OTTAWA, Dec. 9, 2015 /CNW/ - Ackroo Inc. (TSXV:
AKR), (OTC: AKRFF), a gift card, loyalty and rewards technology and
services provider, announces its business outlook and strategic
objectives for 2016.
"The Company is very pleased with the success of 2015 and how
well the Company is positioned for the coming year" said
Steve Levely, Chief Executive
Officer at Ackroo. "The Company put great focus on growth and
on getting the business to break even in 2015. We further
developed our product, made large improvements in our operational
model, further strengthened current partnerships, added more
channel partnerships for the business plus we began our inorganic
growth plans via the acquisition of 2 organizations. The
Company has come a very long way over the last 12 months and is
excited to have achieved many of the goals set out a year
ago. The Company has delivered substantial year over year
revenue and customer growth in 2015 and is now only a quarter or
two away from profitability, putting the Company at a very exciting
inflection point. We look forward to leveraging our successes
to close out the year strong and to continue to meet our goal of
becoming North America's largest
and best provider of gift card and loyalty processing
solutions."
Some of the highlights of the Company's 2016 plan are as
follows:
Financial Outlook:
- The Company plans to deliver positive EPS and a profitable 2016
by accomplishing several key financial goals:
- Annual revenues: The Company's goal is to increase revenues
year over year by at least 50% via a combination of organic and
inorganic growth.
- Operating costs: The Company will maintain current 2015
operating costs with no more than a 10% increase to support organic
growth.
- Gross Margin %: Expected to remain at current levels.
- % of recurring revenue vs. total revenue: Expected to remain at
current levels.
- Capital Allocation: Company will use additional capital to fund
accretive acquisitions, and to take advantage of significant
consolidation opportunities in the segment.
- Net Margin/EBITDA: Net Margin on revenue over break is
projected to be greater than 40%.
Operational Outlook:
- Maintain and further develop the current sales operations model
with a focus on Canadian merchants and partnerships but also begin
pursuing focus in the United
States as well.
- Continue to further develop current strategic partnerships and
continue to add others in order to increase the Company's
addressable market and also to further enhance the Company's
channel go to market strategy.
- Continue to increase monthly recurring revenues (MRR) per
location by delivering enhanced services and products to current
and newly acquired customers.
- Increase the total number of customer locations supported by at
least 75%.
- Complete product migration of legacy and newly acquired
technology platforms in order to maximize focus, support and
margins.
- Continue operational migration of recently acquired and
potentially newly acquired operational teams and processes.
- Continue to maintain the Company's current single digit
customer attrition rate by continuing to evolve technology and
support.
Product and Services Development:
- Continue to enhance the market leading Ackroo3 platform with
specific focus on enhancing the merchant and cardholder
experience.
- For the merchant experience the Company plans to further
develop its integration at point of sale. The Company will
enhance features and options for current point of sale partnerships
and will also add more point of sale integrated options via new
partnerships.
- The Company will further develop the Ackroo program console in
2016 to enhance reporting, self-serve functions, reward schemes,
marketing campaigns functions and to further enhance the customer
and transaction analytics engine.
- The Company will rebuild its e-gift card and photoGIFTCARD
solutions providing a key online and distribution enhancement to
the existing offering.
- For consumers, Ackroo will look to develop a white labelled web
application for merchants to allow them to offer a web and mobile
interface for gift card and loyalty processing for their customers,
and will enhance existing customer web portals to allow merchants
to customize actionable data collected.
- The Company will also begin to focus on providing more
marketing services to customers to assist them with utilizing the
Company's technology to drive increased return on investment.
Business Development:
- Further penetrate the over 250,000 merchant locations
represented by the Company's referral partners and the over
1,000,000 locations represented by the Company's product
partners.
- Continue to increase the number of selected referral partners
and build solid go to market strategies with each to drive
significant organic growth
- Pursue and complete the acquisition or merger of additional
complimentary or competitive businesses.
- Ackroo will further leverage its existing technology interface
(API) to both allow point of sale solutions like management and
debit/credit systems to integrate with Ackroo's platform or for
Ackroo to integrate to their platforms. In turn this will
increase the Company's addressable market, channel partnerships and
revenues.
"We believe we have the right team, focus and plan to execute on
our goals and deliver the Company's most successful year yet" said
Steve Levely. "We are committed to
achieving great success for our customers, employees and
shareholders and we look forward to a very prosperous 2016
ahead."
Ackroo also announces that the Company will be transitioning its
finance department from Ottawa,
Canada to the Hamilton area
to be more local with the CEO and as a result of this change
Dan Liu has resigned from her role
as Chief Financial Officer. The Company will hire Dan's
replacement in early 2016. The Company would like to thank
Dan for her commitment and contribution to the Company and wish her
the very best in her future endeavors.
These forecasts and forward-looking statements are not
guarantees of future performance and activities and are subject to
risks and uncertainties. The company has based these
forward-looking statements on assumptions and assessments made by
its management in light of their experience and their perception of
historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments
and other factors they believe to be appropriate. Important factors
that could cause actual results, developments and business
decisions to differ materially from those anticipated in these
forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: the
company's ability to raise enough capital to support the company's
go forward plans; the overall global economic environment; the
impact of competition and new technologies; general market,
political and economic conditions in the countries in which the
company operates; projected capital expenditures and liquidity;
changes in the company's strategy; government regulations and
approvals; changes in customers' budgeting priorities; plus other
factors that may arise. Any forward-looking statements in this
press release are made as of the date hereof, and the company
undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
About Ackroo
Ackroo is a SaaS based solution provider supplying gift card and
loyalty solutions into the $160
billion North American gift card and loyalty market. Their
solutions enable businesses, merchants and business networks to
increase profitability and build long-term customer relationships
through customized gift card and loyalty programs. Ackroo's
web-based solutions provide the power of a massively scalable
software platform in a lightweight online tool that works with
existing point-of-sale equipment, making it easy and
affordable for businesses to launch gift card & loyalty
programs that deliver immediate return on investment. Ackroo is
headquartered in Ottawa, Canada.
For more information, visit: www.ackroo.com.
The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved
the contents of this press release. Neither TSX Venture Exchange
nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in
policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for
the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE Ackroo Inc.
