Preston-based Inspired Energy plc on Friday morning announced a proposed sale of new shares to raise up to £35 million to fund its acquisition of the remaining 60% of Ignite Energy Ltd and to fund further acquisition opportunities.

Inspired Energy describes itself a “consultant for energy procurement, utility cost optimisation and legislative compliance to corporate energy consumers in the UK and Ireland.”

By Friday afternoon, Inspired Energy said it raised £10.7 million through a firm placing of 71,396,800 new ordinary shares and conditionally raised £19.3 million through a conditional placing of 128,603,200 new ordinary shares.

The company also said it is proposing to raise up to an additional £5 million via an open offer made to qualifying shareholders of up to 33,445,183 shares.

Inspired Energy CEO Mark Dickinson said: “We are delighted to have received strong levels of support in our fundraise from new and existing investors with the firm placing financing the acquisition of the outstanding 60% interest of Ignite.

“This represents an important milestone in Inspired Energy’s strategic focus, accelerating the group’s optimisation services offering, enabling us to develop market share in the £857 million corporate optimisation services market.

“Inspired Energy will now be able to leverage off its existing platform to cross-sell accelerate cross sells into its customer base, maximising the commercial overlap between the optimisation and assurance services market.

“The group is also pleased to include an open offer for our supportive retail shareholders, which when combined with the conditional placing from institutional investors will enable the group to take advantage of its active pipeline of potential acquisition targets which the directors believe are capable of being executed in the near term.”