Q1 2023 VerifyMe Inc Earnings Call
Speaker 1: I.
Speaker 2: All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touch-tone phone.
Speaker 2: To withdraw your question, please press star and 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nancy Meares. Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today for our earnings call presentation. On the call today we have Scott Greenberg, Interim CEO and Executive Chairman, Keith Goldstein, President and Chief Operating Officer.
Speaker 3: Margaret DeZerlis, CFO , and Kurt Kohl, Executive Vice President, Sales and Global Strategy, give an update on our first quarter 2023 results.
Speaker 3: Following our management presentation, we will have a Q&A session.
Speaker 3: I would like to bring your attention to the note on forward-looking statements on slide three. Today's presentation and the answers to questions include forward-looking statements. It should be understood that actual results could differ materially from those projected due to a number of factors, including those described under the forward-looking statement caption.
Speaker 3: and on the risk factors of the company's annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q . I will now turn the call over to Scott Greenberg for some opening remarks.
Speaker 4: Thank you Nancy. I'd like to welcome you to our first quarter of the year.
Speaker 4: We will provide a business and financial update and then have a Q&A session.
Speaker 4: Through our internal investments and acquisition of parisheship and trust code, we believe that Verify.me is developing a unique platform. Our goal is to increase market share and revenue with both a complete solution and an increased sales and marketing effort from the past.
Speaker 4: The first quarter of 2020 results and the pursuit of new opportunities continues to lead us to our positive future outlook. I believe the presentations today will demonstrate that the company has crossed a bridge from a technology start-up to an operating company.
Speaker 4: Based upon our latest projections, the company continues to target a positive adjusted EBITDA for 2023 and revenue growth of approximately 40% both through the acquisitions and organic growth.
Speaker 4: Our 2023 goal is to continue to integrate and focus on the technologies that we purchased.
Speaker 4: Next slide, please, Nancy.
Speaker 4: Just a little bit about the financials and equities snapshot. Our stock price on May 4th was $1.86 and our shares outstanding is $9.4 million which gives up a market cap as approximately $17.5 million.
Speaker 4: Our cash balance as of March 31, 2003 was approximately $3.1 million.
Speaker 4: Our total debt was approximately $2.3 million as of March 31, 2003.
Speaker 4: and we do have an additional 500k available under our line of credit with PNC Bank.
Speaker 4: In the first quarter, we had a substantial increase of revenue. Our revenue went from 200,000 to 5.7 million.
Speaker 4: and our inside beneficial ownership is approximately 16%.
Speaker 4: With that being said, I'd now like to turn over the call to Keith Goldstein.
Speaker 5: Great, thank you, Scott. And for those of you who have joined the call today, it's a pleasure to speak with you about VerifyMe. I'd like to provide a business update since our Q4 earnings call about six weeks ago on March 28th.
Speaker 5: So during the last call, I discussed our acquisition of Trust Codes, a software as a service solution company providing brand protection, unit level traceability, and consumer engagement. That, coupled with the acquisition of Perishif just over a year ago, has allowed Verify.me to transition from a product-based brand protection company.
Speaker 5: to a software-driven company providing end-to-end supply chain assurance and trust.
Speaker 5: So what does this mean? Well a few years ago VerifyMe's product portfolio Consisted primarily of covert inks read with patented devices for brand protection.
Speaker 5: This is great technology with a specific use case large companies brand inspectors in no counterfeit charges.
Speaker 5: great technology with a specific use case. Large companies, brand inspectors, and know how to fix charges they want to address.
Speaker 5: Recognizing this, we embarked on broadening our offerings. We acquired PeriShip with a unique predictive analytics platform, providing shipping, monitoring, and intervention services. We take in shipping data and programmatically analyze it with key data elements like traffic,
Speaker 5: improving the customer and consumer experience.
Speaker 5: Real life examples of this are in the vaccine space where we provide guidance, mentorship, reducing their risk of spoilage and reships, and in the apparel space where a tuxedo must arrive on time for that Saturday wedding.
Speaker 5: Now, add trust codes capabilities to provide supply chain transparency with unit level product traceability, authentication, consumer engagement, and brand centric storytelling all delivered to a smart phone and it makes Verify.me an end-to-end software driven supply chain.
Speaker 5: provider. Our transition to this software-driven logistics company was deliberate with the goal to create a broad solution set for supply chain assurance with the ability to generate recurring revenue and customer stickiness.
Speaker 5: Our Covert Inc. is still an important part of securing the supply chain, but it now plays a supporting role than a primary role for the company.
Speaker 5: where integrating the three businesses as Scott said, together to bring a unified message and solution to the market. In a few minutes, Kurt Cole, our EVP, will speak more about that.
Speaker 5: As we look to generate customer revenue, one of the industry verticals that we are focusing on is the food and beverage market. Per Tech Navio, a market research firm, the U.S. perishable goods transportation market is estimated to be valued at $4 billion in 2022.
Speaker 5: and grow with a cager of 8% through 2027.
Speaker 5: We have strong reference accounts in many food and beverage categories to include beef, fruit, honey, nutraceuticals, wine, and infant formula. These products can all benefit from our supply chain assurance services, whether it's getting something perishable to its destination on time.
Speaker 5: down to the unit level.
Speaker 5: So moving on to the third bullet point.
Speaker 5: Our trust codes platform is one of the few cloud-based item level traceability and authentication platform that is currently GS1 validated for its end-to-end traceability solution.
Speaker 5: GS1 is a not-profit organization developing and maintaining the global standards for barcodes.
Speaker 5: And everybody's probably familiar with the UPC or universal product code. It's that black and white picket fence barcode visible on virtually everything we buy. It's scanned billions of times each day around the globe.
Speaker 5: Well, the UPC code has been around for 50 years. It's a long time. And as the industry has developed and evolved, so has digital barcode and technology, adding functionality that's meaningful for supply chain participants. As a result, industry and GS1 are moving towards two-dimensional barcodes.
Speaker 5: like the QR code, which will ultimately replace the UPC code on products. What this means is that more information can be layered into the barcode to meet the demand of regulators, consumers, and brands for more product information, supply chain transparency, traceability, authentication, and recall management.
Speaker 5: As such, GS1 has come out with this program called Sunrise 2027, and they've laid out plans to help ensure that these 2D barcodes are going to be usable at retail points of sale by 2027. So the goal here is to replace UPCs with 2D barcodes. And while this is a massive undertaking,
Speaker 5: We don't know if all businesses will be compliant by then. We do know that many large US retailers are already embracing this. And we, Verify Me, has the technology advantage with TrustCoach's platform being GS1 standards based and already oriented for this migration. The last.
Speaker 5: Business update I have relates to adopting a carrier-agnostic approach for our peryship predictive analytics platform for shipping, monitoring, and intervention services. To date, our solution has been built around one major freight logistics provider.
Speaker 5: Over the past few months, we've made significant strides in developing the ability to provide our premium monitoring services for other shipping companies, which will provide new sales opportunities for us to grow our business. With that, I'll hand it over to Kurt Cole to speak about sales and marketing initiatives.
Speaker 4: Keith, thanks very much and thanks to everybody for joining the call today. I'm going to touch on a number of the initiatives that we've undertaken that Keith has summarized in his...
Speaker 4: And we're going to talk about what we're doing to approach this market in a different way. We are integrating our sales force, as Keith mentioned, the combination of all three entities put us into a position that's very unique in the industry, our ability to be able to deliver
Speaker 4: and visibility, unit level traceability, and a number of the other features that are presented through Verify Me and Trust Codes, we feel that we're in a very unique position and on the path to victory here. We have embarked on a rebranding process to shift our identity and our messaging. That's it.
Speaker 4: expected to roll out in total by the end of Q2 and will include a total overhaul of the peri ship positioning as well as reference the combination and the blended approach that we take going forward. This sales approach offering information logistics.
Speaker 4: It is critical to providing solutions and capabilities that we believe are unique to the industry.
Speaker 4: We're about to see, and starting to see the fruits of our labor. We've spent the last three months with an outreach program. Our marketing efforts from a digital perspective as well as from a print perspective are starting to bear fruit. And we're excited about the possibilities going forward. We've begun to attend trade shows.
Speaker 4: And as things open up in person meetings are allowing us to spread our message, to be able to deliver the message that we spend 20 years in the logistics business with the addition of trust codes and verify me. We've shifted our focus to an information logistics process.
Speaker 4: And we believe that that's something that is going to separate us from the pack. We believe based on recent response from our customers that were on the road to success here, and I appreciate the opportunity to share this with you and look forward to talking to you more in the future. And with that, I'll flip it back to you on Margaret.
Speaker 5: Thanks, Pat. And good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining. Are you one of the financials? Well, actually, before we get to the financials, or Keith, did you want to talk about the revenue by market sector?
Speaker 5: Certainly. So the slide that is being presented shows where our revenue is coming from. And it really supports what I had spoke about with a focus on food and beverage. We do have many existing customers.
Speaker 5: within the perishing family and the trust codes family that are in that food and beverage market. And they can all benefit from the services that we can offer relative to traceability and secure transport. So that's really one of our key focuses. And with that, Margaret, I'll hand it back to you to cover the financials.
Speaker 6: about 2.5.7 million up from...
Speaker 6: $22 million in Q1 2022. Gross profit was $1.8 million for 30 month stress for Q1 2023 million in Q1 2022.
Speaker 6: Our business is seasonal with the fourth quarter showing the strongest performance while the first and second quarters usually have lower revenue.
Speaker 6: Next slide, please.
Speaker 6: This is the nature of the business and the current product mix. The next question has increased by 1.4.
Speaker 6: three million in Q plane plan three when compared to Q1 2022 we.
Speaker 6: and a way to be an exception of the leadership business, as well as increases due to deal costs related to the acquisition of the trust close business, and success and increase the motivation and depreciation of funds. I'd love to give you a lot of close.
Speaker 6: compared to an adjusted EDTA loss of 1.1 million. That's an improvement of 0.6 million, or 56%.
Speaker 6: including peri-ship on a pro forma basis, adjusted EVP does improve by approximately 40%. Okay, so it's showing blank on me, but I'm hoping that everybody else can see the slide. If so, next slide. That will show the balance sheet.
Speaker 6: We maintain a strong balance sheet. Our cash is $3.1 million as of March 31, 2023, a decrease of $0.3 million from December 31, 2022. In the quarter, we pay cash of $640,000 for the trust code, business acquisition, and the related deal costs.
Speaker 6: and 160K in repayment of the terminal note and interest, and drew down 500,000 on our revolving line of credit. Our working capital as of March 31, 2023.
Speaker 6: 2.1 million and our debt totals 2.3 million, and we have 500,000 available under our revolving line of credit that we can draw down on. As part of the trust code deposition, we have an increase of 2.1 million in goodwill and intangible assets, and a contingent consideration of 1.1 million under balance sheet as of the quarter end.
Speaker 6: The contingent consideration relates to the earn-out the sellers of trust codes are entitled to, which is a cash earn-out and an equity earn-out. We have the option at our discretion to pay the equity consideration in cash. With that, I'd like to open the floors to questions that you might have.
Speaker 2: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. If you are using a speaker phone please pick up your hands up before pressing the keys.
Speaker 2: If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2.
Speaker 2: Based upon the time available, we might have to limit shareholder questions to two or three. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.
Speaker 2: The first question comes from Mike Petty-Sea with Barrington Research. Please go ahead.
Speaker 7: Hey, good morning. So I wanted to, the slide that included GNA sort of went by quickly there. How much of that GNA, which looked heavy for the quarter, how much of that sort of non-recurring, like what's a normalized quarterly GNA number to be modeled going forward? Thanks.
Speaker 6: including DNA was about $303,000. So that's something that you won't see going forward. Then what you wanna do is add stock-based compensation for our directors because in the current quarter, they have decided to change the timing of when that compensation comes in.
Speaker 6: So that's going to be about as $500,000. And then what you have are one-time professional fees.
Speaker 7: For the trust closed acquisition that comes to about 300,000. Okay, so I mean sort of normalized, what does it look like?
Speaker 6: So normalize it looks about 2.2 million around there.
Speaker 7: more in line with what I thought. And so going forward, you guys sort of
Speaker 7: appear to have reaffirmed the previous top-line guide. I mean, do you expect sequential revenue growth each of the next three quarters? Is that how this should play out?
Speaker 6: Yes, so we do still expect our quarters to do an increase. Our fourth quarter is the strongest, so we expect the most growth in the fourth quarter, but we do expect both.
Speaker 7: hopefully in the second and third quarters as well. Okay. And what was, again, some of the financial commentary was a little bit hard to hear. What was the Legacy Verify Me revenue for the quarter? The Legacy Verify...
Speaker 8: Okay, great. And this may have been... Oh, I'm sorry, Margaret. This is Scott back on. I got disconnected and they couldn't get me back in, but I'm back on.
Speaker 7: Okay, great. Okay. And I just have one more question. This may have also been mentioned in the financials, but it was, again, it was hard to hear. The paraship comparison, and I know it wasn't part of the company last year, Q1, but did that business grow year over year?
Speaker 8: Hey, Margaret, I'll take that. The answer to that is we were very pleased that this is the first quarter that on a comparison basis, Parrish's had organic growth. Parrish's growth was over 8% organic.
Speaker 8: for the quarter compared to the first quarter last year, pre-acquisition. So that's pretty exciting news for us. So what was it like five two, something like that? It was closer to, well, this is consolidated. The parishes was closer to 5 million and change last year.
Speaker 8: Okay. And Parrish, this quarter was what, 5-5? 5-4? Somewhere around there, yeah. I mean, that's, yeah.
Speaker 7: Okay, and 8% is the year over year. Alright, well very, very, very good. Thanks guys and good job. Thank you.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Again, as a reminder, if you have a question, please press star, then 1 to be joined into the queue. Our next question comes from Jack Wander Ardy with Maxim Group. Please go ahead. Okay, great. Good morning, guys. I appreciate the update. I'll ask you a couple questions. I appreciate the update on the guidance outlook, Scott. I appreciate the update on the guidance outlook, Scott.
Speaker 4: I think last quarter, last couple of quarters, you were also mentioning a target organic growth for the legacy verify me business. And I know you guys are working on integrating these three companies now, more or less. But is the organic growth of verify me, I think you were targeting 50% plus for 2023. Is that still the case?
Speaker 8: Yes it is it's still the the target to get 50% growth at the verify me level. We did roughly 1.7 million last year so that's correct.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry I missed the first call, but the thing to realize, and I don't know if on the first question, Margit brought up the fact that our business is somewhat seasonal. As we got more involved with the companies, both developing the selling of VerifyMe and our diversity in the business we wanted to'm able to, but not to the point of being able
Speaker 4: and quarter of a month. OK, great. And then my next question would be, can you talk about the pipeline at all? How do you get a measure pipeline? And just what that looks like for the core verify or the legacy verify me? Or if you want to ask a pipeline for the three combined companies.
Speaker 8: If you're willing to talk about that. Yes, if you look at the pipeline for Parrish ship, basically you have their long-standing customers so they have a very sticky business. We're working on some new programs and projects.
Speaker 8: that we believe will take us up in that thing. So I would say, you know, again, most of Parrish-Shipp's business is customers you currently have in place. When you're looking at the trust codes and verify me business, there you're looking at more of the pipeline and opportunity.
Speaker 8: In order to accomplish our goal of the $28 million of revenue, we looked at the pipeline very carefully and we discounted it and we took what we feel we're comfortable with and that's how we came up with the target number.
Speaker 8: So obviously the pipe line is much, much larger than the number we're putting into the revenue projection. What you can do is you can un-lift theanu ReignATIONif you go back and
Speaker 4: Yep, understood. And then maybe just to follow up, because it's such a critical piece of the revenue and the relationship with Parriship, but with FedEx, it's the largest customer. Thanks to FedEx.
Speaker 8: Can you talk about how many other customers are material to the revenue of ParaShip or for your guidance for the year? How much does FedEx kind of represent that? Well, you just look at it even though FedEx is a supplier of ours as well, as far as direct revenue. The
Speaker 8: I believe Margaret you can answer, but I think it's under 15%. So while we have this strong relationship with FedEx, the total revenue as a customer is below 15%. Most of our dealings are directly with the customers of FedEx.
Speaker 4: We're not relying on just FedEx as a customer. Okay, great. That's an important distinction. Okay, understood. Well, great. I appreciate the update, guys, and happy to hear things are on track. I'll hop back in the camera. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2: As we have no further questions, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Scott Greenberg for any closing remarks.
Speaker 8: Thank you moderator. As you could hear from today, the company has made significant progress in the last year.
Speaker 8: and you're hearing about all these opportunities in different areas. Some of them are in our legacy business, things like baby formula, where we're getting involved through trust codes who already have a significant client there.
Speaker 8: It's things that we're hoping to leverage into many other areas. The thing to realize overall is that we believe that the combination of the three is going to give us enhanced marketing and sales ability in all three sectors, not just in one specific sector.
Speaker 8: So our sales force, our marketing, our trade name, our trade shows are really appearing overall in the whole company. And with that, we expect the growth that we're forecasting for the year and we look forward to updating you next quarter. Again, everybody, thanks for taking your time out of your day and like usual, if you have any questions, please feel free to call the company.