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In the case of top-performing UK penny shares in 2025, Agronomics (LSE: ANIC) appears to be like laborious to beat with its 79% achieve thus far this yr.
However Carclo (LSE: CAR) is thrashing it in model, with a cracking 197% rise yr up to now. Let’s take a more in-depth look.
Time for progress?
Each these shares have seen higher occasions up to now. However as with penny shares generally, a low valuation normally tends to be the results of a beforehand common inventory going by way of a tricky spell. And for every of those two, I see a superb case for a renewed progress section within the subsequent few years.
Agronomics is a enterprise capital agency that invests in environmentally-friendly options to present meals manufacturing strategies. Fermentation, cell tradition progress… these are the sorts of issues we’re speaking about.
That enterprise has been within the information not too long ago after shares in US-based Past Meat soared 450% in per week. At one stage, they have been up greater than 1,000% earlier than falling again. In that case, it was triggered by ‘meme-stock’ traders who have been pumped by merchants on a Reddit discussion board.
A meme-stock spike like that doesn’t normally final lengthy. Nevertheless it does spotlight an underlying curiosity in various meals expertise.
Agronomics posted a loss in 2024. However the firm had £141m in invested property on the interim stage this yr — greater than twice the present market cap. And there was £10m in money and equivalents on the books.
Chair James Mellon spoke of “important technological and business progress, with a lot of our extra mature property attaining a few of the largest financing rounds within the sector“.
I can’t discover any earnings forecasts for the corporate proper now. However there’s one analyst recommending the inventory with a 14.9p value goal — greater than double the 7p on the time of writing.
Plastic, unbelievable
Carclo, in the meantime, makes plastics — however they’re no atypical plastics. No, we’re speaking about supplies utilized in medical units, telecoms, aerospace, and for different high-tech wants.
So what occurred in 2025? The corporate turned a reported lack of £3.4m final yr right into a revenue. At £0.9m it’s nonetheless solely a small revenue. Nevertheless it got here from £16.4m in underlying EBITDA. And the outcomes included £19.1m in operational money technology.
Wanting ahead, the board mentioned it expects “to proceed this optimistic trajectory by way of FY26 with continued margin enlargement and optimistic money technology“.
This sounds prefer it is perhaps fairly thrilling, however I see one clear warning. This can be a small firm in a distinct segment market. And I’m actually unsure what the dangers from competitors are like. It makes me need to dig a bit deeper into no matter defensive traits the enterprise might need.
Two for the portfolio?
Investing in very small, high-tech firms at penny-share costs is at all times a threat. And there’s additional hazard once we actually haven’t seen a dependable long-term revenue stream creating.
However I can see points of interest for progress traders right here who count on some threat. As a small a part of a diversified progress portfolio, I believe each of those are value severely contemplating.
