Minerals business Fox Marble has begun life on the Alternative Investment Market and raised fresh funds in the process.

Fox Marble, which has licences to mine in five marble quarries in Kosovo, has raised £9.65 million and joined AIM.

The business has raised the capital through the placing of 32.95 million new ordinary shares at a price of 20p and the issue of convertible loan notes of up to £3.06 million.

The company now intends to commence quarrying operations initially at two of its quarries as well as building a processing plant and developing a sales network for the marble.

Two further quarries will be opened in the first half of 2014, with equipment funded from operating cash flows.

The business believes that it will only incur small operations costs due to both the low-cost Kosovan environment and the semi-automated process associated with marble processing.

Christopher Gilbert, CEO at Fox Marble, comments, ‘The start of share dealings on AIM is a major step in the development of Fox Marble.

‘I would like to welcome all our new shareholders and look forward to keeping our investors informed as Fox Marble makes rapid progress towards production and processing of the highest quality marble.’