Glasgow-based Beeks Financial Cloud Group plc, a niche cloud computing and connectivity provider for automated trading in futures and forex financial products, announced its intention to apply for admission to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

Beeks is raising £7 million through a placing of new and existing ordinary shares at a placing price of 50p, which will result in an expected market capitalisation of £24.5 million.

It is expected that admission will occur on or around November 27, 2017.

Cenkos Securities is acting as nominated adviser and broker.

“The Beeks platform has been specifically designed for latency sensitive automated trading environments and provides ‘on demand’ low latency computing resources to its clients through its direct connectivity to the leading financial exchanges across the world,” said Beeks.

“The company currently offers server infrastructure and connectivity to its clients which enables same day trading of forex and futures on financial exchanges and trading venues.

“Beeks’ clients include approximately 165 financial institutions and over 6,000 direct/indirect Virtual Private Server (“VPS”) clients worldwide.

“Over 30 Forex brokers, including some of the largest ranked globally by volume ‘white label’ the Beeks platform for use by their own clients.”

For the year to June 30, 2017, Beeks recorded revenue of £4 million, a 48.2% rise over the prior year.

Beeks Financial Cloud CEO Gordon McArthur said: “Beeks has established itself as a leading technology provider in automated trading in forex and futures financial products — a growing niche market.

“By accessing our cloud-based platform, which has direct connections to major trading centres around the world, our customers are able to trade quickly and at a fraction of the cost of building their own capability.

“We have proven our ability to grow the business organically and through acquisitions, which has all been self-funded to date.

“We believe there is a clear opportunity to accelerate this growth with additional funding and see the capital markets as an obvious choice, given the nature of our business. I am excited about the prospects that lie ahead.”

Beeks is headquartered in Glasgow and operates from nine operating datacentre locations in London, New Jersey, Chicago, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Beeks employs 28 people across the UK, US, Austria, and Japan and engages seven contractors in Indonesia, one in the US and one in Japan.