to September, this year, around 835,000 electric two wheel (2W) vehicles were registered in India, or around 5% of total 2W registrations, indicating the scale of opportunity in India.

"The Saietta board has therefore taken the decision to seek step-change additional funding in part to underpin our current working capital and, importantly, to also generate the financial resources required to fully capitalize on the potential from the anticipated additional contracts within our sales pipeline, including the huge 2W sector in India," he said.

"We are open on how best to achieve this and are commencing discussions with our key investors to get their advice, but we are determined to appropriately capitalize the business and maximise the ROI for our investors."

In the full year to end-March, the company posted a statutory loss before tax of £28.3 million (2022: loss of £11.1m) accounting for all write downs and discontinued activities.

Revenue and other Income from continuing operations increased 132% to £4.8 million (2022: £2.1 million). Cash as at March 31 this year stood at £7.2million (2022: £18.4 million).

Gott noted that Saietta had "finally resolved frustrating" technical accountancy issues around accounting for a post balance sheet event of new agreements with ConMet, which were signed on August 1 this year after its financial year end and the company had now released fully audited accounts for the year to end-March, which would recommence its shares trading on London's AIM market.

Last month, the company announced that David Woolley had been appointed as CEO with effect from October 2 this year. Gott will continue as executive chairman until the end of the financial year when he will revert to his previous role as non-executive chairman.

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