Interim Results

 10 September 2024

Blackbird plc

(the "Company")

Interim results

Blackbird plc (AIM: BIRD), the technology licensor, developer and seller of the market-leading cloud video editing platform, Blackbird^®, and developer of the online multiplayer video editor, elevate.io, announces its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2024.

Ian McDonough, CEO of Blackbird plc, commented:

"During the six months ended 30 June 2024 we continued with our significant investment in the transformation of the Company into a Product Led Growth focused business.

"I am delighted to report excellent progress in the product development of elevate.io. The platform progressed to general release in March 2024. In line with successful product led growth ("PLG") companies in adjacent industries, additional features, functionality and refinements of elevate.io are being added continually. By 4 September 2024 we had circa 800 users and, following a limited Google Ads campaign over the last five days, these numbers have more than doubled to circa 1,800 users. This gives an indication of latent demand and attractiveness of elevate.io's customer proposition. Free user acquisition is also a vital next step in PLG.  We are gaining valuable insights from this growing user base.

"In building elevate.io we have leveraged our world-class technological video know-how around smoothness of playback, navigation and speed, on top of proven reliability. We also solved many difficult problems such as building a multiplayer application that enables co-creation for our users and have built the platform natively on the AWS public cloud, which gives us the ability to easily scale and integrate with third party plug ins. This will help us drive user retention and adoption, which will be accelerated through increased marketing activity as we move towards launching a payment gateway, which is expected in Q1 2025. Key recent items added to the platform include video transformations and transitions.

"Although revenue for the six months to 30 June 2024 from our Blackbird platform was down 30% on the prior period at £692K this was mainly due to the previously announced deal losses of A+E Networks and Deltatre. Despite challenges to this model, we continue to be used on the pinnacle of sports and news content and, via our core dedicated team, landed new deals with CBS19 and a South Korean broadcaster. In July and August 2024, through an OEM provider, we were used by broadcasters around the globe for fast turnaround content at the summer games. We are targeting break even for this division in 2024.

These prestigious, high pressure Blackbird use cases continue to provide the proof points needed for the technology to succeed in the Creator Economy with elevate.io.

"As we execute against our elevate.io strategy, it is important that we have the necessary Board skills. I am absolutely thrilled that we have been able to bring on board a best in class set of Non-Executive Directors led by Anne de Kerckhove, who joined in March 2024 and became Chair of the Board in June 2024. Youri Hazanov joined in August 2024 and Nick Lisher, who is joining us on 16 September 2024. Their expertise and experience across marketing, digital, the Creator Economy and growing businesses will be invaluable as we scale the business.    

"We are very excited about the future and the huge size of the opportunity for elevate.io which is in a market ripe for disruption. We look forward to providing investors with further updates in due course."

Operational highlights (post period)

·              Youri Hazanov joined the Board on 15 August 2024 as a Non-Executive Director. Youri is an experienced international Creator Economy executive with a track record of growing businesses and a background in technology, partnerships and marketing. Youri is currently General Manager and Chief Partnerships Officer and member of the executive team at JellySmack and previously led partnerships, business & strategy at YouTube in EMEA, CEE, Russia, Israel and the Middle East

·              Blackbird deployed at the summer games through an OEM partner with up to 75 live concurrent feeds being used for fast turnaround content for global broadcasters

·              Nick Lisher is joining the Board on 16 September 2024 as a Non-Executive Director. Nick is a growth marketeer who has driven performance marketing, community building, digital marketing, and innovative brand development at a number of ecommerce companies including Flo Health, Nextdoor and Depop

·              Expansion at Blox with an additional three local news stations taking the total to 72

·              Successful renewals with US Department of State, CBS Sports and Televisa Univision

Financial highlights (post period)

·              £1,482k* secured revenue for 2024 as at 31 August 2024, down 18.3% vs prior year (2023 comparative: £1,813k)

·              Contracted but unrecognised revenues of £1,299k* as at 31 August 2024 (2023 comparative: £1,997k). £495k relates to 2024 and £506k revenue relates to 2025 and the remainder to 2026

* Subject to exchange rate fluctuations

Operational highlights (during the period)

·              elevate.io went on general release in March 2024 in accordance with the previously announced time frame

·              elevate.io is being continually enhanced via a rapid deployment method and during the period multiple features were added including more transformations, transitions, editing controls, general performance improvements and the addition of markers

·              Anne de Kerckhove joined the Board on 6 March 2024 and became Chair of the Board following the AGM on 18 June 2024. Anne is an experienced Board member and executive with a background in technology, innovation and digital. Anne currently chairs the Board at Eagle Eye Solutions Group and is a Senior Independent Director and Chair of the Nominations and ESG committees at evoke plc

·              Deal signed with CBS19, a Charlottesville-based local TV station, for collaborative and scalable video editing and publishing for its broadcast and digital workflow

·              New deal, through an OEM partner, with a South Korean TV station for fast turnaround of sports content to their OTT platform

·              Successful renewals with NRL, Arsenal and Sky News Arabia

Financial highlights (during the period)

·              Placing and management subscription raised c. £1.05 million (net of expenses) to bring onboard some engaged high net worth investors and assist with elevate.io's growth

·              Revenues of £692k for the six months to 30 June 2024, down 30% year on year (six months to 30 June 2023: £985k). The majority of the decrease arose due to the previously announced deal losses of A+E Networks and Deltatre

·              Contracted but unrecognised revenues down 40% year on year to £1,262k as at 30 June 2024 (£2,120k as at 30

June 2023) due to the one year less under contract from our major deals

·              Decreased operating costs, excluding LTIP charge, of £2,028k (six months to 30 June 2023: £2,442k), driven by restructuring of the core Blackbird platform team in April 2023

·              Reduced EBITDA loss of £1,408k (six months to 30 June 2023: £1,523k) due to lower operating costs partially offsetting lower revenues as explained above

·              Slightly reduced net loss before tax of £1,544k (six months to 30 June 2023: £1,617k) due to reduced EBITDA loss and strong net finance income

·              Cash burn, excluding proceeds from share issues and transfers from short term investments, decreased slightly to £1,900k (six months to 30 June 2023: £1,921k) due to higher investment in elevate.io offset by savings from restructuring of the Blackbird team

·              Cash and short-term investments of £5,618k (30 June 2023: £8,177k) and no debt

Contacts:

Blackbird plc                                                                                        Tel: +44 (0)20 8879 7245

Ian McDonough, Chief Executive Officer

Stephen White, Chief Operating and Financial Officer

Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser and Broker)                       Tel: +44 (0)20 3328 5656

Nick Naylor / Piers Shimwell (Corporate Finance)

Amrit Nahal / Guy McDougall (Equity Sales and Corporate Broking)

About Blackbird plc

Blackbird plc operates in the fast-growing SaaS, Media and Entertainment and content creation markets. Blackbird plc's patented technology allows for frame accurate navigation, playback, viewing and editing in the cloud and it has two products.

Blackbird^Ⓡ a market leading suite of cloud-native computing applications, is used by rights holders, broadcasters, sports and news video specialists, live events and content owners, post production houses, other mass market digital video channels and corporations.

elevate.io is the company's new browser-based collaborative content creation platform currently in general release. elevate.io is built using Blackbird's core technology and is aimed at professional teams and the fast growing Creator Economy.

Blackbird plc also licences its core video technology, under its 'Powered by Blackbird' licensing model, enabling video companies to accelerate their path to true cloud business models.

www.blackbird.video

www.linkedin.com/company/blackbird-cloud

www.twitter.com/blackbirdcloud

www.facebook.com/blackbirdplc

www.youtube.com/c/blackbirdcloud

Operational review

The period under review was a continuation of significant investment and transformation for the Company.

The Company continued to make good progress against its product led growth strategy for elevate.io, specifically:

•     elevate.io went to general release in March 2024 in accordance with the previously announced time frame;

•     high hundreds of users were using the platform by the end of the period and providing valuable insights and feedback;

•     this elevate.io user base had grown to circa.800 by 4 September 2024 and, following a limited Google Ads campaign, has grown to circa1,800 users by 9 September 2024 showing strong demand for the user proposition;

•     elevate.io is built on the AWS public cloud giving us the ability to easily scale and integrate with third party plug ins;

•     a period of engineering-focus leaning on our world-class technological video know-how around smoothness of playback, navigation, and speed, on top of proven reliability;

•     solved difficult problems such as building a world-class multiplayer experience on the back of a simple, easy-to-use interface; and

•     adopted a rapid development deployment cycle leading to regular updates of elevate.io adding functionality and features driving user retention and adoption.

The Serviceable Addressable Market ("SAM") for elevate.io is $6.9billion and, the Board believe, is ripe for disruption. As we have seen in parallel SaaS industries there are huge rewards for companies who succeed.

On the Blackbird platform, commercial activity during the six months under review included:

·              a signed deal with CBS19, a Charlottesville-based local TV station, for collaborative and scalable video editing and publishing for its broadcast and digital workflow;

·              a new deal, through an OEM partner, with a South Korean TV station for fast turnaround of sports content to their OTT platform; and

·              successful deal renewals with NRL, Arsenal and Sky News Arabia.

We continue to focus our resources on fast turnaround content from live feeds in the sports and news markets which build on the Blackbird platform's strengths. This is supported by a core team providing first-class customer service. The Blackbird platform has previously been the main focus and drive of our go to market strategy. However, each of our major accounts has often required bespoke integrations which are both time-consuming and costly. Combined with the pressures that major broadcasters face with diminishing audience share and reduced advertising or subscription revenues, it has proved a challenging task to grow our share of the Media and Entertainment ("M&E") services market. This is reflected in the H1 2024 revenue decreasing compared to the prior period due to a number of previously announced deal losses. The Board recognised the challenges of the M&E market back in 2021 leading to a successful fundraise and a refocus of our investment and resources into the creator space and elevate.io.

As the Company's strategy has evolved and the focus shifts towards elevate.io, the Board needed to ensure the right skill sets are in place to execute our product led growth strategy. Accordingly, there have been a number of changes to the Board during the period with John Honeycutt and Dawn Airey leaving and Anne de Kerckhove joining. Post period, Andrew Bentley has also retired from the Board with Youri Hazanov and Nick Lisher joining.

Financial review

H1 2024 revenue decreased by 30% to £692k compared to the corresponding period last year (six months to 30 June 2023 £985k). The majority of the decrease can be explained by the A+E Networks and Deltatre deal losses. The cyclical and structural changes in the M&E market continue to make this a challenging environment.

Contracted but unrecognised revenue was £1,262k at 30 June 2024, a decrease of 40% compared to 30 June 2023 (£2,120k) due to one year less in the order book on our larger deals. Whilst we have started the post period well by securing an extension to our CBS Sports deal and expanding our Blox contract, there are still a few of our larger contracts to renew in H2 2024.

Operating costs, excluding LTIP charges, for the period decreased to £2,028k versus £2,442k in the corresponding period. The year on year decrease resulted predominantly from: i) restructuring costs being £121k higher in H1 2023 than H1 2024; ii) a net increase of £72k in development costs capitalized in the current period compared to prior year period due to increased work on elevate.io; iii) £70k lower events and marketing costs for the Blackbird platform in the period compared to H1 2023; and iv) £78k lower staff holiday cost accrual compared to prior year.

Adjusted EBITDA loss, excluding share option costs movement, of £1,387k (six months to 30 June 2023: £1,513k) from lower operating costs partially offset by lower revenues, as explained above.

EBITDA loss of £1,408k (six months to 30 June 2023: £1,523k) due to the movement in Adjusted EBITDA loss, excluding share option costs and higher share option expense in the period compared to prior year which included credits from people leaving as the business was restructured.   

The net loss for the period was £1,544k (2023: £1,617k). A lower EBITDA loss was partially offset by a decrease in net financial income from higher average cash balances in the prior period.

The Company raised c.£1,045k (net of expenses) in February 2024 from some engaged high net worth investors who wanted to invest directly into our story and from a subscription by management. The proceeds will be used to help fund the early months of elevate.io's growth.

Cash burn in the period, excluding proceeds from share issues and transfers from short-term investments, was £1,900k versus £1,921k in the same period in 2023 driven by lower operating costs partially offset by lower revenues, as explained above.

Outlook

There is continued momentum behind our product led growth strategy for elevate.io, with a focus around quality engineering enhancing the platform and driving user retention. There will be a shift towards increased marketing activity to drive user adoption prior to a payment gateway in Q1 2025. The Company is well positioned to execute its strategy with a world-class team in place and funds of c.£5.6 million at 30 June 2024.