Sign Up NowThis Month's Tiny Gems - July 2016

eXp World Holdings Inc. (EXPI)
Lucas Energy, Inc. (LEI)
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI)
NanoViricides, Inc. (NNVC)
Net Element, Inc. (NETE)

 

 

 

eXp World Holdings Inc. (EXPI)

 

eXp World Holdings Inc. (EXPI) is the holding company for a number of businesses, most notably eXp Realty LLC, the Agent-Owned Cloud Brokerage™. eXp Realty is a full-service real estate brokerage offering 24/7 access to a suite of collaborative tools, training features and socialization channels designed to meet the unique needs of real estate brokers and agents. By creating a fully-immersive, cloud office environment for real estate professionals, eXp effectively reduces agents' overhead, increases their profits and provides greater service value to consumers.

 

Through eXp Realty's innovative platform, agents and brokers are afforded the opportunity to earn equity in exchange for production and contributions to company growth. Additionally, eXp features an aggressive revenue sharing program that pays agents a percentage of the gross commission income earned by fellow professionals they recruit into the company. The result is a shared ownership community featuring a synergistic and collaborative group of forward-thinking, entrepreneurial professionals. With the emergence of the internet as the most powerful property marketing and advertising medium, eXp's internet and cloud technologies have helped thousands of consumers find, buy or sell homes without the need for a brick and mortar real estate office.

 

Since its launch in October 2009, eXp Realty has experienced rapid growth, with brokerage service now offered in 35 U.S. states and Alberta, Canada. In February 2016, the company officially welcomed its 1,000th real estate professional into its family of agent-owners, up from just 467 agents at the end of 2014. Following this achievement, the Agent-Owned Cloud Brokerage claimed a spot among the top 50 real estate brokerages in the United States based on agent count, according to data from RISMEDIA's 2015 PowerBroker 500 Report.

 

Similarly, eXp Realty generated record financial results during 2015. Following the launch of two new initiatives – including an online lead generation program and a stock compensation plan – the company achieved a 71 percent year-over-year increase in net revenues, recording $22.87 million for the year. As it continues to expand its footprint across North America, eXp Realty will look to leverage its unique agent-owned business model to continue attracting driven, entrepreneurial agents and real estate industry leaders while promoting sustainable financial growth.

 

 

 

Lucas Energy, Inc. (LEI)

 

Lucas Energy, Inc. (LEI) is a growth-oriented, independent oil and gas company developing significant acreage positions in the Eagle Ford and Austin Chalk resource plays in South Texas. Since mid-2014, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped from over $100 to less than $50, bottoming at about $26 in February of this year. The result has been more than 80 bankruptcies in the energy sector over the past 18 months, with survival becoming the primary objective for industry operators.

 

Leaning on the experience of its management team, Lucas Energy has survived the recent downturn in energy prices while simultaneously positioning itself to capitalize on the current market environment and expand its national footprint. As part of these efforts, the company announced a purchase agreement to acquire working interests in producing properties and undeveloped acreage in two largely contiguous acreage blocks in the Mid-Continent region. This proposed acquisition, which includes assets from 21 different entities and individuals, is currently under review by the Securities and Exchange Commission, with closing expected to occur by October 2016.

 

"While the past year was another difficult one for the energy industry, it afforded our Company with multiple opportunities, with the most significant being our agreement to acquire the working interests in certain oil and gas properties in Texas and Oklahoma from Segundo Resources," Anthony C. Schnur, chief executive officer of Lucas Energy, added in a recent news release.

 

Moving forward, the completion of the Mid-Continent acquisition will play a key role in Lucas Energy's growth strategy. The company anticipates a significant increase in daily production stemming from this transaction that will effectively redirect its strategic vision. To better reflect this updated vision, Lucas Energy has also announced plans for a rebranding name change to Camber Energy, a name which the company believes better reflects the inclining production rates typically observed with assets in the Hunton formation of Central Oklahoma's Mid-continent reserves.

 

Outside of this planned acquisition, Lucas Energy's primary development activities are located in the Eagle Ford Shale trend, which is recognized as one of the most active plays in the United States. With the precipitous drop in oil prices over the past year and a half, activity at the company's Eagle Ford assets has been limited. However, advances in drilling and completion technologies continue to decrease drilling costs, and Lucas Energy will continue to review opportunities to accelerate development of its five million barrels of proved reserves through direct development or strategic partnerships.

 

Though revenues are down across the board in the oil and gas industry, Lucas Energy paints a promising picture for the future with a three-pronged long-term strategy designed to navigate the prolonged down cycle. First, the company intends to continue developing its acquired and existing assets by working closely with its lender and entering agreements with institutional investors. Second, Lucas Energy will look to capitalize on the down cycle through the completion of bolt-on acquisitions that offer significant value with minimal upfront costs. Finally, the company will continue to pursue material acquisitions in order to create a marketable asset portfolio with expanded drilling inventory.

 

 

 

Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI)

 

Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) is a technology driven travel company focused on leveraging resources to become a significant presence in the fastest growing sector of the $1.3 trillion travel and tourism market. The company's flagship brand, NextTrip.com, is the industry's first and only real-time booking engine that features alternative lodging (vacation home rentals, resort residences and unused timeshare inventory), as well as a full selection of airlines, hotels, cruises, rental cars, tours and concierge services. These features are combined into a single, easy-to-use platform that gives travelers complete real-time control when planning and booking their vacations.

 

NextTrip.com takes an integrated approach to the needs of travelers by combining multiple booking solutions into a highly intuitive real-time booking platform. Since its launch in February 2016, NextTrip has already grown to more than 250,000 units of vacation rental inventory. Monaker currently has roughly 1 million additional alternative lodging units under contract that will soon be added to the platform. This will place NextTrip among the top three largest vacation rental inventories and rival industry peers, Airbnb and HomeAway, in the rapidly expanding alternative lodging market. Unlike the competition, which book by request which can take hours or days before a lodging owner confirms, NextTrip's platform books in real-time, similar to online hotel bookings.

 

Most NextTrip listings are in desirable locations in the U.S., the EU and the Caribbean with about 20% exclusive listings. Monaker expects rapid exclusive listing growth because, unlike the competition, Monaker doesn't charge a sign-up fee, just a commission upon booking. The competition charges both. Monaker even has a proprietary solution to unlock Timeshare and Fractional Share properties as rental inventory.

 

Through strategic partnerships and acquisitions Monaker is now positioned to be a major player in the travel and alternative lodging sector. In addition Monaker is also the parent to Maupintour and Voyage TV.

 

In business for 65 years, Maupintour still leads the tour industry in the creation of outstanding, unique itineraries and has the highest repeat rate in the tour industry. Maupintour's upscale luxury services create a unique blend with the various product offerings of NextTrip. Voyage TV has thousands of hours of travel footage shot in over 30 countries worldwide. These 15,000 video clips of hotels, resorts, cruise, and destination activities are a treasure trove for vacation travel marketing.

 

With an established portfolio of travel brands, and a proven record acquiring, consolidating and integrating companies, Monaker is building a diverse and exciting foundation to drive the company's future. According to data from the U.S. Travel Association, direct spending on leisure travel by domestic and international travelers topped $650 billion in 2015. When combined with the fact that roughly 64 percent of travel companies are still considered small businesses, Monaker's all-inclusive approach to vacation booking through NextTrip and Maupintour strategically positions it for sustainable growth moving forward.

 

Monaker is headquartered in South Florida with offices in California. The company is led by a seasoned management team with decades of applicable industry experience. Monaker's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Kerby has over 18 years of experience in the media and travel industries, as well as 10 years of experience in the financial industry.

 

 

 

NanoViricides, Inc. (NNVC)

 

Connecticut-based NanoViricides, Inc. (NNVC) is a development stage company working on what it considers to be the next great advance in immunotherapeutics: nanoviricide biomimetic technology.

 

A nanoviricide is a unique antiviral agent designed to fool a virus into attaching to it in the same way that a virus normally attaches to the receptors of a cell surface. Once the virus is attached, the nanoviricide wraps around the virus, causing the virus to lose its surface proteins, which are used to bind to cells. The nanoviricide goes on to dismantle and destroy the virus without immune system assistance. What virus a nanoviricide goes after is programmed into the nanoviricide.

 

The company is developing virus-specific nanoviricide drug candidates against influenza, HIV/AIDS, cold sores and herpes infection, viral eye diseases, and dengue viruses, and its candidates are demonstrating high levels of drug effectiveness. Product candidates are based on TheraCour® technology, invented and developed by company president and founder Anil R. Diwan, PhD. The company holds an exclusive, worldwide license to this technology for its antiviral drugs. The technology is protected by two broad international patent applications that cover compositions of matter, processes of manufacture, methods of use, and fields of use. Additional patent applications are expected, and NanoViricides intends to patent each drug separately, as well.

 

NanoViricides works with independent researchers at leading academic, private, and government laboratories, performing tests against viral targets, and providing unbiased data on drug candidates. In addition to drug development, the company has put together a world-class team to design, build, and validate a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility for the production of human clinical batches of nanoviricide drug substances.

 

 

 

Net Element, Inc. (NETE)

 

Net Element, Inc. (NETE) is a global, technology-driven company specializing in mobile payments and value-added transactional services. In the U.S., the company's primary focus lies on increasing its transactional revenue through the introduction of innovative, payments-as-a-service transactional platforms to small to medium enterprise (SME) clients. Net Element's flagship platform, Aptito, accomplishes this goal by way of a proprietary, cloud-based point of sale solution designed to deliver efficient operation in an affordable and scalable package.

 

Initially, Aptito was targeted exclusively at the restaurant industry, offering innovative features such as digital menus and mobile ordering designed to promote faster service while minimizing mistakes. In March, the company expanded upon this solution when it released Aptito for retail stores. Currently available on Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iOS platform, Aptito Retail Point of Sale allows retailers to improve in-store performance by seamlessly tracking purchasing habits, managing inventory and minimizing transaction times. The platform can also be integrated with a number of peripherals, such as a fully integrated cash drawer, thermal receipt printer, barcode scanner, barcode printer and EMV-compliant point of sale acceptance terminal, based on the unique needs of individual retailers.

 

By expanding its presence in the point of sale software industry, Net Element is well-positioned to capitalize on forecast market growth related to the proliferation of multi-channel shopping and updating of legacy systems. Despite the continued emergence of ecommerce, retail spending continues to dominate the U.S. buying landscape. According to a report by Javelin Strategy & Research (http://dtn.fm/7Bd6c), retail point of sale purchases are expected to reach $4.2 trillion by 2018. Alongside this growth, demand for mobile point of sale platforms is expected to skyrocket. According to 451 Research (http://dtn.fm/J94ge), the global installed base of mobile point of sale devices is on course to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 32 percent from 2015 to 2019, expanding from 13 million devices to just over 54 million.

 

"In a highly competitive retail industry, we recognize that now more than ever, smaller retailers must focus on providing their customers with the best in-store experience to improve retention, attract new customers and sustain repeat spending," Oleg Firer, chief executive officer of Net Element, stated in a news release. "Aptito Retail POS solution gives retailers insight into their customer's behavior and streamlines payment processes, allowing merchants to focus on their business."

 

On the international stage, Net Element is focused on delivering its omni-channel payments platform to emerging markets with diverse banking, regulatory and demographic conditions. In March, the company launched Aptito in Russia in an effort to capitalize on the country's forecast growth of information technologies. According to a joint study by the Association of Computer Equipment Companies and McKinsey, growth of information technologies in the Russian market is expected to be roughly 25 percent per year, climbing to $154 billion by 2020. This move continues to highlight Net Element's commitment to establishing itself on the global stage.