Big Sofa Technologies : R&D and receipt of £250,000 tax credit

RNS Number : 8873R

Big Sofa Technologies Group PLC

04 November 2019

04 November 2019

Big Sofa Technologies Group plc

("Big Sofa Technologies" or the "Company")

R&D and receipt of tax credit totalling more than £250,000

Big Sofa Technologies (AIM:BST), an international video analytics provider, announces the receipt of an R&D tax credit from HMRC totalling £258,000 in relation to qualifying R&D undertaken in 2018.

During 2018, the Company significantly strengthened its proprietary technology pla orm to enhance its scalability and to further develop its enterprise capabili es. In addi on, significant new func onality was added to the pla orm to enable clients to analyse video data at scale. Alongside the ongoing development of proprietary func onality, APIs were developed to enable the integra on of best-in-class technologies to meet the needs of clients from a broader range of sectors.

The Company's R&D team worked on a number of AI-led ini a ves including object recogni on, ac vity detec on, natural language processing, language and sen ment data. In total, the company spent more than £1m on its technology pla orm in 2018, including more than £850,000 on R&D. As outlined in the 2018 annual accounts, the company capitalised £740,000 of this total tech spend.

This investment has con nued into 2019 across every part of the video data workflow, from capture to visualisa on. In 2019 to date, the Company has developed proprietary technology for remote capture, automated people- detec on, behaviour recogni on and auto-scaling across markets. It has con nued to deliver improvements to the client dashboard including enhanced video playlists, landing pages and presentation of analysis.

The ongoing investment in technology has enabled the Company to service the needs of global clients and to increase the value delivered by its pla orm. Since the start of the year, the company has secured 5 new MSAs or global agreements with clients, all of which are already genera ng revenues that are expected to grow in 2020 and beyond. The Company has grown its client base to include global technology companies and big data companies, demonstrating the versatility and applicability of the platform across a broader range of sectors.

Kirsty Fuller, Chief Executive Officer of Big Sofa Technologies, commented:

"We con nue to priori se our tech roadmap and have increased investment in our proprietary pla orm while managing to cut costs overall. This investment in the long-term future of the business has helped the Company to secure new MSAs with some of the world's largest companies.

R&D is at the heart of what Big Sofa Technologies does and the receipt of this tax credit enables us to con nue to invest in our proprietary technology platform to drive long term value for the business."

Enquiries:
Big Sofa Technologies Group plc	[phone]
Kirsty Fuller, CEO
Joe MacCarthy, CFO
Arden Partners plc (Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker)	[phone]
Paul Shackleton / Ben Cryer
Tim Dainton (Head of Distribution)
Novum Securities (Joint Broker)	[phone]
Colin Rowbury

About Big Sofa Technologies Group plc

Big Sofa Technologies is a video analy cs company. The design and development of our technology has been guided by expert understanding of the insight and analy cs industries and the needs, pressures and business ques ons of the clients they serve.

We uncover and analyse new-to-the-industry behavioural data sets in video, enabled by the power of our pioneering data capture and pla orm technology. We are innova ng both in how video-led projects and programmes are designed and in how the data is analysed, showcased, embedded and re-mined.

Our so ware pla orm collates, analyses and organises large volumes of raw/unstructured video enabling our clients, which include leading market research and data companies and major household brands, to perform detailed and sophisticated consumer insight analysis and make genuine use of video content.

Big Sofa Technologies' shares are admi ed to trading on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market under the cker BST.L.

To find out more, visit www.bigsofatech.com

Follow us on twitter at @bigsofatech

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