Beeks Financial Cloud receives Scottish Enterprise R&D grant
The company has received a Scottish Enterprise R&D grant to invest in its Network Automation project.
Cloud computing and connectivity provider for financial markets Beeks Financial Cloud Group PLC (LON:BKS) today announces it has received a Scottish Enterprise R&D grant to invest in its Network Automation project.
The funding is set to enable the acceleration of the project, which will facilitate growth and expansion at Beeks’s Glasgow headquarters and enable Beeks to broaden its product offering, in particular to the Tier 1 financial services market. This cross-system project aims to fully automate Beeks’ network infrastructure deployment, enhancing Beeks’ ability to capitalise on the growing adoption of cloud computing infrastructure by Tier 1 financial institutions.
The grant is payable in installments over the next three years. It is expected to contribute up to approximately £2 million based on an overall project spend of up to £4.2 million.
Gordon McArthur, CEO of Beeks Financial Cloud commented:
“We are extremely grateful for Scottish Enterprise in their support for our strategic Network Automation initiative. The project will further strengthen our position as a leading provider of cloud computing services to financial markets, increasing the differentiation of our offering and helping to accelerate our future growth. We are proud to service our international customer base from our Glasgow headquarters and are delighted to be able to continue to expand our team in Scotland.”
Let’s recall that FY19 was a good year in terms of revenue growth for Beeks. Group revenues increased by 31.7% from the prior year to £7.35 million, on the back of continued organic growth. The CNS acquisition contributed £0.1 million revenue in the final two months of the year. Annualised Committed Monthly Recurring Revenues (ACMRR) increased by 31.9% to £9.1 million (2018: £6.9m) with CNS accounting for £0.8 million of this increase.
The company says it continues to have a healthy level of customer concentration with no single customer accounting for more than 6% of ACMRR. The number of institutional customers increased to 220 from 192 as at June 30, 2018 and the top 10 customers accounted for 32% of recognised revenue in the year (2018: 29%).
Gross profit increased 22.5% year on year to £3.65 million, however Beeks saw a decrease in gross margins from 53.4% to 49.6% as anticipated.
