Blue Prism outperforms targets as revenue climbs to £35m

Newly AIM-listed robotic process automation specialist Blue Prism has outperformed its targets in its first full year as a public company.

The Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside company’s total contracted revenue increased 205% to £35.2m for the year ended October 31, 2016.

However, it made an operating loss of £5.3m after share-based costs of £362,000 and IPO costs of £502,000 were taken into account, compared to a loss of £0.8m in the prior year.

Blue Prism won 96 new customers with 12 renewals and the total customer base increasing to 153, compared to 57 in 2015.

There was continued growth in the US with 18 new customers and 19 “upsells”.
Its global employee base doubled from 43 to 86.

Chief executive Alastair Bathgate said: “The group outperformed its targets for the period across all areas of the business, both operationally and financially.

“Our strategy to move to a wholly indirect sales model has been very successful with our partner network delivering over 90% of new business in a year in which customer numbers increased by 96 to 153.

“The RPA market continues to grow, and whilst this is generating increased competition, we believe Blue Prism is well positioned and sufficiently differentiated to take advantage of this growth through continued product innovation and marketing.

“To drive continued growth in our indirect sales model, our primary investment focus remains on building our global sales team which manages our partner relationships.

“Taking into consideration the FY16 exit monthly run rate and assuming the ongoing momentum in new customer wins and upsells continues, we expect revenue for the current financial year to be comfortably ahead of existing market expectations.”