9th Sep 2014 07:39
LONDON (Alliance News) - Blur Group PLC Tuesday reiterated its focus on reaching profitability, despite posting a wider pretax loss for the half year to the end of June.
The company operates a cloud-based platform where buyers can submit briefs for a range of professional and business services called the Global Services Exchange.
Blur posted a pretax loss of USD4.8 million, widened from USD2.3 million, despite seeing revenue rise to USD5.7 million from USD1.4 million, due to higher administrative expenses.
Administrative expenses rose to GBP6.4 million from GBP2.8 million, including an increase in staff costs to USD3.4 million from USD1.4 million, a bad debt impairment of USD109,382 and a USD204,694 amortisation of intangible assets. The company moved its headquarters from London to Exeter during the period, and said it was already seeing expected advantages from the move.
Results for the previous year were re-stated as a result of the company's updated revenue recognition policy- lowered recognised revenue to USD1.4 million from USD3.4 million.
Revenue growth was boosted by the release of its 4.0 version of the platform, the roll out of public pages, and a drive into the enterprise space. Total bookings for the first half rose to USD16 million from USD5.2 million, as more enterprise customers, meaning organisations with revenue of over USD500 million, adopted the platform, including Amazon.com Inc and Danone Ltd.
Additionally, the company said that whilst the exchange has been use for one-off projects, it is seeing increasing evidence that it is now being used by repeat customers.
Blur raised USD21 million in a fund raise in June, and said that this is planned to take the company through to profit, and will be used to accelerate new customer acquisition, technology development and regional expansion into Asia.
Blur said its current trading was meeting its growth expectations, with a positive performance across all of its key indicators, and a growing pipeline.
"I am confident that we have in place all the elements required to manage our current and future growth and return value to our supportive shareholders," said Chief Executive Philip Letts in a statement.
Shares in Blur Group were trading up 11.2% at 90.1 pence Tuesday morning, putting it among the biggest risers on the AIM All-Share.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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