Managed cloud services bolsters Bulletproof solid full year revenue

In line with its forecast in July, Bulletproof has reported solid full year earnings for the period ending June 30, 2015.

The company had predicted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) would be approximately AU$4 million. On Wednesday, the company reported that for the full year EBITDA was AU$4.2 million.

Revenue for FY15 also exceeded predictions at AU$29.2 million, a 59 percent lift from the AU$18.3 million reported in FY14.

Net profit after tax, which included the revaluation of performance shares, also returned to positive territory at AU$4.4 million, up from the AU$3.1 million net loss in FY14.

The company attributed the results to strong recurring revenue, which contributed to 76 percent of total revenue for the year.

Bulletproof also experienced growth in external cloud-based revenues, in particular its managed public cloud revenue increased to AU$10.7 million, a three-fold rise on FY14. The company signalled that its managed cloud services were growing strongly during its half year results when it saw total revenue grow by 46.5 percent.

Bulletproof CEO Anthony Woodward said its managed public cloud revenue now made up 37 percent of its total revenue base for the period, up 300 percent from FY14. He pinned the rapid growth rate experienced by its managed cloud business on the company's partnership with Amazon Web Services, which it signed up to at the end of 2012.

"We're also seeing more and more organisations move from that early adopter behaviour into the early majority where they're seeing the clear benefits of moving applications to the cloud and they just want to get them there as soon as they can," he said.

To support the growth in its cloud business, Bulletproof continued to increase its headcount, finishing the financial year with 120 staff, nearly double the number of staff from the prior year, Woodward said.

During the year, Bulletproof completed the acquisition of Pantha Corp for AU$3.9 million. While at the start of the year Bulletproof said the acquisition deal impacted its operating and investing cash flow, Pantha Corp has now been fully integrated into the business.

As part of the acquisition, Bulletproof agreed to certain performance metrics with the vendors of Pantha Corp, and confirmed that the business has already achieved some of those targets. As a result, Bulletcorp will issue 456,125 deferred considered shares to the Panth Corp Vendors, following release of the audited accounts.

While Woodward was unable to disclose earnings guidance for FY16, he said looking forward the company's revenue is expected to continue to grow above the general market's compound annual growth rate of 25 percent to 30 percent.

Additionally, Woodward said the focus will also be on investing in its consulting, product, and managed services, particularly as more organisations move their applications into the cloud from the more traditional datacentre hosted or on-premise hosted infrastructure.

"With the advent of the consulting and professional services, which really gives us a wider end to end offering, we're seeing customers take us into engagements that don't just focus on the web and digital platform; they want to move into the cloud, but also want to move other back office and other more complex workloads.

"Now it's about looking at the existing customers and at what else would they like to move to the cloud. They clearly need the consulting cycle to get there and that's one of the key parts of our growth strategy," he said.

The company is also currently undertaking a trial with Dick Smith for one of its application platform products that will form part of the retailer's digital strategy.