Vulcan Two (VUL) – UK ePharmacy buy-and-build
Vulcan Two is aiming to become the UK’s leading ePharmacy through a buy-and-build strategy. Share price is currently ~206p with a ~£56m market cap.
Free float is only around 16%, with institutions holding the majority. Octopus Investments owns ~16% and also backed the team during Vision Direct.
The management team is the main draw for me. Michael Kraftman and Brendan O’Brien were behind Vision Direct, which they grew and sold to EssilorLuxottica in 2016, delivering a 4.25× return for investors. Kraftman remained at the helm after the sale, helping grow the business to £100m+ revenue.
CFO Keith Butcher also has a strong track record, having been CFO of Paysafe during its growth from roughly £40m to a £2bn market cap.
Vulcan raised £40m at 200p, primarily from institutional investors, to fund acquisitions. Kraftman invested just over £1m and O’Brien around £500k.
Vulcan, soon to be Molecule, announced its rebrand last week and has completed three acquisitions:
• CloudRx – digital prescriptions and B2B pharmacy platform
• Webmed – digital pharmacy with a strong weight-loss offering
• Hyperdrug – established online veterinary pharmacy selling prescriptions, accessories and 1,000s of products
Combined 2025 revenue was £35.7m, while H1 2026 pro-forma revenue was £19.9m, implying an annualised run-rate of £39.8m.
The next stage is integrating the businesses, opening the new distribution centre and implementing the ERP system, with the aim of improving margins and creating further capacity for acquisitions.
For me, the interesting part is whether this team can replicate the Vision Direct playbook on a larger scale.
Interim results presentation below, along with the new combined website.
Interested to hear other people's thoughts on the company and the strategy.
https://youtu.be/HxwzfFj0FFE
https://molecule.co.uk