WOBURN, Mass., Oct. 05, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bridgeline Digital, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLIN), a leader in cloud-based digital experience software, is pleased to provide the following corporate update as it closed its fiscal year.
“I’m happy to report that our fourth quarter exceeded expectations in revenue, profit, and customer acquisitions,” said Ari Kahn, Bridgeline’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our strong fourth quarter revenue positions the business well to execute its growth strategy for 2021.”
Bridgeline’s fiscal year concluded on September 30, 2020. The Company expects to meet the fourth quarter guidance it provided in its previous earnings call and in the September Investor Presentation for:
- revenue growth
- increased gross margin
- positive operating income and adjusted EBITDA
Bridgeline won more new customers in its fourth quarter than it did in its third quarter, and its third quarter won more new customers than the first two quarters combined.
The Company’s Celebros Search App performed strongest with several sales each month of the fourth quarter. These App sales leveraged Bridgeline’s new touchless sales strategy, winning new customers through eCommerce marketplaces (i.e. Shopify and Salesforce) with greater ease and faster sales cycles. Apps are a major growth area for Bridgeline, a key part of the business’s growth strategy for 2021 and has contributed to higher license to services ratios.
In the fourth quarter, the Company also won multiple Enterprise Platform customers including a global franchise who committed to a multi-year agreement valued at more than $650,000 to power more than 200 websites with Bridgeline’s Unbound Franchise Platform.
Bridgeline ended its fiscal year with a strong balance sheet, with its only debt being a $1M PPP loan from the SBA that is expected to be forgiven. The Company’s cap table also improved in its 2020 fiscal year with all dividend yielding preferred stock converting to common stock at $1.75/share.
Looking forward to 2021, Bridgeline intends to further invest in its touchless sales and marketing strategy for Apps by hiring more salespeople and investing in lead generating marketing activities. It will also release new Apps leveraging the technology base that powers its Platform software.
The Company does not require any capital for operations and expects its cash balance to grow thanks to large collections due in the first quarter of its 2021 fiscal year, from existing customer’s annual subscription contracts.
Bridgeline continues to evaluate opportunities to acquire accretive, small software companies that sell Apps to provide added value to its growing customer base and drive cross-sell opportunities. In 2019, Bridgeline made two acquisitions that have helped it grow and achieve operating profit. Further, growth through acquisition is part of Bridgeline’s strategy in 2021. Bridgeline has engaged a team to find additional software companies for it to acquire. The companies Bridgeline evaluates have $2M - $4M in annual recurring revenue with compatible “plug-n-play” Apps in the marketing technology software sector. Bridgeline evaluates several opportunities monthly and is careful to select candidates who fulfill its strategic and financial goals.
Bridgeline looks forward to continued success in 2021 to deliver shareholder value, customer success, and exciting technical innovations.
Bridgeline’s September 2020 Investor Presentation can be found online at: https://www.bridgeline.com/file%20library/investor%20information/blin-01-sept-2020-investor-presentation.pdf.
Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements
Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
All statements included in this press release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are subject to change. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "predicts," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "would," "could," "potential," "continue," "ongoing," similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. These statements appear in a number of places in this press release and include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of Bridgeline Digital, Inc. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including, but not limited to, the impact of the COVID – 19 pandemic and related public health measures that may affect our financial results; business operations and the business of our customers, suppliers and partners; our ability to retain and upgrade current customers, increasing our recurring revenue, our ability to attract new customers, our revenue growth rate; our history of net loss and our ability to achieve or maintain profitability, our liability for any unauthorized access to our data or our users’ content, including through privacy and data security breaches; any decline in demand for our platform or products; changes in the interoperability of our platform across devices, operating systems, and third party applications that we do no control; competition in our markets; our ability to respond to rapid technological changes, extend our platform, develop new features or products, or gain market acceptance for such new features or products, particularly in light of potential disruptions to the productivity of our employees resulting from remote work; our ability to manage our growth or plan for future growth, and our acquisition of other businesses and the potential of such acquisitions to require significant management attention, disrupt our business, or dilute stockholder value; the volatility of the market price of our common stock, the ability to maintain our listing on the NASDAQ Capital Market, or our ability to maintain an effective system of internal controls as well as other risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any of such risks could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement. Bridgeline Digital, Inc. assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release, except as required by applicable law.
About Bridgeline Digital
Bridgeline Digital, The Digital Engagement Company, helps customers maximize the performance of their omni-channel digital experience from websites and intranets to online stores and campaigns. Bridgeline’s Unbound platform is a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that deeply integrates Web Content Management, eCommerce, Marketing Automation, Site Search, Authenticated Portals, Social Media Management, Translation, Locator Pages and Web Analytics to help the goal of assisting marketers to help organizations deliver digital experiences that attract, engage, nurture and convert their customers across all channels and streamline business operations. OrchestraCMS is the only content and digital experience platform built 100% native on Salesforce. OrchestraCMS helps Salesforce create digital experiences for their customers and partners; combining content with business data, processes and applications across multiply channels and device including Salesforce Communities, social media, portals, intranets, websites, applications and services. Celebros Search is a commerce oriented, site search product that provides for Natural Language Processing with artificial intelligence (AI) to present very relevant search results in seven languages. Headquartered in Woburn, MA., Bridgeline customers range from small- and medium-sized organizations to Fortune 1000 companies. To learn more, please visit www.bridgeline.com or call (800) 603-9936.
Contact:
Jeremy LaDuque
EVP of Marketing
Bridgeline Digital, Inc.
press@bridgeline.com