Plexure Powers Ahead With Record Revenue Growth And Profit

Mobile engagement software company Plexure Group (NZX: PLX) recorded its best trading result to date for the year ended 31 March 2020, continuing the forward momentum the Company has achieved over the last three years.

Highlights for the year included:

· Significant improvement of financial performance - including revenue from contracts with customers of $25.3m, up 50% or $8.4m from FY19.

· Net profit of $1.0m, up 243% from the FY19 loss of $0.7m.

· $14.2m cash on hand at balance date and cashflow positive from operating activities for the third successive year.

· New CTO and US-based sales and marketing teams to drive international expansion.

Plexure’s strong revenue growth of 50% from FY19 resulted in a total customer revenue of $25.3m and a secure cash flow positive position of $14.2m. This was achieved, in part, due to the deep global relationship Plexure has built with McDonald’s, now servicing 60 of its Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) markets worldwide.

Since McDonald’s purchased a 9.9% equity stake in Plexure in April 2019, the relationship between the two companies has continued to strengthen. Plexure continues to broaden its scope of offering for the fast food giant including AI enabled fraud detection..

During the year, Plexure also added 13 new markets and customers. These included White Castle - a well-established US burger chain was signed in July 2019, confirming the attractiveness of the Company’s proposition for the QSR sector, and Super Indo – one of Indonesia’s leading supermarket chains (51% owned by European multi-national grocery organisation, Ahold Delhaize) who came on board in February 2020, opening up a new category for Plexure.

“Super Indo is our first customer in the grocery sector and one we’re delighted to be collaborating with” says Craig Herbison, Plexure CEO and Director.

“Indonesia is currently Asia’s largest and fastest growing digital economy. For Super Indo to recognise the relevance and value of integrating Plexure’s technology demonstrates that a highly personalised, mobile-centric customer engagement offering is perfect for this high-growth category.”

Expanding in to new categories is a pivotal part of Plexure’s three-horizon transformation strategy. The Company is now well into its third phase of ‘Execute for Growth’, having completed the first two phases - ‘Stabilise for Growth’ in late FY18 and ‘Build Foundations for Growth’ in the first half of FY19.

“A significant focus of our ‘Execute for Growth’ phase is investment in our team to secure the very best talent to deliver that strategy. We recently recruited Andrew Flavell as CTO, who joined us from his position of VP of Architecture at Nike in the US” adds Mr Herbison.

Plexure now has a total of 139 staff, following steady growth in its engineering, marketing and sales teams (some of which are based in the US) with the majority based at its Auckland headquarters.

Significant investment in Plexure’s core platform technology has increased the Company’s world-leading scalability and availability. A strong customer focus sees the Company aligning with the strategic digital transformation activities of its clients, to build solutions that enable deeply personalised customer experiences.

Plexure’s Chairman, Phil Norman, says “In FY21 Plexure will continue its strong forward trajectory, deploying cash reserves to enhance the Company’s proposition and to drive new and improved revenue streams for our customers.”

As with every organisation, Plexure is closely monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on Company operations.

“To date, the impact on us has been minimal and Plexure continues to grow personnel numbers as we focus on existing and emerging opportunities,” says Mr Herbison.

COVID-19 has amplified the requirement for customers to shop at distance, which has accelerated the adoption of products like Mobile Order and Pay, that Plexure has deployed across 2,700 McDonald’s stores in Japan.

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