Big Sofa Tech 'stronger' and 'leaner' as cost-cutting squashes losses

Big Sofa Technologies’ shares crept higher on Friday as the company announced cost saving measures to create a “stronger, leaner business” after a jump in revenue led to a reduction in annual losses.

For the calendar year the video analytics provider achieved revenue of £1.7m, an increase of 29% over the year before, driving a 10% reduction in the company’s loss before tax, which dropped to £3.7m.

The largest chunk of revenue stemmed from projects to analyse behaviour at scale, where the AIM traded company transforms unstructured content into meaningful and quantifiable data, which brought in £0.8m.

At 31 December the company had cash and cash equivalents of £0.8m, up from £0.4m at the same point the year before.

Kirsty Fuller, chief executive of Big Sofa, said: "My priority on becoming chief executive in November 2018 was to initiate a strategic review and identify areas for cost savings. With a significant R&D programme having completed at year-end, I was able to initiate a programme of material annualised cost savings with a restructuring of the entire team, a refocus on streamlined, efficient processes and a sharpening of the selling proposition. As a result, we began 2019 as a stronger, leaner business.”

So far in the current year Big Sofa has completed platform improvement works and said this and other technology efficiencies will result in £0.35m of technology-related annualised cost savings through the year.

“2019 is an important year for Big Sofa Technologies. It sees the company step forward confidently with a new vision, a new suite of client offerings, and a more robust and exciting technology capability," said Fuller.

Big Sofa Technologies’ shares were up 2.22% at 4.60p at 1020 GMT.