AIM-listed telematics and big data insight specialist Trakm8 grew its revenue by 4% to £26.8m in the financial year ending March 2017.

However post-tax profit fell 55% to £1.5m largely due to increased overheads. Research and development costs expanded from £2.9m to £4.5m and Trakm8 spent much more on the sales and marketing of its fleet management and insurance solutions. A series of delayed contract wins also came too late to impact FY17 revenue as the company struggled with pipeline conversion and cash flow.

Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) plummeted 57% from 13.44p to 5.81p with no dividend paid, whilst net debt swelled to £3.9m from £1.1m a year earlier (Trakm8 acquired Roadsense for £800k last August).

Despite the ‘disappointing’ results first alluded to in a February trading update, Trakm8 executive chairman John Watkins pointed to new contracts signed with an unnamed roadside assistance technology company, construction equipment supplier Mecalac, and renewed and extended contracts with car insurance firm Marmalade, Iceland Foods, Shell and Direct Line Group as evidence it is going in the right direction. Indeed new orders booked were up 37% yoy, with the customer install base up 26% to 190k from 151k in FY16.

Management remain confident for FY18 and not without justification. Trakm8 is well positioned to capitalise on what we anticipate will be a surge in demand for IoT-enabled telematics, fleet management and connected car services over the next five years, though competition is likely to be fierce.

The company must get its operational expenditure under control, and has initiated a ‘streamlining’ exercise expected to shave £1.5m of its annual bill (at a one-off cost of £100k). However, the IoT services market is still at an early stage of its maturity and continued RnD investment (and acquisitions) may be necessary if Trakm8 is to stay in the game.

Join the TechMarketView team for drinks and dinner on the 5 October as we spend an evening ‘Unlocking the Intelligence’ with leaders from the UK software, IT services and business process services sectors.

This year’s Evening with TechMarketView will see some 250 CXOs from the world of UK tech meet at the magnificent Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in Portland Place, London.

The evening is TechMarketView’s flagship annual event and a fixture in the calendars of many a UK tech CEO. After a welcome drinks reception, the event kicks off with an hour of insight and analysis from TechMarketView’s leading analyst team centered around our 2017 research theme, Unlocking the Intelligence. This is followed by more quality networking during the pre-dinner drinks reception and then a sumptuous three-course dinner.

Tickets are already selling quickly so we’d recommend booking early to secure your place. As in previous years, TechMarketView research subscription clients are eligible for a 20% discount on standard ticket prices. 

For full details and to book your place visit tx2Events here or contact event coordinator Tina Compton at tx2Events (tina.compton@tx2events.com).

You know when a new consumer service has hit its stride in the market when the providers appear on price comparison websites like uswitch and moneysupermarket. Such is the case for ‘pay as you go’ insurers – also referred to as ‘black box’ or telematics insurers.

The latest to surface is London-based insuretech startup, By Miles, which has raised £350k in a seed funding round backed by Jaguar Land Rover's VC, InMotion Ventures, Hambro Perks and other angel investors. By Miles plans to launch as soon as it receives FCA authorisation to act as an insurance intermediary.

By Miles’ proposition is somewhat different to that of Edinburgh-based Cuvva (see Investors cover Cuvva with further funding), requiring a telematics box to be installed under the car dashboard which measures distance travelled. Cuvva is purely app-based and measures time on the road. Both charge a base monthly subscription fee along with a pay-for-use fee.

There are other players too, such as Peterborough-based telematics provider Coverbox, which installs the black box and uses a panel of insurers such as Aviva and Axa to provide the cover.

Neither By Miles nor Coverbox disclose the whose telematics device they install in customers’ cars – one possible supplier is Dorset-based Trakm8 (see Revenue up, profits down at Trakm8). But whichever they use, the differentiation is likely to be determined by the terms and fees that the insurer imposes, and the ‘value add’ provided by the app. This should allow room for a number of pay-as-you-go insurers hitting different driver market segments, at least while the market is finding its feet.

But when all’s said and done, the likes of By Miles, Cuvva et al are simply insurance brokers with a technology twist, living off the margins offered by insurance companies and telematics suppliers. It’s going to be a ‘volume’ game!

London-based startup, Zeelo, had the neat idea of extending a car-pooling service to coaches, offering a more direct route for travellers to get to events such as sports matches. You choose the event you wish to attend on their website to get a quote, and a coach will then pick you up ‘from a convenient location’ (I assume not your own home) on the day to take you to and from the venue.

Zeelo was one of four early-stage businesses that has just received seed funding (in its case, a total of $450k) from Jaguar Land Rover-owned VC, InMotion Ventures (and see By Miles gets £350k to launch PAYG insurance for another of the four), along with ex-Addison Lee CEO, Liam Griffin, and other angel investors. Zeelo co-founders Sam Ryan and Barney Williams previously founded taxi sharing app JumpIn while at university, which was bought by Addison Lee in 2014. InMotion also recently invested $25m in US rideshare company, Lyft.

Zeelo is competing head-to-head with established scheduled-route coach companies National Express and Megabus, which also offer pre-booked transport to popular events, including festivals and concerts as well as sports matches. Zeelo’s pitch is that their service is more convenient, more direct and, in theory at least, can dynamically create new routes based on surges in travel demand. What’s not clear to me is whether they plan to run their own fleet of coaches (asset utilisation and management challenge) or work with a pool of private coach operators (resource management, service level and quality assurance challenge). Much ‘smarts’ will be needed in their platform which ever route they take, so to speak.

Zeelo is currently running trial services, and expects to roll out the service in the UK later this year, with ambitions for Europe in late 2018. Altogether now, The wheels on the bus go round and round ... ' (we hope!).

At this stage in its lifecycle, predictive analytics needs experts at some point in the process and that’s what Swansea-based We Predict is providing with its cloud based predictive analytics as a service offering. The emphasis is on the service aspect – it ingests the data, builds the dynamic system to answer its customers’ queries and provides the answers – in an effort to provide customers with all the gains of exploiting their own data without the pain. Given the scarcity of people with predictive analytics skills, the ‘as a service’ aspect is an attractive model.

The combination of the proposition, skilled workforce (technical and industry experts) and a focus on automotive and manufacturing, with interests in health and crime sectors, has secured a tranche of funding from investors including Breed Reply and Finance Wales Group. The size of the most recent investment was not disclosed but We Predict appears to be keeping existing investors happy because Finance Wales was one of the backers of We Predict’s 2015 £1.25m funding round.

Founded in 2009, We Predict has avoided the temptation to be all things to all people and has concentrated on understanding its core automotive market and the type of data and issues involved – this tight focus is one of its strengths because for the best results, predictive analytics requires experts as well as technology. 

Logicalis has acquired a 51% stake in NubeliU, a South American company specialising in OpenStack cloud computing. The purpose of the purchase is to deepen Logicalis’ cloud integration capabilities.

NubeliU was founded in 2014 and its Rocket Platform provides a consolidated view across cloud infrastructure so users can optimise resources and governance. It’s a useful add-on for Logilcalis, although the challenge with acquiring start-ups is that the talented founders often leave to quench their thirst for entrepreneurial activities elsewhere.

We’re not too concerned that NubeliU is based out in South America; Loglicalis is used to co-ordinating international programmes within the company. What is important, however, is that the benefits of the technology filter through to customers as soon as possible, and that Logicalis continues to enhance the capabilities.

The Logicalis business in the UK has been highlighted in recent Datatec (its parent company) financial reports for its “weak” financial performance (Datatec reports woes in Weston and Logicalis businesses). It’s imperative, therefore, that the firm keeps on evolving to improve the services it can offer and its relevance in the market. We’d therefore be very surprised if further acquisitions didn’t happen.

RM’s H1 FY17 results are in line with expectations and reflect the ongoing challenges in the UK education market. Revenue was down 6.9% to £71.3m (H1 FY16: £76.6m), but operating profit margins improved to 10.0% (H1 FY16: 9.3%); adjusted operating profit was flat compared to the same period last year at £7.1m.

On a divisional basis, the biggest fall was seen in RM Resources, which declined by 12.9% to £25.5m (H1 FY16: £29.3m). International revenues, which now represent 24% of the division, grew by 29% over the period, which shows just how challenging the UK school market has become.

The division now has the added challenge of integrating the Education & Care business of Connect Group (see RM: A good deal in a challenging market), which was completed on 30th June 2017. RM will need to be careful not to disrupt sales during transition, as June and July represent by far the busiest months for the new business.

Revenue for RM Education, the SITS division, fell by 5.4% to £32.4m (H1 FY16: £34.2m). Headcount reductions have helped improve operating margins to 9.6% (H1 2016: 6.6%). It added two significant contracts over the period with Education Scotland (see RM secures a healthy Glow contract) and a three-year connectivity deal in Hertfordshire.

Revenue for RM Results, the e-assessment division, increased by 2.2% to £13.5m (H1 FY16: £13.2m). It secured a five-year agreement with Oxford University Press, plus contract extensions for the DfE’s National Pupil Database and the AQA exam board.

Schools are struggling with a real-term decline in funding per pupil and uncertainty about future funding settlements. For RM, this has been compounded by a lack of curriculum change to stimulate spending. The future of the business rests on the successful integration of the Connect business into RM Resources and the ability to drive RM Education, which is still rebuilding after the closure of the Building Schools for the Future programme, back to growth.   

Day one of SAP’s Financial Services Forum didn’t pull any punches. The opening speaker from Singularity University painted a picture of radical change as the Tech Titans of Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. think braver thoughts and make bolder moves to disrupt established banks and insurers. The question was posed, “Why shouldn't they succeed in the Financial Services market? They know more about your customer than you do!” Established companies cannot succeed by solving today's problems and iterating - they need to fundamentally change their business models.

Subsequent speakers then revealed how they were fending off the mounting challenge. HSBC addressed personnel transformation, with a plan to change the culture (and the technology underlying group-wide HR) at an unprecedented speed. Discover Vitality pointed out their radical approach as they increase control over their risk portfolio by promoting healthier behaviours in their life policy holders and better driving by motor insurance customers. Ageas, the Belgian insurer, showed how they are building a new Insurance company from scratch in the Philippines, quickly building a complete, end-to-end and customer centric business in the cloud. Accenture emphasized the importance of Artificial Intelligence, reinforcing the Bank of Ireland representative’s view that banks are not using the customer data they already have, to protect and build on their trusted position.

Fintech provides the best ever boost for sector productivity, as long as established banks and insurers partner with Fintechs to leverage their key data and trust assets and Unlock the Intelligence (TechMarketView’s 2017 research theme and focus for our forthcoming event.

SAP’s Forum offered clear insight into the fundamental transformation of sector business models. Even though their technology hardly featured in the day’s presentations, they got their message across as influential partners in the process of change.

Elon Musk has a habit of delays and broken production promises. But, last night, Tesla said that the first Model 3s would come off the production line on Friday - two weeks early.

The Model 3 is the electric car for the masses - unlike the expensive S and X. It is also the ‘make or break’ model for Tesla which secured 400,000 (refundable) deposits for the model. Musk says production will ramp to 20,000 pm by December.

Surely there are very few who don’t marvel at what Musk is currently achieving at SpaceX? Despite an aborted launch yesterday, the current reuse of rockets has revolutionised satellite launching.  I still get a boyhood kick watching a Falcon9 land back vertically. His Hyperloop concept is gaining credibility too. Also reports that his Boring Company is digging its first shaft to house an elevator to take cars down to a tunnel where they will zip around cities at 130mph.

You might call Musk ‘a dreamer’. But he’s a dreamer who actually turns most of his fantastic ideas into reality. These are dreams that really could change the world. Indeed, his dream of colonising Mars is literally out of this world. Whether they will turn into economically viable businesses is more debatable but I take my hat off to him trying.

I’ve readily declared that I am a long-time Tesla shareholder where I bought ‘with my heart not my head’. But with Tesla shares up over 70% so far in 2017, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad buying motive afterall! Mind you the share price is now pretty galactic too. 

TechMarketView is expanding and we’re looking for talented analysts with expertise in a number of areas to join our friendly team as Research Directors or Principal Analysts.

You may already have been working as an analyst for a number of years, or perhaps you have a background in journalism or market intelligence within the UK tech industry and a passion for taking on a new challenge?

Whatever your background, you are likely to be able to demonstrate expertise grounded in one (or more) of the following areas:

·      Software– a good understanding of software suppliers and trends in the sector, particularly in the UK market

·      Business Process Services– knowledge of business process outsourcers & the trends shaping the BPS sector such as RPA

·      IT Services– a passion for the IT services providers in the UK tech sector, in particular the SIs & consultancies delivering application services

·      Retail vertical– expertise on the market for software and IT services within the retail sector.

Join the TechMarketView team

Of course, it’s just as important that you’ll be a good fit with our small but growing team.  We’re looking for people who are:

·      self-motivated team players with strong business acumen

·      able to demonstrate integrity, drive, an enquiring mind & analytical thinking

·      excellent written and verbal communicators known for attention to detail and the ability to meet deadlines

·      experienced in interpreting data and drawing insightful conclusions

·      accustomed to engaging with senior decision makers and presenting to clients

·      happy working from home (we all do) but able to attend monthly meetings in the Farnham/Guildford area (Surrey) plus client meetings in London.

There is scope to tailor the roles for the right candidates, who may work on a full-time, part-time or associate basis. Naturally we offer a competitive compensation package, commensurate with experience.

If you think you fit the bill and you’re interested in joining the ‘TechMarketView family’ please send your CV and a covering email to our Managing Director, Tola Sargeant (tsargeant@techmarketview.com), before the end of July.

Please note that we do not accept resumes from recruitment agencies, headhunters and other third party services providers – only direct applications will be considered.

Worldpay shares leapt over 20% as they announced that US-focused acquirer/payments processor Vantiv and US banking and payments giant JPMorgan Chase are interested in buying them. This is prompting a potential bidding war for Worldpay and other payments operators as companies eye new market positions and international expansion as the business models of commerce are radically transformed by the advent of digital technologies, artificial intelligence, IoT, etc.

Worldpay has done a lot of the heavy lifting required for this new world while under the wing of its Private Equity investors. Its new digital platform, which completes its roll-out this year has substantially reduced costs and galvanised new product introduction. The IPO in October 2015 enabled the PE holders to realise profits and the share has performed well subsequently. The fact that potential bidders look prepared to pay a further 20+% premium underlines the value opportunity, even for a business that has sorted itself out.

The key is that the payments function is the way in which any relationship is monetised. Connecting buyer and seller seamlessly and digitally, and in increasingly subtle and nuanced ways, is an important element of future success. Secondly, a successful payments business needs to have scale, reach and diversity to capture a sufficient number of transactions to build economic returns. The key final factor is the intimate knowledge of the wider payments business. Worldpay has all of these in spades, particularly with its GlobaleCom division exploring new generation payments systems and its unique position in the UK market, as a non-bank with a host of connections to end-users and businesses across the payments ecosystem.

Watch out for more action as companies large and small scrabble for market position and as the European payments market consolidates.

Atos has confirmed details of its ‘high performance computing’ (HPC) win with the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) – which we had trailed in UKHotViewsExtra (see Atos UK: An evolving business) earlier in the year. AWE, which is owned by the MoD but is operated under contract by AWE Management Ltd (of which there are three shareholders – Jacobs Engineering, Leidos, and Serco), supports the UK’s Continuous At Sea Deterrent. The latest Atos contract makes use of the Bull Sequana supercomputer to enable HPC solutions to boost next-generation scientific modelling. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (thankfully) prohibits emission of nuclear wield, so AWE must use complex digital modelling and simulation to verify the safety and reliability of nuclear warheads.

Atos has had a relationship with AWE – through the Bull brand – since 2010, providing several generations of supercomputers and data intensive systems. For those of you who want to get technical: “The new system will feature a single Bull Sequana x1000 supercomputer with a theoretical peak performance of 4.3 Petaflops (4.3 million billion operations per second)”.

The company has had significant success in the UK drawing on the capabilities of the Bull acquisition (see Atos takes Bull by the horns). This year, it also won a contract to deliver the Bull Sequana system to the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Hartree Centre. But Atos also says that, as data volumes balloon, opportunities are arising in areas outside of the traditional domain of science and research. This week, Atos also announced the launch of "the world's first commercially available machine-system capable of simulating up to 40 quantum bits (Qubits)"; the simulator is named "Atos Quantum Learning Machine". We are seeing Atos draw great value from its 2014 acquisition and that journey looks likely to accelerate.

CityFibre is back on the expansion trail, snapping up rival UK wholesale communications service provider Entanet for £29m and looking to raise £185m of investment funds via a placing of 336m shares at 55p per share.

The money will be used to expand CityFibre’s fibre metro area network further from 42 to 50 UK cities by 2020 (it paid £5m for Redcentric’s network assets last year), and assist the bid to expand its presence in the consumer market through fibre to the home (FTTH) expansion in 5 to 10 UK cities following a recent trial in York.

With CityFibre so focussed on fibre it will be interesting to see if it retains Entanet’s residential ADSL business given that it runs on copper broadband infrastructure maintained by its chief rival BT Openreach (subscribers to our SecureConnectViews research stream can access our profile of CityFibre here).

CityFibre calculates it will be making around £3m per annum within three years from the Entanet buy by exploiting the latter’s estimated base of 1,500 channel partners to reach more business customers whilst consolidating overlapping wholesale services and back end systems.

Unlike CityFibre (which posted a net loss of £12.6m in FY16) Entanet is a profitable company albeit one enjoying a considerably more modest rate of revenue growth than its new owner.

Entanet’s turnover increased 12% organically to £35.8m in FY16 driven by demand for Ethernet virtual private network (IP VPN) links from businesses and service providers and a big channel push for residential customers. Gross profit dipped 9% however due to the cost of those consumer customer acquisitions though Entanet insists it has now adjusted its cost base to expand and develop higher margin products and services. Gross margin too fell 4%, which we think may have made the asking price more attractive.

Going forward, adding scale should help CityFibre take on larger wholesale connectivity deals with public sector organisations and mobile operators engaged in 5G rollouts, though we think these will take time to materialise.

Gresham Technologies continues to perform well and in line with expectations. Its H1 (30 June 2017) trading update for the transaction control and data integrity solution provider states that it expects revenues to be up 26% compared to H1 FY16—this equates to revenues of c.£9.8m (H1 FY16: £7.8m).

As we reported when its full FY16 results were released (see Gresham Technologies building momentum), the real driver for growth is Gresham’s Clareti Transaction Control (CTC) software, which provides reconciliation, verification and validation of transactions. During H1 FY17 it added eight new CTC clients, including three in North America (see Gresham chalks up another US win), and others in Europe and Asia Pacific.  

Total Clareti H1 FY17 revenues, including contributions from C24 Technologies, which it acquired in October 2016 (see Gresham buys C24 Technologies, gearing up for faster data), are expected to be up 52% on the same period last year. Clareti software revenues will be up 136% compared to last year (101% excluding C24 Technologies).

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be strongly ahead of H1 FY16 and management reports it is confident of meeting expectations for the full year.

As we as discussed in our recent Regtech report, the mounting burden of regulation and prospect of higher penalties are helping to drive technology spend in the sector. We expect there to be plenty more opportunities for Gresham in 2017, particularly for CTC. 

About 30 years ago I was appointed as the non-exec Chairman of an Apple reseller. A few years later it was awarded its biggest ever supply and support contract - a deal that would more than double its annual revenues. Expansion followed and, indeed, ‘times were good’. But a few years after that the customer was acquired and, you guessed it, the supply & support contract was cancelled. Many of the costs related to the contract - like the larger premises required - could not be shed quickly. The company really suffered and eventually (after I’d left as its Chair) fell into administration. I think without that big contract they would still be alive today.

I have retold that story many times since as huge orders or, in the case of charities, huge donations have been received forcing organisations to make investment decisions which would be difficult - or impossible - to quickly unwind should the order or donation not be renewed in later years. But the temptation to ‘take the money’ usually overrides sensible business decision-making.

In my own businesses - including TechMarketView - no single customer has ever exceeded 4% of our annual revenues which gives us a reasonable level of security. Anything over 20% from any single client would give me much cause for concern.

Of course, I repeat this warning in the light of Imagination Technologies and its woes after its predominant customer - Apple - gave notice that it would no longer use its graphics chips. As a result their shares have crashed from their £6 high in 2012 to c£1.50. Without a considerable cash buffer, Imagination has had to put itself up for sale. Difficult to see what other course they could take. But it is a really sad situation as the underlying trading ‘sans Apple’ at Imagination’s core businesses is strong as yesterday’s resulted showed. Revenues up c20% and revenues from licencing up over 80% - this was of course the way that ARM avoided the Apple domination effect.

So we will now see a company, that was once a jewel in the UK’s tech crown, sold to an almost inevitable foreign purchaser who will have the cash to make a really good business out of Imagination without Apple. All very sad and, possibly, all avoidable

With seven years under his belt at hybrid cloud and colocation firm, Pulsant, CEO Mark Howling is set to move into a non-executive director role later in the summer. Niclas Sanfridsson will become the new CEO in August.

Sanfridsson was most recently Managing Director of Equinix in the Nordic Region, having spent 15 years with TeleCity (which was of course acquired by Equinix - see Equinix to buy Telecity, InterXion deal terminated). In addition, Graeme Mackenzie, CFO - who has been with Pulsant in one form or another for c15 years - is set to leave the company, being replaced by Brad Petzer in September. The leadership changes at Pulsant mirror those at Six Degrees, where Alastair Mills switched to the role of Chairman in January.

Given the time Howling has spent at Pulsant we’re not entirely surprised he wants to take a step back. Pulsant is three years into what is likely to be a five year cycle with Oak Hill (see BDC sells Pulsant to Oak Hill), so with two years left to run, there is still time for a new leader to get their teeth into the role.

Pulsant’s FY15 accounts show that the cloud, co-location and hosting firm grew its underlying business by 7.6% to £43.5m. However, including “exceptional customer churn” (most notably a high street bank that finished building its own data centres, and so made the strategic decision to reduce its footprint and therefore its co-lo requirements), top line revenue declined 2.6%. The underlying EBITDA margin increased from 32% to 34%. We estimate that Pulsant grew its cloud business in line with our market numbers at the time (c40% in 2015), and accounted for c40% of revenue. We will shortly be speaking to management regarding its latest set of accounts.

Then claiming to be the first ‘mobile-first’ bank for small businesses, UK-based Tide launched a year ago on the back of a $2m seed funding round backed by Passion Capital, LocalGlobe, and various high-profile angels, with Passion co-founder Eileen Burbridge taking the chair.

Tide has now raised a further $14m in a Series A funding round led by Anthemis and Creandum. Passion and LocalGlobe were also in the frame.

Tide does not have a full banking licence. Its banking services are provided by Prepaid Solutions (PPS) a joint venture between Mastercard and Edenred, the French financial services company spun out of the Accor hotel group. The actual dosh is held by PPS in a ring-fenced account at Barclays.

Tide’s USP is a combination of its low charges (including no account-keeping fees and a fixed 20p charge per transaction) along with some basic book-keeping functionality (a sort of Sage/Xero/Quickbooks Very-Lite).

According to TechCrunch, Tide is soon to offer business loans in association with Iwoca, the London-based business lending start-up launched in 2012 (see ‘Business Wonga’ Iwoca raises £5m funding et al). Tide plans to open in markets beyond the UK next year.

You can see Tide being attractive to young entrepreneur-led businesses that don’t need (or indeed don’t want) to deal with the usual suspect big banks. I would imagine that the more business management functionality they can add (for a fee, of course), the more attractive Tide would become. And if they don’t want to develop their own, doubtless there are conversations that could be had with the masters of that universe.

Join the TechMarketView team for drinks and dinner on the 5 October as we spend an evening ‘Unlocking the Intelligence’ with leaders from the UK software, IT services and business process services sectors.

This year’s Evening with TechMarketView will see some 250 CXOs from the world of UK tech meet at the magnificent Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in Portland Place, London.

The evening is TechMarketView’s flagship annual event and a fixture in the calendars of many a UK tech CEO. After a welcome drinks reception, the event kicks off with an hour of insight and analysis from TechMarketView’s leading analyst team centered around our 2017 research theme, Unlocking the Intelligence. This is followed by more quality networking during the pre-dinner drinks reception and then a sumptuous three-course dinner.

Tickets are already selling quickly so we’d recommend booking early to secure your place. As in previous years, TechMarketView research subscription clients are eligible for a 20% discount on standard ticket prices. 

For full details and to book your place visit tx2Events here or contact event coordinator Tina Compton at tx2Events (tina.compton@tx2events.com).

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How many times have you followed a similar exhortation on a website only to find little more of interest? London-based ‘intelligent discovery’ platform startup, Bibblio, aims to improve website stickiness by using machine learning techniques to recommend truly relevant content.

Bibblio has raised $1.5m in a seed funding round led by Camden-based ‘deep technology’ backer, 01Ventures. Founded in 2014, Bibblio had previously raised $300k from angel investors in March 2015.

At the moment, Bibblio analyses text-only content, but the funding will help support its extension to speech and video. A quick squizz through Biblio’s website gave me the impression that this is not a simple ‘drag and drop’ jobbie to Bibblio-fy a website – it is indeed ‘deep technology’. But Bibblio offers 1:1 workshops for larger users, and support ranging from email through to on-site implementation services. Bibblio runs a ‘freemium’ model for ‘try before you buy’, and then volume-based pricing ranging from $129 to $4,479 per month.

Bibblio’s USP is that its recommendations are not ‘click-based’ or ‘dwell time-based’; it really is all about the content. Interesting.