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Digital Barriers has acquired Visimetrics Limited and its subsidiary, OmniPerception Limited, for an initial cash consideration of £3.3m. A further £4.7m is payable (the majority of which would be paid in shares), subject to certain financial and operational targets being reached.
Visimetrics develops and manufactures high-performance digital video recording, storage and management systems for video surveillance systems. Its customers include law enforcement, criminal justice, defence and other public sector organisations. OmniPerception designs and develops facial recognition video systems and advanced image processing systems. Their combined revenue for the 12 months to 30th September 2012 was £1.76m, with a loss of £1.29m. However, the Board at Digital Barriers believes it can significantly improve this operational performance in the “short-to-medium term”.
It was back in early December 2012 that the company revealed its intention to make another purchase (see Digital Barriers: Proposed placing to fund 13th acquisition) and move into a fourth core strategic technology area. The addition of Visimetrics and OmniPerception does just that, adding advanced facial recognition and identity management solutions to Digital Barriers' portfolio at a time when biometric identity recognition is becoming increasingly important in the security and defence sectors.
These are exciting (and challenging) times for Digital Barriers as it looks to build-out and develop this new, key technology area, and the next couple of years will be important ones for the firm. We’re seeing some encouraging signs on the financial front with revenues up 31% (on a pro-forma basis) to £8.1m (latest half-year figures) and breakeven looking likely within an 18 month timeframe (see Digital Barriers: profitability is in sight).
