AGM Statement - Sopheon

At today’s Annual General Meeting of Sopheon plc, the international provider of software and services that help organizations generate more revenues and profits from new products, the chairman of the board will give shareholders an update and review of the business. This will include the following statement:

“We entered 2014 on the back of the strongest quarter in our history, and having taken the business from under $13m revenues in 2009, to almost $21m in 2013. This advance was coupled with steady improvements in profitability. We also entered 2014 in the middle of a strategic transition moving beyond delivering process automation, to delivering integrated, enterprise class innovation management solutions. We made substantial progress in 2014 completing this shift in our business model whilst also remaining EBITDA profitable.

We added ten new customers in the year – across a broad range of industries.  We completed the expansion and transformation in our sales organization, under the leadership of Sheila Plunkett in the US and Pieter Leijten in Europe. Our services organization was also restructured to support our growth strategy, and furthermore, we have brought services, support and development under the common leadership of Don Sarno as chief operating officer.

Ongoing investment in software development delivered a continued rapid pace of releases, with Accolade 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3 released in April, September and February respectively, and a major 10.0 release announced in early June. We continue to bring forward new and unique functionality. As well as a host of functional enhancements in roadmapping, resource planning and project execution, we have also extended security, integration and have introduced a new user experience through a “personalized interface” – bringing increased agility to the customer, while meeting the needs of new vertical segments as well as enterprise class requirements.

Further, we have introduced Accolade Express, to enable rapid improvement of customers’ innovation performance, by implementing out-of-the-box best practices content developed from over a decade of experience with industry leaders.  Speed to value through digitization is an increasing need for corporations. By way of example, in early May Vesuvius, a new Sopheon customer, reported beating their rollout timetable and achieving a high adoption of their Stage-Gate^® process – enabled by Accolade Express across multiple business units – and went from purchase in September 2014 to going live in December. Their innovation team spans four global sites and 300 cross-functional people, with several business units having 100% of their projects in the system.

As we announced towards the end of 2014, a number of large transactions were delayed into 2015. We continue to work on all these opportunities. Such delays often reflect growth in size and scale; a number of such opportunities – with both new and existing customers – are anticipated to come through in Q3 2015 and accordingly,  we expect that revenues for 2015 will be significantly weighted to the second half. Full year revenue visibility, from contracted business and recurring revenue streams, today stands at $12.5m.  We continue to apply new selling models with the ambition to reduce the lengthy sales process.  Sopheon leads the market for innovation management solutions, with a breadth of vision, experience and capability that is unmatched by competitors that have emerged in recent years.

Early in 2014, $3.5m in new debt facilities were agreed with Silicon Valley Bank and since then we have continued to deepen our relationship with this well-known technology focused financial partner.  In December 2014, we successfully completed the share consolidation and capital reduction process initiated the year before, with a cumulative reduction of very small shareholdings by approximately 10,000 across the UK and the Netherlands. More recently, following Euronext’s decision to close its Alternext Amsterdam segment, the board decided to consolidate the Company’s listing on AIM where Sopheon will remain accessible to the Dutch investment community. Accordingly, Sopheon delisted from Amsterdam in early May 2015. During both the share consolidation and the delisting periods, the board stood behind the Company’s shares and purchased the equivalent of 808,833 ordinary shares, underscoring its belief in the business.

We continue to anticipate and position the business for improved commercial progress, to match and leverage the major strides made with product, organizational, and corporate matters."