Trading and Patent Case Updates

PCI-PAL PLC

24 May 2023

 

PCI-PAL PLC

("PCI Pal", "the Company" or "the Group")

Trading and Patent Case Updates

PCI-PAL PLC (AIM: PCIP), the global cloud provider of secure payment solutions for business communications, is pleased to provide a trading update for the current financial year ending 30 June 2023 ("FY23"), and an update regarding the ongoing patent case with one of its competitors.

Trading Update

Since the half year, PCI Pal has achieved continued strong momentum with excellent performance across its key metrics.  The Board is particularly pleased with the strength of its global sales pipeline which is driving an acceleration in new business sales in the second half of the year.  New ACV for the Group year to date is now at £3.4 million, with a strong outlook to the financial year end which will help to further underpin revenue growth in FY24.

The strength of the Company's channel partner strategy is reflected in 86% of these new contracts having come through PCI Pal's market leading partner eco-system. Additionally of note is that £3.0 million (87%) of the new business signed is from new customers to the Group which is a pleasing 34% increase compared to the same period last year. 

Highlight new customer contracts won in the second half include a number of enterprise deals in the US where the Group has experienced accelerated growth of its sales pipeline throughout FY23. These wins include a major contract with a Fortune 50 healthcare provider, as well as another new enterprise contract with one of the largest electronics companies in the world. Further to the US progress, the Board is pleased to report that the Company has also signed its largest contract to date in Australia, with a well-known global insurer.

Patent Case Update

PCI Pal disrupted the secure payments market for contact centres by bringing true public cloud capabilities to the space. PCI Pal's patented cloud deployment methods have empowered light-touch, cost effective access to its products and services, which was something not seen before in a market historically burdened by legacy hardware solutions.

Today PCI Pal has the most mature global cloud offering in the market and has delivered the strongest growth momentum of any company in the space for a number of years. It has long been the opinion of the Board that Sycurio Limited (formerly Semafone Limited) ("Sycurio") brought its opportunistic patent infringement claim to try to disrupt PCI Pal's growth and momentum.

The Board continues to strongly refute these unfounded patent infringement claims.

Investors are referred to the Company's patent case update included in its interim report released on 14 March 2023.  Since then, the parties have exchanged expert witness reports and subsequently reviewed mutual responses to these reports.  The Board continues to be confident in being successful in both the Company's defence for non-infringement, as well as its counter claims of invalidity of the Sycurio patents in question.

The Company confirms that there have been discussions with Sycurio regarding the case. To date these discussions have not produced any sensible settlement options that the Board believes are in the best interests of the business.  The Board continues to seek the best outcome for the business and is entirely prepared for trial on that basis.

The UK Trial is scheduled for eight days from 12 June 2023.  A ruling is expected up to four months from that time.

Commenting, James Barham, Chief Executive Officer, said:

"It is exciting to see the continued progress of the Group this year, especially during times when there have been a number of economic headwinds across our main customer regions.

"The momentum in the US is particularly encouraging and evidences the successful execution of our strategy since launch in the region. With the majority of our global partners headquartered in the US, progress in the region also supports our sales progression globally as many of these partners have businesses across Europe, APAC, and ANZ.  As a result of this momentum, the Board is confident that results for FY23 will be in line with management expectations.

"In terms of the patent case, whilst we will continue to consider all sensible settlement options to resolve the case, we are entirely prepared for trial. We have built a strong case and during this period of preparation our confidence has only grown for both the defence of the unfounded infringement claims, as well as our own counter claims of invalidity."

¹ACV is the annual recurring revenue generated from a new contract.

For further information, please contact:

PCI-PAL PLC	Via Walbrook PR
James Barham - Chief Executive Officer William Good - Chief Financial Officer
finnCap (Nominated Adviser and Broker)	[phone]
Marc Milmo/Simon Hicks/Fergus Sullivan (Corporate Finance) Sunila de Silva (Corporate Broking)
Walbrook PR	[phone]
Tom Cooper/Nick Rome	[phone]
	[e-mail]

About PCI Pal:

PCI Pal is a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service ("SaaS") solutions that empower companies to take payments from their customers securely, adhere to strict industry governance, and remove their business from the significant risks posed by non-compliance and data loss. Our products secure payments and data in any business communications environment including voice, chat, social, email, and contact centre. We are integrated to, and resold by, some of the worlds' leading business communications vendors, as well as major payment service providers.

The entirety of our product-base is available from our global cloud platform hosted in Amazon Web Services ("AWS"), with regional instances across EMEA, North America, and ANZ.

For more information visit www.pcipal.com or follow the team on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pci-pal/

 

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