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Upcoming Proactive virtual event brings together a quartet of innovative companies across industries

Last updated: 15:00 17 Aug 2020 EDT, First published: 10:00 14 Aug 2020 EDT

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The virtual One2One Investor Forum event is an online variant of the popular conference format Proactive has run for more than a decade

Another clutch of small cap stocks will join Proactive’s Christine Corrado at the digital financial news organization’s virtual investor conference on Tuesday, August 18.

The virtual One2One Investor Forum event, which kicks off at 1pm EDT, is an online variant of the popular conference format Proactive has run for more than a decade and enables communication between investors and management from some of North America’s most cutting-edge businesses.

The four companies getting in on the action this week are plant-centric technology firm Calyxt Inc (NASDAQ:CLXT), online gaming company Esports Entertainment Group (NASDAQ:GMBL), IT and HR acquisition firm HIRE Technologies Inc (CVE:HIRE) and biopharmaceutical company Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp (NASDAQ:TNXP

Selective plant beeding at blazing speed

Calyxt is a plant-based technology company developing healthier specialty food ingredients and food crops using gene-editing technology. 

The Roseville, Minnesota-based company is essentially doing what farmers and botanists have been doing for hundreds of years: choosing the best crops and breeding them to make higher-yielding plants. Calyxt just does it faster, utilizing its TALEN gene-editing technology.

The Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nuclease — aka TALEN — allows for precision targeting of existing genes within a plant’s genome. That lets Calyxt scientists select desired characteristics and precisely engineer beneficial crop traits, making breeding possible at a fraction of the time it would normally take.

From there, the company gets the seeds to growers who are a part of its premium producer program. The crops are traceable right to the county in which they were grown, thanks to the company’s Identity Preserved Program that tracks seeds all the way to the final product.

Calyxt products include high fiber wheat, alfalfa, reduced browning potatoes, and high and low linolenic soybeans.

Esports gaming goes global

Esports Entertainment, based in Malta, has carved out a niche in esports wagering and 18+ gaming.

The company offers fantasy, pools, fixed odds and exchange style wagering on esports events in a licensed, regulated and secure platform to the global esports audience at its vie.gg website. Looking ahead, it plans to offer users from around the world the ability to participate in multiplayer mobile and PC video game tournaments for cash prizes.

Esports Entertainment holds a license to conduct online gambling and 18+ gaming on a global basis in Curacao, Kingdom of the Netherlands and maintains offices in Malta.

The company listed on the Nasdaq earlier this year and is targeting acquisitions in the industry. On August 11, Esports bought certain assets of FLIP Sports Limited, a mobile games studio working to change the way fans engage with live sports. 

“As the first US-based iGaming company to list on NASDAQ, we are in a great position to capitalize on the fragmented esports market and will continue to pursue acquisition opportunities,” CEO Grant Johnson said in a recent statement. “FLIP is set to be the latest example of the success of our roll-up strategy.”

Building a business consulting firm one acquisition at a time

HIRE Technologies Inc, formerly known as Bay Talent Group, is focused on acquiring information technology, staffing and human resources consulting firms. 

Its operating subsidiaries, Provision IT Resources Ltd and PTC Accounting and Finance Inc, are staffing firms that offer a range of professional recruitment services for accounting, finance, IT, office administration and HR.

To that end, the Toronto-based firm announced a private placement last week of C$2.5 million to fund new acquisitions and investments.

"Given how strong and resilient the revenues of the company have sustained during the pandemic, I'm very pleased to be earmarking the funds from this proposed financing to our M&A growth program,” HIRE CEO Simon Dealy told shareholders in a statement. “The company has a strong watchlist and it is looking forward to continuing its efforts to consolidate and modernize the recruitment marketplace."

In search of a coronavirus vaccine

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp, a New York-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, is working to discover, license, acquire and develop small molecules and biologics to treat and prevent human disease.

Its portfolio is primarily made up of central nervous system and immunology product candidates, including vaccines. In the wake of the current pandemic, that has come to include coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine candidates.

“The second quarter was highlighted by exciting progress for our lead immunology and central nervous system product candidates,” Tonix CEO Seth Lederman said in a recent statement. “We expect to have the first data from animal studies of our lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate, TNX-1800, in the fourth quarter of this year. TNX-1800 is a live attenuated vaccine based on our proprietary horsepox vector system that carries a gene encoding the Spike protein from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.”

This summer, Tonix announced research collaborations with Southern Research and Columbia University to study T-cell and antibody immune responses to the coronavirus in healthy volunteers who have recovered from COVID-19 or were exposed but remain asymptomatic.

Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel

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