It has taken a long time, but it appears that Blackbird (LON: BIRD) is starting to reap the benefits of both its technology and its marketing initiatives. Blackbird remains loss making, although there is plenty of cash in the bank to finance investment.
The developer of real-time video editing technology can offer faster and easier cloud-based editing. Blackbird has AWS technology partner status. News and sports organisations use the technology. The first technology licencing deal will soon be delivered.
In the six months to June 2022, revenues increased from £867,000 to £1.55m, including £426,000 of non-recurring development revenues from deployment of the licence deal. Even excluding those licence revenues there was growth of one-third. However, rising investment in development and additional staff in sales and engineering pushed up costs. The underlying interim loss edged up from £879,000 to £898,000.
There was a cash outflow from operations and capital investment of £2.1m. There is still £11.6m in cash.
There are contracted and unrecognised revenues of £4.05m, which includes £768,000 related to 2022. Last year, revenues were £2.07m, so assuming these contracted revenues come through there will be strong growth in full year revenues. There are £1.47m of contracted revenues for 2023.
Existing clients are renewing, with IMG signing up for a further three years at a higher revenue level.
The share price fell 0.5p to 19.5p, which values Blackbird at £71.7m. That is still a heady rating given the level of revenues. The share price has recovered since April, but it is still below the 28p where cash was raised at the end of 2021.
Allenby is still not confident enough to set a 2022 forecast. Additional licence deals could provide a significant boost to revenues. Blackbird is still an attractive long-term investment.
