Friday Takeaway—delving a little deeper into UK small caps
This will delve a little deeper on individual companies and focus on non-house stocks under £200m market capitalisation to raise awareness
Alphabetically arranged
Share prices and market capitalisations taken from Alpha Terminal from the current price on the day of publication.
Top three shareholders are taken from the websites of the companies that we are writing about, unless there is a more up to date TR-1 notification RNS announcement.
Trading ahead of expectations not in the valuations of these digital businesses
DNM AI Answering
DBOX Royal Audience
Dianomi 13.50p £4.05m (DNM.L)
Last Reported in Friday Takeaway, 23 May 2025 at 27.5p
Financial Calendar:
Year End December, Finals reported 19 May and to be reported in May 2026, Interim results to June, last reported 24 September
Three Main Shareholders:
Scobie Dickinson Ward 18.6%, BGF Nominees Limited 14.9%, Raphael Queisser 12.1%
Key Investment Points:
Cash of £5.6m with losses narrowing, Media Platform reboot, New AI product
The provider of digital advertising services to affluent clients in the Business, Finance and Lifestyle sectors, updated on trading for the FY December 2025, this week on 18 March. This follows last year’s surprise profits warning due to reduced digital advertising spending by cautious clients. The Company reduced its cost base appropriately to maintain profit margins.
The recent trading update reported slightly lower revenues at £27.4m compared to £28.0m in 2024, but in line with the subdued market expectations. There is an improvement in gross margins from 25.5% as gross profit rose to £7.5m from £7.3m. The EBITDA loss is now expected to be unchanged at around £0.3m, which is far better than earlier expectations as there was a return to profits in H2. The net cash is £5.7m compared to £8.8m.
Dianomi operates a full-spectrum digital AI advertising platform that matches brand messages with relevant content and audiences. This is used by over 350 advertisers, including blue chip names such as Aberdeen, Invesco, Bank of America and Charles Schwab, with access to an international audience of around 500m readers per month through its partnerships with over 250 premium publishers, including Reuters, CNN Business and WSJ. Following successful trials, the partnerships were expanded with CNN News and Associated Press adding additional titles to its existing footprint across both publishers' wider sites. The focus is to fully leverage this and build momentum as the year progresses.
The services are being developed with a new AI media infrastructure company Dappier as announced on 16 March. The partnership is to produce ‘agentic’ advertising opportunities, which is an advanced form of AI focused on autonomous decision-making and action. The first product to be launched is an advertising monetised AI-powered financial answers engine designed for financial publisher websites. This is an opportunity to capture and monetise financial conversations directly on the clients’ own sites rather than losing audiences to external AI platforms. The launch is to be with the Company’s existing distribution across the premium financial advertising market and is expected to win new publisher partnerships. Dappier's conversational AI answers network and monetisation technology can be used on broader range of sectors.
Hybridan Comment: Trading seems to have stabilised, with increasing margins and a highly complementary AI product is to be launched. The market capitalisation is covered by the cash and prospects are clearly progressing.
Digitalbox 4.25p £5.01m (DBOX.L)
Last Reported in Friday Takeaway 12 September 2025 at 4.80p
Financial Calendar:
Year End December, Finals reported 25 March and to be reported 31 March 2026, Interims to June, reported 23 September
Three Main Shareholders:
Storia Credit Holdings (Europe) 20.03%, Digitalbox PLC Director & Related Holdings 18.64%, Downing 16.73%
Key Investment Points:
Operational & AI Leverage, Earnings Enhancing Acquisition, Low rating
Digitalbox is a media owner established in 2019 that is 100% digital and mobile focused. It owns the Entertainment Daily, The Daily Mash, The Tab, The Poke, The Royal Insider and TV Guide and will report finals to December 2025 on 31 March. There is an increasing reliance on mobiles to reach audiences, and the mobile advertising market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.9% to $640bn by 2030.
After losses in financial years 2023 and 2024, a strategic review was completed in 2025 and concluded that there is a valid growth opportunity by leveraging its robust operating model and launching new compelling content sites to drive increased advertising sales. The FY December 2025 trading update reported on 26 January set expectations for EBITDA to be comfortably ahead of market consensus of c.£330k, with improved margins on the back of a more efficient H2 cost base. Revenue for the year is expected to be c.£3.9m and the Company had c.£1.8m in gross cash.
AI is impacting publishers and Digitalbox's broad diversity of distribution channels and strong levels of audience engagement is a key strength. Organic growth is being helped by the acquisition of the Media Chain Group's digital assets as announced on 14 March 2025 and as a result, DBOX has over 26 million followers within its own social media channels. This audience reach will the leverage platform and development of the existing titles, as well as the acquired The Royal Insider, which is expected to be earnings enhancing in FY 2025.
The CEO James Carter is known for growing FHM from a fledgling fashion focus magazine to a global network of 32 editions and value at a peak of over £250m. The intense focus is on new market sectors, specifically reality TV, soaps, and the UK Royal family-as the strengthened platform has contributed to the ongoing organic expansion and revenue generation. The December 2026 EBITDA forecast from Alpha Terminal is for £0.86m, which we calculate gives a lowly EV/EBITDA of 3.6x, with revenue forecasted on Alpha Terminal at £5.12m for FY 2026.
Hybridan Comment: The market capitalisation is marginally lower since our last comments, which seems to ignore the increasing business momentum.
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