Tel Aviv-based Vigilant, a technological leader in the fast-growing high-end CCTV arena, debuted on AIM today with a well-backed £10 million placing priced at 43p. Institutions hungrily snapped up around 23.3 million new shares, over 40 per cent of the enlarged share capital, giving Vigilant a debut market price tag of £24.3 million as well as the funds to ramp up its sales and marketing push.

Vigilant, fronted by chief executive Moshit Yaffe-Blushinsky, a lawyer and former Israeli naval officer, designs, makes and then sells sophisticated ‘intelligent’ security and surveillance solutions directly to systems integrators, dealers and distributors. Its systems, in place at Ben Gurion airport, Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent and via contracts with three London boroughs, allow customers to record, compress, store, review and analyse digital video footage collected from their security cameras.

Intriguingly, Vigilant’s ‘computer vision’ solutions automate parts of the surveillance process for operators through ‘machine learning’ – basically objects, such as bags and suitcases, can be tracked and directionally detected, with anomalies flagged up by the computer to thwart nasty incidents.

Over 95 per cent of sales are wrought from exports, and for the current calendar year, shop broker and adviser Shore Capital predicts a move to profits of US$500,000 on sales of between $8-9 million. The shares are certainly worth a look. Speculative buy.