The John Teeling-chaired Botswana Diamonds has raised £868,000 (€969,000) from directors and existing subscribers with funds to be used to progress the Vutomi project.

The funds were raised through the placing of 79,484,300 new ordinary shares.

Botswana issued 31,244,300 ordinary shares of 0.25p each at the exercise price of 0.85 pence per new share for a total of £265,576. Of this the directors subscribed £124,000.

This comes after Mr Teeling, James Finn and David Horgan were among those to subscribe for the placing of 43,440,000 shares to raise £543,000. The directors subscribed for 2,400,000, 1,200,000 and 1,200,000 new ordinary shares respectively at 1.25p per share to raise £60,000.

“Botswana Diamonds has exciting projects. We are happy to invest in them,” said Mr Teeling.