Fissara Limited Investment Review - Jan 2017

Written by Admin | Jan 3, 2017 5:00:00 AM

Status Update

Since investment completion in July 2016, the business has fallen behind revenue targets but it has managed costs so that margin and EBITDA remain ahead of budget.
Meanwhile it has successfully established a strong pipeline of trials and pilots - this should see an improvement in performance in the medium term.
Fissara has completed an encouraging pilot with a large engineering company (AMCO) with the objective to now move towards a full divisional roll out.
An agreement has been reached with Clarke Telecom (Telco Infrastructure) for a paid pilot.
o2, the international mobile operator, has agreed to a second project that provides evidence that Fissara can offer solutions for global enterprises with complex requirements.
A new branding strategy is being implemented at the Company, as most noticeably demonstrated with the launch of the www.fissara.com website.
The Company has made some additional hires to support its expansion plans. The offshore (India) development team has doubled in size and generated improvements in both quality and in productivity.
In December 2016 the Fissara software platform won the Best Technology Product Award 2016 at the Talk of Manchester business awards.
In January 2017, David Harding (ex-CEO of William Hill) will join the board as an Observer to support the business and provide ongoing monitoring on behalf of Growthdeck investors.

Investment Overview

Company name	Fissara Limited (name changed 15/12/16)
Investment vehicle	UK Limited company
Principal business activity	Software tool to allow companies to more effectively manage remote workers & assets
Growthdeck investors investment	£403,500
Investment completion date (first close)	July 2016
Growthdeck investors equity	20.18%
Growthdeck investors protections	Investor Representative consent required for key company actions
Growthdeck involvement	Investor representative on Board monitoring performance

Trading Performance

* Management Accounts for Apr to Oct 2016

Cash Update

Given the delay in revenue generation, the management team has carefully managed cash with expenses remaining below budget as noted.
At financial year end (October 2016) Fissara had cash reserves of £326k against a budgeted cash position of £276k. Some of this surplus capital can be explained by a delay in recruitment due to difficulties in identifying appropriate developer (Java & mobile) candidates.
Growthdeck continues to work with the company to raise additional equity funding (circa £100k) to provide some further cash contingency for the business.

Exit Planning

There are no updates to report in terms of exit planning - it is still anticipated that a trade sale to major software vendors or IT providers in a 2019/20 timeframe is the most likely liquidity event.

Summary

Performance since completion of the July 2016 round has been variable. Good cost control has conserved cash and kept loss to below that budgeted for.
Whilst the number of product trials and pilots with high quality names has been impressive, this has yet to translate to material commercial commitments.
Recruitment of staff has been an ongoing challenge but the Company is now making progress in strengthening the team with appointments necessary to fulfil the business’s potential.
Fissara is deepening engagements and building credibility with a number of large corporates that the management team hopes will establish long term and profitable relationships.

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