Proactive Investors - What it does
Bidstack Group PLC (LON:BIDS) bridges the gap between gamers, game developers, and advertisers by enhancing the experience with rich, real-world advertising inserted into the games.
How it’s doing
In April, on the day of its annual general meeting, the company announced some changes to its board. Glen Calvert, the chief operating officer of Fnatic Ltd, is stepping up from the advisory board to become an independent non-executive director and Lisa Hau, Bidstack's current chief operating officer, joins the board as an executive director.
Meanwhile, Mike Hayes will be moving from the board to the company's advisory board.
Full-year results for 2020 revealed the top line headed sharply north to £1.79mln from £140,391 in 2019 as the company ran more than 40 in-game advertising campaigns. Revenue was ahead of market expectations.
Revenue in 2021 should be materially higher than it was in 2020 but as was the case last year will be significantly second-half weighted.
The adjusted loss before tax of £6.99mln in 2020 was in line with expectations; in 2019, the loss had been £5.4mln.
The debt-free technology firm ended the year with cash of £2.3mln, down from £3.1mln a year earlier.
The firm is also making progress with its relationships in the industry, revealing in September that it has signed an exclusive deal with top tier games studio Ubisoft to deliver native in-game advertising into the Hyper Scape game.
Hyper Scape is Ubisoft’s free-to-play, urban battle royale game, with a game mode style like Fortnite. It was launched in mid-August.
Chief executive James Draper noted that Ubisoft has become a close partner of the company. Other Ubisoft games, which aren’t attached to this deal, include the Tom Clancy franchise of games titles, Watch Dogs, Just Dance, Assassins Creed, and Far Cry.
Landing deals like this is part of Bidstack’s stated strategy of focussing new business efforts towards the leading video games developers and publishers to incorporate Bidstack's proprietary technology into their games.
What the boss says: James Draper, chief executive
"In 2020, Bidstack has made strong and tangible progress towards our ambition to become the global leading advertising and monetisation platform for interactive entertainment.
"Bidstack has proven its initial concept through bringing premium advertisers into the world of gaming, securing exclusive contracts with household name game developers and building the technology infrastructure to enable both sides to seamlessly transact.
"Our native in-game strategy has been to take no shortcuts from a technological or commercial perspective.
"This is now paying off, with clients planning around our inventory and with our technology they're able to report transparently on the performance of campaigns via AdConsole, our proprietary tools, or via their DSP of choice, such as The Trade Desk”.
Inflexion points
- More deals with game developers and esports firms
- People working at home is driving demand for games and in-game advertising
- New game consoles also likely to provide a business spurt