ASX Tech: IDZ launches hyper-realistic racing simulation at new FREAK entertainment centre

IDZ opens fourth FREAK entertainment centre
BrainChip nabs four-year MegaChips licence agreement
NXT to become strategic partner in Soverign Cloud Holdings

Indoor Skydive Australia (ASX:IDZ)

The virtual reality player was up 22.2% in early morning trade.

The company has just announced that its opened its fourth FREAK entertainment centre in Macquarie shopping centre in Sydney.

FREAK Macquarie includes FREAK’s flagship free roam VR ‘Arena’, with games Arizona Sunshine Arena and Ghost Patrol. The venue will also feature Assassins Creed themed VR escape rooms, and a VR Arcade.

The Macquarie venue also launches FREAK’s new motor racing simulator product, FREAK Drive, which the company says provides ultra-realistic racing simulation.

Circuits have been laser scanned into the game, providing sub millimeter accuracy of the tracks, with the physical simulators providing full motion allowing players to feel acceleration, braking and cornering, IDZ said.

“After a brief pause due to Covid, it is great to be able to bring Freak Entertainment to Macquarie Centre in time for the holidays,” CEO Wayne Jones said.

“The high demand for our products in major shopping centres continues to increase and we look forward to announcing the next location to be opened in early 2022.

The company plans to roll out FREAK Drive to the Penrith and Bondi venues prior to December school holidays providing incremental venue capacity.

This morning’s gain follows another sharp move higher last week after IDZ announced military veteran Mark Smethurst had joined the board as a non-executive director.

BrainChip (ASX:BRN)

The AI chip producer was up 12% today.

The company has announced that MegaChips – a pioneer in the Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) industry – has entered into a four-year license agreement for the BrainChip Akida IP.

MegaChips will be able to supply solutions and applications that leverage the revolutionary Akida technology to high growth markets such as automotive, IoT, cameras, gaming and industrial robotics, the company said.

BrainChip sales and marketing lead Rob Telson said by providing Akida’s on-chip learning and ultra-low power Edge AI capabilities as an integrated technology in MegaChips’ ASIC solutions, “we are able to deliver a cascading array of benefits to cutting-edge products that not only ensure power efficiency without compromising outcomes,, but can run autonomously for incremental learning without the need to go back and forth to the cloud.”

In exchange for the IP and certain engineering services, the company will receive an upfront license fee and additional payments over the term of the agreement.

BrainChip said it’s also eligible to receive additional compensation based on engineering efforts, software support fees and royalties associated with MegaChip’s customer engagements.

NEXTDC (ASX:NXT)

The data centre services player was down slightly in early morning trade at 0.1%.

The company announced it would become a new strategic investor and partner in Sovereign Cloud Holdings (ASX:SOV) with SOV conducting a $12.4 million placement to NEXTDC at $0.50 per share.

This represents an 18.0% discount to the closing price of $0.61 on Friday, 19 November 2021.

“NEXTDC has an in-depth understanding of the underlying cloud market dynamics gained through our national network of premium data centre facilities across Australia,” NEXTDC CEO and managing director Craig Scroggie said.

“Following the injection of growth capital into AUCloud, we believe Phil and the team are very well positioned to benefit from the increasing trend towards sovereign IaaS cloud and high security solutions.”

Sensera (ASX:SE1)

Down 18.8% today was semiconductor player Sensera.

The company announced the proposed sale of its MicroDevices business to Abiomed (NASDAQ:ABMD) – a leading medical devices company and Senera’s major customer – for US$7.5 million.

The transaction is subject to shareholder approval at the AGM on 23 December, and upon completion Sensera will no longer have an operating business.

Executive director Ralph Schmitt said the decision was made following the announcemnt of NanoDX earlier this year to pursue a design that did not include MEMs.

Schmitt also flagged challenges in customer demand and meeting Abiomed’s orders, due to component shortages and supply chain constraints.

“It became obvious that due to the recent customer losses, that breakeven would not be met in the short term,” he said.

“Our process had us evaluate multiple options but it became clear the highest value was with an existing customer.

“Based on the situation, we believe we were able to secure the best possible outcome for shareholders and allow us to move forward.”

If shareholders approve the Transaction, the company will have 6 months from the date of signing the transaction agreement (18 November 2021) to find an alternative business or to consider other options.