9
April 2024
Cirata plc
("Cirata" or the
"Company")
Q1 FY24 Trading
Update
GTM and sales organization
embedded for growth
Cirata plc (LSE: CRTA), announces a
trading update for the quarter period ended March 31, 2024.
An accompanying video presentation and
discussion can be found on the Cirata Investor Relations
webpage here.
Summary
·
Bookings for the period of $0.7m
·
Steady build in pipeline
·
Sales and partner activity increased
·
Fifteen contracts signed, improved mix to "new and
growth"
·
Important new business secured in re-invigorated
DevOps offering
·
New releases of Live Data Migrator (LDM) and major
release of DevOps (ALM)
·
Cash position at the end March was
$13.3m
·
Management reconfirms FY24 bookings guidance of
$13-15m (81%-108% YoY growth)
Trading update
Bookings in Q1 FY24 were $0.7m (Q1
FY23: $2.1m, which benefitted from a large renewal), with
DevOps/Application Lifecycle management ("DevOps") software
accounting for 51% of bookings and Data Integration ("DI") software
accounting for 49% of bookings.
In total, fifteen contracts were
signed in the quarter, nine of which were new and
growth[1] contracts. This included
two new contracts in DevOps, secured with Onsemi and Marvell
Technology. The new subscription contract with Onsemi in DevOps
represents the first positive step in the reboot of the DevOps
business. New DI contracts included deals signed with the Bank of
Nova Scotia, Westpac Banking Corp and a large African financial
services group. We also saw further growth at Tesco, a returning
customer. Two deals secured in Q1 were greater than $150K in value:
one in DI and the other in DevOps.
Technology is core to Cirata and its
market differentiation. Further progress was made in Q1 on shaping
the product roadmap with direct customer input for LDM. In DevOps,
we announced the availability of Gerrit 3.7, and we are already in
discussions with customers on Proof of Concept.
As previously outlined, deal
slippage remained a feature of Q1 performance. Some of the orders
that were targeted for FY23 Q4 closed in early FY24 and, similarly,
some of the deals targeted for Q1 have also slipped with the
expectation that these will now conclude in Q2. Issues contributing
to slippage include the complex nature of enterprise sales for data
integration, protracted procurement processes and the ramping of
the new sales team. Establishing greater sales cycle
predictability, therefore, remains a key priority for management,
to move beyond the current non-linear growth trajectory. To that
end, Q1 saw the final changes made to the company's Sales
organization. With that complete, Management believes that
the foundations are now, for the first time, in place to deliver
steadily improving pipeline predictability and
performance.
As previously reported, Management
expects that bookings will be H2 weighted in FY24 as the pipeline
builds and the Sales team becomes more proven. The FY24 bookings
guidance, which Management reconfirms today, is based on an
expectation of higher levels of sales activity, both direct and
through partners, and on the current sales pipeline. The new GTM
organization is bedding down and leads from partners and customer
activity levels are increasing and contributing to pipeline
growth.
A table of key performance
indicators will be posted to the Investor Relations landing
page Cirata
KPI by 30 April 2024.
Stephen Kelly, Chief
Executive Officer, commented.
"I
want to provide a balanced scorecard and honest perspective on the
progress of Cirata. We were disappointed by the actual Q1 bookings
and again experienced deal slippage relating to the complex nature
of enterprise sales, protracted procurement processes and the
ongoing ramping of our new sales team. However, I
am pleased with the increasing level of sales activity in the
quarter, following the complete reboot of the GTM
organization.
The cadence of customer interaction has ramped significantly,
and we are seeing improved commercial re-engagement as evidenced by
the range of logos we have contracted with in Q1. Signing our first
new contract in DevOps for some years as well as securing new and
returning logos in DI has been encouraging and energizing for our
team. Innovation in both LDM and DevOps continues and provides
differentiated and superior technology offerings for our
customers.
As
I said before, the recovery of Cirata, is likely to be non-linear
but no-one should underestimate the focus we are placing on
sharpening and improving our pipeline visibility and
predictability. With the sales team now fully set, and with
partner and customer interactions building, we remain focused on
delivering against the guidance range and phasing we have set out
for the year as a whole."
This announcement contains information that qualifies or may
qualify as inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the
Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 as it forms part of UK
domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018
("MAR"), and is disclosed in accordance with the company's
obligations under Article 17 of MAR.
The
person responsible for arranging the release of this announcement
on behalf of Cirata plc is Larry Webster, Company
Secretary.
For
further information, please contact:
Cirata
|
Via
FTI Consulting
|
Stephen Kelly, Chief Executive
Officer
|
|
Ijoma Maluza, Chief Financial
Officer
|
|
Daniel Hayes, Investor
Relations
|
|
|
|
FTI
Consulting
|
+44
(0)20 3727 1137
|
Matt Dixon /Kwaku Aning / Usama
Ali
|
|
|
|
Stijfel (Nomad and Joint
Broker)
|
+44
(0)20 7710 7600
|
Fred Walsh / Richard Short / Tom
Marsh
|
|
|
|
Liberum (Joint
Broker)
|
+44
(0)20 3100 2000
|
Max Jones / Edward Mansfield / John
More
|
|
About Cirata
Cirata, accelerates data-driven
revenue growth by automating data transfer and integration to
modern cloud analytics and AI platforms without downtime or
disruption. With Cirata, data leaders can leverage the power of AI
and analytics across their entire enterprise data estate to freely
choose analytics technologies, avoid vendor, platform, or cloud
lock-in while making AI and analytics faster, cheaper, and more
flexible. Cirata's portfolio of products and technology solutions
make strategic adoption of modern data analytics efficient and
automated. For more information about Cirata,
visit www.cirata.com