Good morning, everybody. My name is Simon Tucker, CEO of SRT Marine Systems. For those of you that have not watched the webcast before, we have a few game rules. One is, I'm not going to make anybody inside. Number two, because of the nature of our customers, unfortunately, we can't be as open and give as much of a running commentary as some as you might want. As you'll understand, these are their security arrangements and private affairs. So, I'm apologies if I can't be as open as I would otherwise want. So let's first of all talk about the corporate activity that we have done in the last few weeks, where we raised a total of GBP 10.5 million of new equity.
Much of that came from a strategic investor, a company called Ocean Infinity, who approached us, on the basis that there is a lot of synergy between what we're doing. Ocean Infinity is a, very, clever company, that is focused on subsea, surveillance. Of course, in our world, maritime domain awareness doesn't just mean the surface, it also means subsea and near surface, if you can imagine, looking out from the coastline. On our roadmap, at the moment, we're focused on surface, but in the coming years, we already have on our roadmap that we would then look into, subsea and start to integrate that and also near surface. Near surface is the likes of drones, subsea is the likes of small submarines, divers, et cetera, coming into areas where they shouldn't do.
So there's a very interesting fit and a future fusion of technology and know-how that gives us a potential for quite a sort of substantial acceleration on our product development roadmap. The other benefit, of course, of raising our equity, that shores up our balance sheet. We are in a very large market, dealing with very large contracts and projects with governments. We've done this to date with capital that we've had available. I think we've done a grand job in doing that, developing what is the world's only integrated maritime surveillance system, truly integrated maritime surveillance system.
And so that additional capital enables us to take on more projects, meet certain capital ratios that UKEF, which is the UK government's export credit guarantee scheme, requires us to have to provide performance bonds and things for various projects. I know some of you and I've had a few emails about it, were a little bit unhappy that they were unable to participate for various reasons. We did try extremely hard to make sure that everybody could participate. This included an open offer through one of the public platforms, and we restricted that to only those who were existing shareholders.
But unfortunately, you can't please all the people all the time, and I apologize for those people that feel a bit aggrieved about it, but, I suppose the solace is that, you're now invested in a company with a very strong balance sheet, in a very good position and an interesting, commercial opportunity, to partner with, Ocean Infinity. I've been asked to give a little bit of information about Ocean Infinity. Well, they're a private company. They are considered to be the global leaders in, subsea, search, and, hydrographic surveys. And basically, what that means is interpreting and extracting intelligence from, sophisticated sensor systems that look underneath the water for various things.
They are extremely professional people, very straightforward, to deal with, and I think there is a very good match there in cultures, between the two businesses. And we very much welcome them as a passive shareholder in the business and also as a commercial partner going forward as well. And that's all I'm gonna say on them. So I'm very pleased with that, and I think it's an amazing thing for SRT. So moving on to our business. As you'll know, we have two divisions. We have a transponders division and we have a systems division. So on our transceivers business, we have our OEM business, where we sell transceivers into marine electronics companies that want to have AIS transponders. We're pleased with the progress on that.
We continue to be a reliable supplier of the AIS products that they need. Going forward, towards the end of this year, we will expand that product range into them to include a product called Nexus, which I'll talk about later on. The OEM business for us really is into the big, marine electronics companies who sell suites of marine electronics, typically to people buying new boats. It's not a revenue line that we can particularly influence directly. It is drawn by the market as people fit AIS. The trend today is if you buy a bigger boat, AIS is part of the standard suite, a little bit like when you buy a car, you know, you just get a radio with it now, whereas a few years ago, it was perhaps optional.
So we just see that continuing to grow in the long-term trend of AIS. On our em-trak division, which is where we sell, which is our own brand, and we sell directly to dealers and distributors. We now have well over 4,000 of those around the world, so we have a very powerful distribution base, predominantly into Europe and the United States, but it does extend globally. And we sell our own brand of transponders there. That is doing very well. We continue to grow that.
Again, we can have a little bit more influence because we grow the distribution, we educate our dealers, and but in general, the market is increasing on the retrofit, where people come back—come in and then say, "Okay, now I want to add an AIS transponder to my, to my suite of marine electronics." Excuse me. AIS is still at an early stage of penetration, so there's a lot more market to go. We're seeing repeat sales come back from some of the people that have bought five, six years ago, existing mandates that are in place. So for example, E.U. inland waterways, they're now sort of replacement cycle is now starting to kick in on the U.S. fisheries, the same. So, we're starting to see that effect on our, on our M-Track business.
But again, it's business as usual, reliable supplier to our dealers and distributors. Our products are known, M-Track is known as a provider of high quality product that just performs faultlessly and well. And so that just continues to drive that business. We then have our DAS division within transponders, and DAS started life as aids to navigation, which are transponders that go on to buoys to transmit their location and things. DAS is an evolution of that, where we provide kits, and we start to innovate around the sensors that go along with the core transponder. And a good example of this is the DAS Express product, which is a buoy and lantern monitoring device.
We developed a very clever sensor that sticks on the outside of any lantern, plugs into the transponder, they stick it on the buoy, and if you're a port authority or something, you can now see in your VTS center whether a buoy has detached and is off location, and if the lantern is faulty and needs attention. Why is that important? There's huge amounts of insurance risk in shipping. There's autonomous shipping coming up where they want to, if you will, digitize all the buoys, and we're, again, at the very early stages of that, and we've seen a very big increase in inquiries and revenue on our DAS business as a result of that innovation of bundling a solution around our transponders. We now have a dedicated salesperson pushing that globally.
We have some—I mean, one particular opportunity in the Middle East is north of $5 million, just for one particular port area. So we're very pleased with that. On the development side, the big focus for us is Nexus. That is now in its test phase. We've had sea trials, in fact, going on this week. And what do we mean by that? I mean, it can be things like what is the sound quality when the boat is doing 30 knots and people are trying to speak either through their mobile phones to Nexus or onto using the Nexus PTT itself. Those of you that have followed the story of Nexus knows that's a—it is a very significant development for us.
We soft launched it at METS in November, which is the Marine Electronics Trade Show, and much to our surprise, we had forward orders, which continued to come in pending us starting shipping in September this year. It is a very innovative product in that it allows a boat owner to use his mobile phone to communicate through VHF with all the other vessels around. So when you're boating, you want that convenience. Most people are now using mobile devices for navigation. Now, Nexus enables communications, marine communications to be integrated within that.
Sounds all very simple, but to actually do that in a very reliable, seamless fashion, making use also of the AIS information in there, so you can truly do what's called a DSC call conveniently is quite a technical feat and one hell of an innovation that we've pioneered and we've implemented within a high-quality product. Because it's our first foray into VHF voice radio and a big expansion for our transceivers division, we're very cautious about bringing that to market, which is why we decided to extend the test period, and that's why we delayed the launch of the shipping of it from the end of last year, December, through to September this year. But the product is now in the test phase, which is now refining and polishing it.
So we're very happy with that. So that is our transponders division. Moving on to systems. We have two active projects which we're finishing off. One is our Philippine fisheries project, where we expect to finish that off next month. And that's been going very well. We are doing a final, what we call, CONOP session with our customer, where we look at all the learnings over the last years to refine the settings and alerts and management systems and stuff that will sit within that system. And then that hopefully clears the way for then, Philippines to continue their very ambitious plans to expand fisheries monitoring to all fishing boats in the Philippines, and there are around 400,000 fishing boats there.
So a very substantial expansion in the coming years, we expect to see built around our system, or their system, because they now, now own their own system, which they bought from us. The second one is in the Middle East, where we've completed the first phase, and we're now just waiting for the notice to proceed on the next phase. I'm not allowed to name the country or anything further than that... They're very happy with the first phase. It won an award for the best implemented project, et cetera, et cetera. So we just wait for the government to do its process. We have all the equipment here ready. We spent the first six months of last year preparing all the equipment and all the procurement planning. So it's all sitting here waiting for that.
So within, you know, a week or so of receiving that notice to proceed, then we're immediately making the first delivery of equipment, which is an invoiceable and payable. And then we start the installation, and then as you install these these bits of equipment in blocks, once you've finished a certain block, then you do the next series of invoices and things. And that's how it works with all the system projects. We then have our project that we signed in May with the Indonesian Coast Guard. And we are now waiting for the U.K. government and the Indonesian government to conclude their project loan agreement. Again, I'm not going to give a running commentary on that, but that seems to be at the dotting i's and crossing t's stage.
So I would expect that to start pretty soon. As soon as that loan agreement is signed, then we will start the shipping. Again, we have been planning all the procurement, placing the procurement, the first equipment that will be delivered to enable the commencement of the project has already started arriving at our logistics center here in Somerset. And we will have that all in here by the end of January, ready to go as soon as the finance agreement between the UK government and the MOF in Indonesia is concluded. So we're all ready to go with that, and again, the first milestone is the delivery of the first lump of equipment, and then we proceed to then install that, and then there's further deliveries of equipment.
So we're in good stead with that. Separately to that, there is another pending contract in the Middle East, where we have been advised that they're proceeding with it, and are just waiting for a date to show up and sign the contract and crack on with that as well. We've always known that was gonna happen. It was just a question, as always, with our projects, for the governments to follow their processes. Just the same as our government have their processes, all these governments now are very professionally run and have their processes, and unfortunately, we are a bit of a passenger on that process.
Once they've decided to proceed, there is always a process of approvals and internal administration that they need to, that they need to complete, and we are bystanders with that. And what we do is just prepare ourselves for that. And we used to sort of see that slightly frustrating, and I know many of you find it extremely frustrating. But for us, we see that as a period of time where we have certainty, and so then we can do all our planning so that the minute the actual notice to proceeds arrive, we can immediately go. Separately to that, we have a number of other project opportunities in Southeast Asia, which one of which they've had their budget approved, and we expect to see tendering in the first six months, calendar six months of this year.
Further opportunities in the Middle East and also East Africa. So we see our pipeline, which is about GBP 1.4 billion, really starting to sort of move forward. Our focus for the next few weeks, obviously, is Southeast Asia and a particular country in the Middle East. And then we expect to see that these other projects come in later on in the year. In the meantime, on the development front and systems, we're now on version 13 of the SRT MDA System. This is a sort of never-ending work in progress as we improve data fusion, our intelligence of our AI analytics, our ability to use augmented reality to display that event, and enable the operator to understand it, and then all the action management that goes with that.
So once you've got an event, I don't know, you've detected illegal fishing or smuggling, how do they handle that within the system digitally? Do they set up an investigation? Do they instigate an action? And all of those are implemented in phases. We're constantly increasing that functionality. And as I said, we're on release 13.1 now. And typically, the cadence of that is once every six months, we do a new software release. And that is when new bits of major functionality are implemented. Obviously, that then is looking into the market as to what we're learning from our existing customers that they will want in the future, which then enables further upselling in the future. So on our systems business, we're busy with two existing projects.
We have two more that are about to start to progress, three more that are just about to kick off that we're prepared for, and then quite a few more sitting in the pipeline coming along. We are also gonna, for the first time, start to be a little bit more going forward on our marketing. We've achieved all of this with really no marketing at all. Those of you who are a little bit sharper will have seen our new website. That's just the start. There will be additional content, video content and stuff added to that, and we will also socialize that a little bit more using our customers in the regions, our reference customers in the regions of Asia-...
In the Middle East as lily pads, springboards into those markets. So countries that perhaps I haven't mentioned in the past becoming customers for SRT. So I think that hopefully gives you a good update. We're in a very secure cash position now, thankful to the recent fundraise. We have a very interesting commercial partner, which enables us to start to realize the subsea part of our roadmap, perhaps a little bit sooner. We have our transponders business, which is doing very well, and Nexus coming into next year. And on our systems business, it's never easy, but we have, you know, two existing projects that we're working through.
We have three pending ones, which are, we're just waiting for the processes to complete, and we have a whole bunch more going on, which is really, as you would expect, with the market for maritime surveillance. We take air traffic control for granted. Most countries have zero maritime traffic control, and this is the next, you know, next big thing, and thankfully, SRT took the decision to get into that despite, you know, minimal resources and eight years on, here we are as the, as the global leader. So, if you've got—I'm just gonna have a look at these questions, if anyone's asked me any questions to answer on the... Excuse me, while I do this. So one of the questions here, so one of the questions here is a breakdown of our systems project.
It's quite difficult, so the question is, how does the systems contract break down between civil engineering and software and hardware? That's quite a difficult thing to answer. I suppose typically, when you first do a project with a customer, about 50% of the value is civil engineering and infrastructure, onto which you put the sensor system. So things like radars and then the GeoVS networking, which is what enables all the data to fuse and be analyzed, and then all the GeoVS consoles, which plug into that. So about 50% of that is civil engineering, and then 50% of that value is then on the tech, on the actual surveillance system.
Once you've put the infrastructure in, that infrastructure will last for 30 years. You would expect or we, we expect a couple of things to happen. One is that each customer will seek to expand their system by adding more infrastructure and more systems. So rarely do you have a customer say, "Right, I want a national system all in one go." Although some of the international financing things that are available to us now might make that possible, for countries.
But we would expect every 10 years, that customers will then come back and say, "Okay, I want to replace the sensor systems and upgrade the GeoVS MDA system that is sitting on the infrastructure that we were supplied, that was originally supplied." So you would, in simplistic terms, you would expect that infrastructure to be able to recycle three times going forward. So I hope that kind of answers your question. I feel as I probably answered it quite poorly, but gives you a sort of rough feel, feel for that. And obviously, our margin is made on our tech.
What people are paying for is the software, and the software is our, you know, our, secret sauce, if you will, that enables data from lots of different sensors to be fused together, and then the customer to have the tools to slice and dice and extract what they want from that. So it is that, that they are paying for, and that is what we focus our development on. The other, sort of other questions, about Nexus. So Nexus is a product family and will come in different versions. There will be an OEM version, there will be an M-Track version, and that's not just a change in branding. The OEM version is a modified product specifically to enable the OEMs to integrate it with their chart plotters.
It will look different, and actually to the layman, you won't see that they are the same. So M-Track will have its own version of Nexus going to our 4,500-odd dealers, and OEMs will have a different product that enables a different form of integration into their ecosystem of marine electronics. I think I've answered the next question about other than money, what does Ocean Infinity bring to SRT? So I'm not gonna say any more on that. As I said, there were no. They're very straightforward, proper, nice people. There were no other conditions or anything. We would have announced that. I'm being asked here, you know, is there any board representation from that shareholder? No, there isn't.
So it's a very straightforward, no complicated investment, and there is a clear, logical commercial synergy between us that we are both gonna seek to exploit quickly. I'm being asked when do we expect further expansion in the Philippines? This is an ongoing project. If you look on the news stories with the president, they have a very ambitious plan over the next 10 years to expand fisheries monitoring to all their vessels. You know, the scale of the country, 9,500 islands, 2 million square kilometers of EEZ, over 400,000 fishing vessels. You know, there isn't a sort of month-by-month plan. It is a sort of more of a year-by-year plan, and so this is starting this year, we expect.
So they're finishing off their IMEMS system, which then gives them the tools to monitor those vessels, and then obviously, then they start to roll that out. I think that is all the questions I've been asked. So on that note, I will wish you all a very belated Happy New Year, and, if you've got any further questions, email me or any of the other directors. And I will say, anybody is invited to come to SRT at any time. Book times, come and see our demo system here, talk to some of the other people that are here, customer support and what have you. You are a part owner in this business, so do feel free to call us up and come and see us.
Thank you very much, and I'll speak to you in the near future.