New Contract Win and Trading Update
30 November 2020
The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR"). With the publication of this announcement via a Regulatory Information Service, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.
Location Sciences Group PLC
("Location Sciences" or the "Company")
New Contract Win, Trading Update and Change of Registered Office
Location Sciences (AIM: LSAI), the leading location verification company, is pleased to announce it has signed its second customer, The Spoken Thought, Inc., to its GeoProtect (Verify Audience) platform.
The Spoken Thought, Inc. (trading as Mira) is a high value audience segment supplier to leading brands and media agencies across the US. It will use the Location Sciences GeoProtect platform to independently verify audience segments in order to offer its customers a visibly differentiated premium product compared to its competitors.
The quality of the data used to build audience segments matters to brands and agencies and can dramatically impact the performance of their advertising campaigns. In today's data marketplace, however, it is virtually impossible for brands and agencies to distinguish between good and bad quality audience data. Consequently, Location Sciences' third-party independent certification is an excellent tool for suppliers of audience segments to clearly and visibly demonstrate the quality of their products in this crowded data marketplace.
Location Sciences and Mira have been developing their partnership throughout 2020 and the signing of this agreement crystalises an enormous amount of hard work by both parties. The partnership being entered into now should enable Mira to deliver more accurate high value audience segments to its customers.
Whilst revenues under this agreement are expected to begin to accrue to Location Sciences during the remainder of 2020, the main revenue benefit should become evident in 2021 and beyond.
Mark Slade, CEO, Location Sciences, commented: "Mira's decision to join a growing set of US suppliers in offering complete transparency to their customers is a testament to their business and commitment to high-quality products. This win builds on excellent work already underway with other suppliers, who are leveraging our partnership to win new business."
Jon Frangakis, CEO, Mira, added: "Working with Location Sciences gives us the platform to show our customers the true quality and accuracy of our audiences. We have been impressed with the GeoProtect platform and the Location Sciences team, and we look forward to progressing our partnership in 2021."
Trading Update
Throughout 2020, Verify revenues have been adversely impacted by significantly reduced advertising spend as a result of Covid-19, and the UK's second nationwide lockdown in November could not have come at a worse time for the business. Consequently, the anticipated pick up in Verify revenues in Q4 2020 (typically the busiest quarter for location-based advertising) has not materialised and therefore Verify revenues will be lower than the Company's expectations.
The directors remain confident in the market opportunity for Verify and expect revenues to increase from existing customers as well as new client wins as location-based advertising returns during the first half of 2021.
The reduced revenue from Verify has been partly offset with additional revenues secured from Location Science's Insights products, with new client wins for the Company's market leading geo-mobility insights, including securing a partnership with the NHS to help its efforts in fighting the transmission of Covid-19.
Supporting the NHS
Location Sciences data insights products continue to help to inform the ongoing response to Covid-19. Through its long-term partnership with CACI, Location Sciences is supplying data to support NHS England and members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) in their analysis of how movement of individuals is impacting the reproduction number (R) and growth rate of Covid-19 in the UK.
Location Sciences is pleased to be supporting NHS England - helping it to understand how people are moving around and exploring how this may impact the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
Cash Resources Sufficient until 2022
As part of its ongoing efforts to mitigate the impact of Covid-19, the board has and is taking further measures to reduce the Company's overheads and seek operational efficiencies where possible. These actions include moving to remote working in London and the US and rationalising the Company's new business generation operations in the US. These actions will lead to the Company having reduced cash requirements such that the board now believes the Company has sufficient cash reserves until early 2022. As at 30 November 2020, the Company had cash of approximately £1.2 million.
Mark Slade, CEO, Location Sciences, comments: "The new partnerships developed in 2020 - in challenging circumstances - are incredibly encouraging. It's pleasing to see high-quality location data being valued by the advertising industry and beyond, as public sector bodies realise the impact of movement on society. As we move towards a new year, we are optimistic that we will continue this momentum."
Change of Registered Office
With effect from 1 December 2020, the Company's registered office will be moved to the Company's company secretarial offices at First Floor, St James House, St James Square, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 3PR.
A further update on trading and prospects is expected to be provided in late January 2021.
For further information please contact:
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Location Sciences Group PLC |
via Milk & Honey PR |
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Mark Slade, Chief Executive Officer |
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David Rae, CFO and Commercial Director |
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Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser) |
Tel: +44 (0)20 3328 5656 |
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David Hart James Hornigold
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Peterhouse Capital (Broker) Charles Goodfellow Eran Zucker |
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7220 9791 |
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Milk & Honey PR |
Tel: +44 (0)20 3637 7310 |
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Kirsty Leighton |
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Jessica Ballinger |
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About Location Sciences Group PLC:
Location Sciences is the pre-eminent global location verification provider to the $160 billion digital advertising industry. Working in partnership with brands, media agencies and suppliers to reduce ad-wastage and improve the effectiveness of location-based advertising campaigns.
The digital advertising market-place remains unregulated and un-monitored, with an estimated $19 billion wasted on ad-fraud in 2018. Location Sciences has developed Verify, the world's first independent location verification product. Utilising sophisticated machine learning and pattern recognition technologies, Verify detects location ad-fraud and shines a light on location data inaccuracy with the aim of bringing back integrity, transparency and trust to the market place.
Rule 26 website: www.locationsciencesgroup.ai
Verify website: www.locationsciences.ai
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/locationsciences
Twitter: @LocationSci
About Mira
Mira (also known as The Spoken Thought) are a high value audience segment supplier to leading brands and media agencies across the US. In addition, Mira designs, builds, and operates data sets that make Out of Home media function more like digital media via its crowd analytics platform. Mira was founded in 2015 by two brothers, Jonathan and Gabe Frangakis and is based in New York, NY and Durham, NC.
Website: https://mira.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-spoken-thought/
Twitter: @Mira_Analytics
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