Silver Bullet Data Services revenue of £1.67 million up 30% on H1 2020

Silver Bullet Data Services Group plc (LON:SBDS), a provider of digital transformation services and products, has announced interims results for the six months to 30 June 2021.

Financial Highlights

*Headline results are calculated before exceptional items and share option charges

Business Highlights

· Successful admission to trading on AIM on 28 June 2021, raising gross proceeds of £9.5 million.

· Revenue of £1.67 million up 30 per cent on H1 2020, this is ahead of management expectations.

· 13 new services client wins in the period including ITV and Venture Crowd.

· Consolidation of existing services clients as a result of additional contract wins with Channel 4, Heineken and Jägermeister.

· Extensive technical development of ‘4D’, Silverbullet’s contextual outcomes engine, led by the in-house development and product teams.

· 4D campaigns have been successfully delivered for several clients and global agencies.

· Recruitment of Kristen Kelly as Chief Operating Officer.

· Expansion of our 4D-focused US office, including the recruitment of VP Partner Solutions, Director of Product Marketing, Senior Director Strategic Sales and a Client Success Director.

Chief Executive Officer’s Report

Silverbullet has delivered strong results for the first half start to 2021, as well as successfully completing its IPO on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange on 28 June 2021. The listing raised gross proceeds of approximately £9.5 million and welcomed several established UK funds as shareholders.

Silverbullet is a data and digital transformation company that seeks to deliver future-proofed solutions for the privacy-first, post-cookie era for marketing and advertising purposes. The Group’s core services and products comprise:

·      Data-driven transformational services: first-party data strategy and customer journey activation advisory services, technology implementation and integration engineering, alongside adtech and martech managed services. In short, our expert services help businesses deliver privacy-first, customer-centric marketing, powered by data.

·      ‘4D’ – proprietary contextual data product: a contextual targeting solution designed to help clients face the challenges posed by the post-cookie era. 4D enables contextual a strong focus on online video. In short, 4D drives business outcomes for the modern marketer.

We have grown Group revenue by a solid 30 per cent. compared to H1 2020, underpinned by growth in our data-driven transformation services. We believe this a reflection of the ongoing permanent shift in consumer behaviours to digital and the need for our clients to accelerate their data driven marketing transformation. The Covid-19 pandemic and increasing regulatory scrutiny around personal data are proving strong agents of change in the ways brands are able to connect and transact with their customers, including through the demise of the third-party cookie, and we are perfectly positioned at Silverbullet to assist in their transformation journey through our data technology services and 4D product.

I am particularly proud of how the team have delivered fantastic growth in services revenues and the continued development of a world-class product whilst operating in a challenging working and home environment, and furthermore during a period in which the Company delivered a successful AIM IPO.

Data transformation services.

During the first half of the year, we have secured 13 new clients wins and, post period end, a further nine. We have also consolidated and extended contracts with a number of our key existing clients.

Winning new data and technology transformation contracts with ITV, RTE, SBS in the period, we are now working with six major broadcasters across the globe to assist them in transforming their advertising product from linear to programmatic. We are very proud to be at the centre of the era of the transformation for the Broadcast industry, which will affect the entire advertising ecosystem as TV accelerates into being digitally traded and data enabled in the coming year.

Revenue committed in our martech services unit has grown 72 per cent. versus the year ended December 2020, underpinned by the strengthening of our strategic partnership with the key software vendors including Salesforce, where Silverbullet works as a preferred services partner, and Treasure Data (a Softbank company), which works with Silverbullet as its European services partner. 

4D – Proprietary contextual data product.

4D is Silverbullet’s emerging proprietary contextual data product. After testing in H1 2021 4D is gaining traction in the market with multiple clients and agencies now using the platform for contextual targeting including video and display programmatic advertising, as well as for the purpose of generating unique insights on consumer activity online using our unique deterministic contextual data.

Specifically, 4D, is designed to enable advertisers to generate increased marketing ROI in the post-cookie, first-party data era, and is now being used by multiple Fortune 500 brands and agencies. The digital ad market, in which 4D is embedded, now accounts for approximately 58 per cent. of total worldwide ad spend, with a projected growth to 68 per cent. forecast by 2024 (according to eMarketer Worldwide Ad Spend report).

Investment in talent.

We have continued to invest in our people and culture, focusing on expanding our US team, with new hires in key customer success and sales positions to lead our client expansion in Q4 and beyond. We have also attracted a number of key product and engineering leaders to develop new features for 4D set for release early next year.

Our already experienced management team, which includes key professionals from the industry, has been recently enhanced by the arrival of Kristen Kelly as Chief Operating Officer. Kristen was formerly President of Precision, EMEA, at Publicis Media.

Outlook

We are delighted with the performance and continued development of the Group during H1 2021. The second half of this year, and 2022, are set to see programmatic media rise further, creating a positive environment for both our services and product business. We believe a permanent shift in consumer behaviours is accelerating business investment in marketing technology and data, enhancing Silverbullet’s prospects with current and new clients. We are confident in our new business pipeline and our ability to extend our services offering to existing blue-chip client base.

The added credibility and increased profile generated as a result of the Company’s AIM IPO, combined with our recent run of new business wins, has also attracted potential new strategic partnerships and M&A opportunities which we continue to explore on an ongoing basis.

We have material visibility on full-year revenues, which provides confidence and positive momentum for the second half of 2021, and we remain excited for the longer-term prospects for our 4D product.

I would like to thank all of our staff and management for their continued dedication and hard work, as well as both our new and longer-term stakeholders, and we look forward to providing further updates on our progress in due course.

Ian James

Chief Executive Officer and Director