A SPINOUT from the University of Glasgow has reported growing revenues and a multi-year deal with a drug discovery company headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.

DeepMatter, which is quoted on London’s Alternative Investment Market for smaller companies, reported revenues of £678,000 for the six months to 30 June 2022, up 4.5% from £649,000 in the first half of 2021.

The Glasgow-based company said it had signed a multi-year licencing and collaboration agreement with Standigm, a “disruptive, emerging artificial intelligence” drug discovery company with backers including Temasek, an investment company owned by the Singaporean government. Standigm, which is headquartered in Seoul and has a UK subsidiary in Cambridge, will use DeepMatter's ‘SmartChemistry’ platform in a three-year deal, to fully digitalise its new synthesis laboratory. These are labs where chemical reactions are created in a controlled environment to produce one or more products.

Standigm believes the technology will “dramatically reduce” the labour needed to make new chemical compounds. DeepMatter said: “We anticipate doing further deals of this type.”

DeepMatter describes itself as a leader in the digitalisation of chemistry and says its SmartChemistry platform helps scientists to “easily capture, access and exploit the vast amounts of data created in chemical reactions.”

Its market sectors include pharma, biotech, agri-science, scientific publishers and contract research organisations.

DeepMatter said its first half revenues included revenues from licensing, recurring revenues from subscriptions to its software and related services. The company, which is headed by chief executive Mark Warne, said it expects these recurring revenues to increase as the company grows.

Research and development spending increased to £1.06 million from £0.86 million in the first half of 2021. Pre-tax losses for the half year widened to £1.85m from £1.5m last time.

DeepMatter said it was continuing to invest in “enhancing its products and the team to ensure we have the capability to deliver sustainable growth.”

Investment and a growing pipeline of business was expected to “drive deal-flow” and deliver a stronger second half of the year than in 2021, the company said.

DeepMatter raised £2.8m from investors in January through a share placing.