A to Z on the AIM Exchange Part 1

A bunch of interesting microcaps

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I was going to go A to Z on the AIM exchange. I was inspired by this tweet from

Dirtcheapstocks

I chose the AIM exchange because it’s quite small with only 680 companies and I’ve already found some interesting ideas from the exchange.

I decided to go through a minimum of 50 companies a day and to not use any filters as the exchange is already quite small. I’ve now realized that using no filters was a bad idea as there were quite a few mining companies that had no revenue and over 1 billion shares.

So far, I've looked at 350 companies and found a few interesting ones. One thing I quickly realized is that many of the most intriguing ideas have already been written up. Overall, I've added 28 companies to my watchlist; most are not actionable yet, but I'd like to keep an eye on them for the future.

Below are the companies that I found most interesting.

IG Design Group plc (IGR)

Market Cap- £55.7 million

P/NCAV .52x

IG design group creates party and craft supplies and was founded in 1978. Gift packaging, party, and goods not for resale made up 63% of their revenue while craft, stationary, and homeware make up 37% of their revenue.

IGR recently had a massive drop in their share price as their fourth largest customer filed for bankruptcy (I think the costumer is Party City). Management is now guiding for revenue to be down 10% and to be breakeven this year.

By no means is this a high quality company but historically it has been profitable and has an incredible balance sheet with £493 million in current assets (£200 million is inventory) with just £345 million in total liabilities which makes it a net-net.

I actually heard about this company before I started going A to Z as

Stonks Value

wrote a note about the company. If you like deep value situations I’d highly recommend you follow him.

Celebrus Technologies plc (CLBS)

Market Cap - £88 million

Celebrus Technologies helps businesses gather and use real-time data about their customers’ online activities so they can understand them better.

The former CEO was focused on growing the companies ARR before retiring in 2022. He was replaced by Bill Bruno who has been with the company since 2018 as the vice president of their North American operations. He has continued the focus on growing their ARR as their ARR has grown from £14 million in 2022 to £20.2 million in 2024.

As they are mainly a software company they have quite good gross margins hovering between 50%-60%. However operating margins have struggled over the past few year being as low as 7.2% in 2022 but have since rebounded to 15.9% LTM

In 2024 they had massive revenue growth though most of it was from third party sales which is from when Celebrus sells hardware that is needed for certain costumer installations. This is a low margin business, and the company specifically says to focus on the software revenue, as it’s more indicative of the companies actual growth.

In their half year 2025 trading update they did £13.8 million in revenue compared to £13 million in H1 2024. The company’s ARR grew to £21 million compared to £20.4 million in 2024 (ARR is defined as expected recurring revenue over the next 12 months). They attribute the growth to signing some new deals and upselling to existing customers.

Key wins both during and after the period include a healthy mix of new logos and upsells of existing customers, which included a large global airline, a UK energy company, a financial institution in the US, an existing European retail customer, a bank in Poland, and an expansion within a healthcare customer in the US. - Half Year 2025 Results

The company also has an incredible balance sheet with 36.8 million in current assets of which £25.8 million is cash to just £16.5 million in total liabilities. What’s even better is the company has zero long term debt and £12 million of their liabilities is unearned revenue.

They pay a growing 1.4% dividend and have bought back shares this year.

The two biggest risks I see are that it’s in an incredibly competitive industry that’s likely to be affected by AI, and their biggest sales partner brought in 66% of the revenue in 2024. If there’s an issue between them, it could significantly hurt their growth.

While isn’t the cheapest stock at 20x earnings the amazing balance sheet and the ARR growth make it interesting enough to be on my watchlist.

Croma Security Solutions Group plc (CSSG)

Market Cap - £12.7 million

Croma operates through 2 divisions

Croma Locksmiths - Provides mechanical solutions through 17 retail locksmith locations which include services such as key-cutting, repair services, lock installations, and other locksmith solutions.

Croma Fire and Security - Croma provides electronic security solutions, which includes CCTVs, fire and life safety systems, and perimeter detection systems. They have a page on their website that goes over some case studies of their work.

If you look at their financials you’ll see a huge drop off in revenue in 2022 as revenue was just £5.83 million compared to £32.5 million in 2021.

The reason for the drop in revenue is because they decided to sell their manned guarding company Vigilant for £6.5 million to focus on their higher margin businesses.

Croma plans on using the proceeds from the sale to buy Locksmiths with low single digit EBITDA margins and transform them into “modern security centers” by broadening the product lines (including services provided by the Fire and Security business), integrate their software, and more optimized cost efficiencies to get the EBITDA margins up to the same level as Croma(currently 12%).

Croma says they’re aiming to acquire between 3-5 locksmiths a year and achieve a 15% ROI. So far, they’ve acquired four locksmith businesses (plus some of the real estate) since selling Vigilant, including one last week.

Locksmith Locations

I’ve looked through each stores google reviews and they’re all very liked with the lowest rated store being 4.4 stars (out of 5) though the ratings are actually much higher as most of the negative reviews I found were from before Croma had bought the store.

They also have an incredible balance sheet, with no long term debt and have £4.1 million in cash. Though this is actually understating their cash, as they’re still going to receive £2.5 million over the next six quarters from the sale of Vigilant, which means they really have over half their market cap in cash.

Colefax (CFX)

Market Cap - £50.3 million

Colefax’s main business is designing and distributing luxury furnishing fabrics and wallpapers through 5 different brands Colefax and Fowler, Cowtan and Tout, Jane Churchill, Larsen and Manuel Canovas. Each brand has its own unique style and price point and each brand has its own design studio and marketing strategy to create its own distinct look.

Colefax operates through 3 divisions.

Fabric Division - Their fabric division makes up the majority of their sales as it accounted for 88% of the company’s sales in H1 2025. The majority of the sales are from the US which makes up 62% of their product turnover.

Interior Decorating Division- Interior decorating is the second biggest division making up slightly under 9% of the company’s sales in H1.

Kingcome Sofas - Colefax has a small brand called Kingcome, that makes sofas, chairs, and stools which makes up just 2.8% of sales.

This company is a very slow grower as their revenue has grown at a 4% CAGR since 2016 but has been profitable and has had some of the most consistent gross margins I’ve ever seen in a microcap as their gross margin is consistently in the mid 50s.

While I don’t consider the industry very attractive I think the companies management is amazing. The CEO David Green has been bought back over 70% of the total share outstanding since 2002 bringing the total shares outstanding down from 23 million to just 6.1 million as of H1 2025.

If you’re interested in learning more about the company I highly recommend reading

The Mikro Kap

write up on the company as he does an amazing job going over the company’s history and financials.

KINOVO (KINO)

I've already written a write-up on Kinovo, and it's still my favorite idea from the AIM Exchange. (Disclosure- I currently own shares of Kinovo)

Other Companies on the Watchlist

DSW Capital (DSW)

Market cap- £15.7 million

DSW helps entrepreneurial professionals launch their own practices. They operate through a license fee model in which the partners retain full ownership of their businesses and pay a percentage of their revenue to DSW. In return, DSW provides initial funding and takes care of all the behind‑the‑scenes work—such as IT, accounting, marketing, recruitment, and banking.

They recently made a significant acquisition by purchasing DR Solicitors for £6.1 million. DR Solicitors generated £3.1 million in revenue in 2024—an 11% increase from 2023—and earned £1.2 million in profit before tax, with net assets of £1.6 million.

Tristan

has extensively covered this company and has posted a few video calls talking with the CEO.

Finesta (FIN)

Market Cap- £20.1 million

A foreign exchange and payment company that hired a new CEO in 2022 who has helped the company grow revenue from £4.82 million in 2022 to £11.11 million LTM, improve margins, and become cash flow positive.

Sebastian

wrote a write up on the company.

Cakebox (CBOX)

Market Cap- £80 million

As the name suggests Cakebox sells cakes, cupcakes, and cheesecakes through 232 franchised stores and has been growing revenue at a quick rate and has been growing their dividend.

Alex Feng

wrote a interesting write up on the company.

Gattaca plc (GATC)

Market cap-£25.7 million

Gattaca is a recruitment company that specifically focuses on STEM recruitment.

This company is a melting ice cube as the companies revenue has dropped from £642 million in 2017 to £389 million in the last twelve months. Margins have also declined as their net margin has gone from 2.2% in 2017 to just .5% in 2024.

They’ve stated that they’re trying to focus on operating efficiencies as they’ve cut their total headcount by 12%

It’s almost a net-net with £76 million in current assets to £52.9 million in total liabilities and the company has been paying a dividend and has recently bought back shares.

Belluscura (BELL)

Market cap- 3.79 million P/NCAV .54x

Not really interesting as they haven’t ever made a gross profit but it is a net-net.

Bonus Quick Pitch

Intellego Technologies ($INT.ST)

Market Cap - $104 million

Intellego Technologies is a Swedish company that manufactures colorimetric ultraviolet indicators. To put it simply, they create cards called UV-C dosimeters that change color when exposed to sufficient UV-C light to kill germs. This allows hospitals to determine more precisely if the germs have been eliminated. If the germs aren’t killed, it can lead to healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

HAIs are a major issue, with approximately 4.3 million cases per year in Europe and over 500,000 in the U.S. (or 1 in every 31 patients).

Intellego has had massive revenue growth, increasing from $1 million in 2021 to $26 million in the last twelve months, aided by a few acquisitions. They have strong margins, and based on their current enterprise value, they are trading at just 9x EV/EBITDA. Given their 40% operating margins and rapid revenue growth, this valuation appears too low. They also have an order book worth $27 million and a couple of 3 year contracts worth a total of $66 million.

Risks

The company currently has a lot of accounts receivable and has been accused of accounting fraud by some investors. They recently hired Deloitte as their new auditor, likely to refute these claims.

They were also fined $200,000 by their exchange for multiple violations, including incomplete financial disclosures, issues with acquisition reporting, and a misleading press release. In short, this company isn’t professional, they even delayed Q2 earnings because of “the recent conclusion of the Swedish summer holiday season”.

Despite these challenges, the product and business are legit. If the company can get its act together, it will likely be a great investment.

If you’re interested in learning more about the product, I recommend reading Bibel Capital’s letter, which provides a in-depth comparison of Intellego’s product against competitors.

The information provided in this write-up is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. I am not a licensed financial advisor, and this analysis reflects my personal opinions and research. I may own, or plan to purchase, shares in the stock discussed. Do your own due diligence before making any investment decisions, as stock investing carries risks, including the loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult with a qualified financial professional before making any financial decisions.