Another busy week, and one which has given me an opportunity to step back and reflect on just how much we have achieved since we listed on 25 April 2025. When we came to market, there were plenty of people who thought that building a Bitcoin treasury company in the UK simply wasn’t possible. I believed otherwise.
I think it is sometimes easy, particularly when you are working inside a business every day, to move from one project to the next without properly reflecting on the progress that has already been made. There is always another objective, another piece of work and another opportunity in front of us. That is certainly how I tend to think, but occasionally it is worth looking backwards before looking forwards.
A lot has happened since April 2025 and, while there have been many milestones along the way, I wanted to pick out a few of the most significant.
We listed on 25 April 2025 with a clear strategy and shortly afterwards we released our 10-Year Plan. At the time, the concept of a UK-listed company pursuing a Bitcoin treasury strategy at scale was still new. There were plenty of questions about whether the model could be successfully executed in the UK, whether the capital markets would support it and whether investors would understand what we were trying to build. Those were all reasonable questions. Our job was not to argue about whether it could be done, but to execute and demonstrate that it could.
Today, we are the UK’s largest Bitcoin treasury company and one of the top 30 Bitcoin treasury companies globally. We have raised approximately £250 million since listing to support the continued execution of our strategy and today we hold 2,747 Bitcoin in our treasury. Those numbers obviously matter, but I think the infrastructure we have built around them matters just as much.
From the beginning, our ambition has never simply been to buy Bitcoin. We have been building a public company capable of accessing capital in different ways, allocating that capital intelligently, growing our operating businesses and developing a capital structure that can support our ambitions over the long term. That takes time and it also requires us to keep innovating.
In June 2025, we launched the first ATM facility for a Bitcoin treasury company in the UK. This was an important development for us. From the beginning, we have wanted to build a capital structure that gives us flexibility and provides us with different options as we execute our 10-Year Plan. Different market conditions create different opportunities, and what works particularly well at one point in a market cycle may not be the most appropriate source of capital at another point. Optionality matters. The ATM was another first for Smarter Web and an important step in developing that flexibility, giving us another tool that we could use selectively when we believed it made sense for shareholders.
In February 2026, we reached another major milestone when we uplisted to the London Stock Exchange. This was something we had been working towards for some time and represented an important next stage in the development of Smarter Web. From listing in April 2025 to joining the London Stock Exchange less than a year later was, I think, a significant achievement for Smarter Web. It also demonstrated something that I think is important about the way we are building Smarter Web. We are ambitious, we set ourselves big objectives and then we work incredibly hard to achieve them.
February was also the month in which we completed our first acquisition, Squarebird Agency. Our operating businesses are an important part of Smarter Web and our 10-Year Plan. While much of the external attention naturally focuses on our Bitcoin treasury strategy, we have continued to grow the operating side of the business at the same time.
I have written about this several times recently because I think it is important that shareholders understand the model we are building. Smarter Web is not simply a Bitcoin treasury. We are an operating technology business with a Bitcoin treasury. Our operating businesses bring revenues, customers, talented people, expertise and cash flows. That also give us capabilities across areas such as technology, web development, marketing and digital strategy that are directly relevant to building Smarter Web itself.
Over time, I want those businesses to become larger. I want us to grow organically, acquire more good businesses when the valuation, timing and structure make sense, and for the different parts of Smarter Web to become increasingly valuable together. I do not see growing our operating businesses, making acquisitions and developing our Bitcoin treasury as competing objectives. They are different parts of the same strategy and, if we execute successfully, each can make the others stronger.
None of these milestones happen without great people. We have continued to strengthen the team at PLC level, but the people working across our operating businesses are equally important to what we are building. A special mention this week to Alex Wrench, who runs Smarter Web Operations, and Nick Bird, who runs Squarebird Agency, as well as everyone working alongside them.
While we have been building the treasury, our operating businesses have continued to grow. That can sometimes receive less attention because a Bitcoin purchase, capital raise or capital markets announcement is naturally more visible to shareholders. But every day there are people speaking to clients, winning work, delivering projects, improving our services, developing new ideas and helping to build stronger businesses. There is a huge amount of work that goes on behind the scenes every week, and I am very grateful to everyone who continues to contribute to our progress.
The PLC does not exist separately from those businesses. We are one company, with one long-term objective: to build an increasingly valuable company for our shareholders.
And that brings me to Friday’s announcement.
There are specific rules and regulatory requirements around new listings and financial promotions, which mean that I am limited in what we can say publicly about the proposed Preferred Shares beyond information contained in formal announcements. I appreciate that shareholders will naturally have questions, and there will hopefully be an opportunity to explain more as the process develops and as we are permitted to do so. For now, I think my quote in Friday’s announcement summarises the development well:
“Today’s announcement marks an important step for The Smarter Web Company. Subject to approval of the Prospectus by the FCA, launch, and all conditions to the Possible IPO being satisfied, we expect the proposed Preferred Shares to be the first of their kind in the UK: a pounds sterling-denominated, London Stock Exchange Main Market-listed perpetual preferred share issued by a UK-incorporated commercial company with a Bitcoin treasury strategy. We have been working towards the Possible IPO for some time, and I am very pleased that we are now able to share this exciting development with our Shareholders.”
“The proposed Preferred Shares are designed to provide an additional source of long-term capital, broaden the range of investors able to invest in the Company and further diversify our capital structure. We believe that by providing a differentiated investment option alongside our Ordinary Shares, we can create a capital structure that gives us greater flexibility to pursue our long-term ambitions through different market conditions.”
“This is a natural next step in our 10-Year Plan and supports our ambition to build a stronger, more adaptable business, combining the growth of our operating businesses with the continued development of our Bitcoin treasury strategy to create long-term value for our investors.”
There is not a great deal I can add to that today. What I can say is that the announcement should be viewed in the context of what we have been building since April 2025. The listing, the 10-Year Plan, the development of our Bitcoin treasury, the ATM, the move to the London Stock Exchange, our first acquisition, the continued growth of our operating businesses, the strengthening and simplification of our balance sheet and now the proposed Preferred Shares are not isolated projects. They are pieces of the same strategy.
Our objective is to build a stronger, more flexible and more valuable company over the long term. That means having different options available to us and being able to allocate capital intelligently through different market conditions. I think one of the things we have demonstrated since listing is our willingness to keep developing the model rather than assuming that what worked yesterday will necessarily be the best approach tomorrow. The Bitcoin treasury sector itself is developing incredibly quickly, as are the capital markets around it, and I want Smarter Web to continue being at the forefront of that development in the UK.
I am incredibly proud of what Smarter Web has achieved in a relatively short period of time, but perspective is important. We are still at an early stage of our 10-Year Plan. Or, as I have often said, we are only just getting started.
When we published that plan in April 2025, it was deliberately a 10-Year Plan rather than a one-year or two-year plan. We are trying to build something that can become considerably larger over time, and businesses like that are not built through one announcement, one capital raise, one Bitcoin purchase or one acquisition. They are built piece by piece, week by week, month by month and year by year.
We have continued to strengthen Smarter Web, grow our operating businesses, develop our Bitcoin treasury strategy, expand the capital markets tools available to us and build a team capable of delivering on our ambitions. There will inevitably be periods when markets are supportive and periods when they are more difficult. There will be weeks when shareholders see several announcements and weeks when much of what we are doing remains behind the scenes. Our responsibility is to keep executing through all of them.
I believe we are well positioned for the future, and I am particularly pleased that we are now able to share some of what we have been working on in more detail. There is much more that I want us to achieve and, for now, we keep building.
As always, thank you to our shareholders, our team, our advisers, our partners and everyone who continues to support us on the journey. Your support is genuinely appreciated.
CEO of The Smarter Web Company, the largest UK Bitcoin treasury company. With 25 years of profitable Internet experience. A developer with creative passion and marketing skills that work.
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