Dubber raises $10m
ASX Announcements
Dubber and Verizon align to add Call Recording and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Service into Verizon Virtual Communications Express (VCE)
We are pleased to report significant growth for the first half of the 2020 financial year. Highlights include a revenue increase of 125% to $4.5 million, a 79% increase in end user subscribers to 122 549, a contracted annualised recurring revenue of $10.66 million, and 123 service provider agreements, of which 65 are now at the billing stage. During this period we also acquired our first Cisco Webex Calling customers and are on track to be listed on the Cisco price list this month, which will allow seamless order entry within the global Cisco partner channel.
Another highlight was signing an agreement with tier 1 US carrier Sprint Corporation. While we are still in the early stages of growth, securing tier 1 global carriers and our revenue demonstrates that our global strategy is delivering high-quality income streams.
A uniquely placed global operation
We have grown our business operations significantly in preparation for future market opportunities: recruiting team members across executive, sales, and product levels. Many of these new staff members worked closely with us in previous roles with major partners, including Cisco, BroadSoft, AT&T and Telstra, and bring with them significant industry experience. We are a global operation, well positioned to enable service providers to capitalise on the valuable asset of voice data. We believe that transcription, which forms that basis of voice AI and analysis, will become an expected standard feature. We are uniquely placed to deliver this capability to service providers.
Second half FY20 outlook
We expect strong growth in the second half of the 2020 financial year. We expect several verticals to reach the revenue generation stage. Now that our platform is embedded in the Cisco order entry system, we believe this will contribute significantly to our ongoing revenue. Last month we signed an agreement with Telstra, making Dubber available to Telstra customers in Australia. We expect this to underpin similar agreements with new carriers in 2020.
Telstra and Dubber Sign Agreement for cloud call recording and AI on Business Telephony and mobile services
Our September quarter was a period characterised by growth: with expansion across sales, and new roles filled in Australia, Europe and North America across marketing; development; compliance; and support. This enhancement of the team will be instrumental in meeting our current priorities: providing call recording and voice AI (artificial intelligence) services for the Cisco Webex Calling platform, driving growth of mobile call recording in Australia, furthering our USA expansion with tier one carriers, rolling out a global artificial intelligence initiative, and continuing to develop our global distribution and reseller network.
Our key highlights for the period:
- Revenue increased by 6% from the previous quarter to $2.15m, up 200% on the previous corresponding period (PCP).
- End user subscriptions increased by 23% to over 117 000, up 165% on the PCP.
- 113 agreements were made with service providers and 52 service providers reached billing stage.
- Contracted annualised recurring revenue at 30th September was $10.2m.
- Cisco Webex calling launched Dubber as their recording service 31st October.
We are strongly positioned to expand on our leadership in cloud call recording and data capture in traditional unified communication networks, fixed-mobile converged networks, and UCaaS networks.
Cisco Webex Calling
Cisco Webex Calling is a multi-tenant, cloud-based alternative to an on-premise PBX, and is available as a subscription service. In preparation, we achieved ISO 27001 compliance: a globally recognised standard for information security management systems. The service is now live and will be available via the Cisco order entry system.
Mobile and ‘whole of business’ recording
Businesses are now looking beyond call recording for compliance, and seeking mobile recording services and insights on customer interactions across the whole business. We are working towards a service that will provide widespread availability across Australia. During this preparation we have completed an agreement with Schepisi Communications and have been awarded the Telstra Enterprise Mobility Carriage Partner of the Year for 2019.
Continued momentum
Dubber co-founder and CEO Steve McGovern commented on the September quarter results:
“Fundamentally, we have scaled our operations from a ‘Founder led’ company to one which is able to execute on the opportunities which are in multiple jurisdictions.
We are pleased with our momentum towards facilitating widespread uptake of the Dubber platform as a mobile or fixed mobile converged offering. The Company believes that there is significant immediate demand for these services and activation of the initiatives should see user uptake and revenues grow strongly.
Our AI programs are continuing to gain momentum with our large partners like IBM. We are seeing strong increases in the number of enterprise customers, particularly in North America, that are interested in garnering business insights. We believe that gaining access to real-time voice calls on an enterprise-wide basis will be a strong business driver for us in 2020.
Throughout the remainder of FY20 we will continue to procure additional key carrier agreements, accelerate their time to billing and add new channel and systems integrator agreements to build out the global backbone of call recording. These are the foundations of growth for the next term and we are now ready to execute on these with the team we have in place.”
Dubber Live as Cisco Webex Calling Call Recording Platform
June 2019 Appendix 4G
Following April’s capital raise of $22m, we have utilised this investment to scale the business in order to pursue growth potential. Cash at bank as of 30th June 2019 was $19.6m, with the company fully funded to execute these opportunities. The leadership team has been expanded, and the service has now launched with Spark New Zealand and Bell Canada. Key metrics for the June quarter include:
- Revenue increased 29% from $1.57m to $2.03m, with annual operating revenue increasing 269% from $1.5m to $5.54m
- Telecommunications service providers at the billing stage increased to 106, from 36 in June 2018
- Subscribers increased 222% to 94 825 over the year from 29 405, with 21 668 added in the June quarter
Commercial opportunities
Market conditions, customer and partner requirements, and the continued growth in cloud voice and data services has enabled Dubber to consolidate our position in the market. During the June quarter we have focused on scaling to capitalise on commercial opportunities and we have grown our sales team in order to procure network agreements and generate revenue across Australia, North America, and Europe. In order to support our channels, including IBM and Cisco/BroadSoft, we have increased resources to expand our reach with these organisations. Our AI development has continued with the enablement of third party integrations, including CRM systems and trading platforms, and other value added services for telecommunications service providers.
New staff
In order to strategically target growth opportunities around the world we have expanded our team, particularly in technology development, sales, account management, and application development. We have added 14 new staff members, including a director of global sales, a strategic partnership manager and a channel sales director for ANZ.
Service provider launches
In June, the Dubber service went live with Spark New Zealand on their Cloud Phone Service. Spark (formerly known as Telecom New Zealand) is one of New Zealand’s largest telecommunications and IT service providers. Shortly after the June quarter, Dubber also went live with Bell Canada, providing call recording to its Bell Total Connect Service. Bell Canada is the largest communications company in Canada. Customer subscriber numbers are expected to be reflected in the current quarter and beyond.
Continuing to build the global backbone of call recording
Dubber co-founder and CEO Steve McGovern commented on the June quarter results:
“Our service provider and technology partnership agreements represent some of the world’s largest telecommunications service providers and global technology sales channels. With a technology that is designed to meet large scale requirements, the business itself is in a position to scale to capitalise on the opportunities available to it.
“We have seen an acceleration of large enterprise customers moving quickly towards adopting AI in their operations (and thereby call recording), particularly in Australia and the USA. There have also been extensive developments in the cloud voice and collaboration markets in the last quarter that we believe will have a profound impact on the way voice and related services will be delivered to end customers.
“The Company’s short-term goals are unchanged – we will continue to procure additional key carrier agreements to build out the global backbone of call recording, to grow revenues on a quarterly basis, and to be cash flow positive on a monthly basis this calendar year end.”
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Investor Presentation Feb 2019
Dubber Delivers Quarter of Record Growth