Mike DePasquale
Analyst · Maxim Group. Please go ahead
Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. In addition to Q3 results announced last evening, we announced that BIO-key has secured orders in excess of $10 million for our WEB-key biometrical authentication software from two Hong Kong-based company’s both focused on technology and the financial services industries in Asia. Our enhanced WEB-key biometric security platform now incorporates previously licensed multifactor authentication security technology, providing a solution that enables both employees and customers to conduct secure biometric authentication transaction and network access via mobile devices, as well as computers. We expect to recognize $5 million of revenue from this contract in the fourth quarter of 2018 and the balance in the same period next year. While our financial performance in the third quarter and now with this large contract continues to reflect the variable nature of contract sizes and timing, our year-to-date results clearly demonstrate continued progress in the breadth of biometrics adoptions as enterprises are realizing the urgent need to deploy more user-friendly measures to protect themselves and their customers against unauthorized transactions and data access. Importantly, the large WEB-key contract this year and the one that we announced in the fourth quarter of 2017 demonstrate that the market is looking -- is starting to look at solutions that can deliver multifactor authentication security at both the device level and in the cloud. Our unique technology delivers on this requirement, providing enhanced security and greater productivity for enterprises seeking to address security requirements across their user base. We’ve been working towards this large WEB-key deployment over the past two years and so it’s a combination right now that’s exciting, and an exciting milestone for the entire BIO-key organization in the U.S. and in Asia. It is also an important step in our efforts to open the Asian markets for our security solutions. Turning to other growth initiatives, we continue to advance our dialogue and marketing partnership with Microsoft in support of their focus on driving adoption of their Windows 10 operating system and new Windows Server Solutions for enterprise. A core differentiator in these new systems is their reliance on multifactor authentication solutions, such as biometrics to deliver enhanced security in a related and very clear move to abandon passwords. A major third quarter event was our participation sponsorship and exhibition space at Microsoft Ignite 2018 Event late September in Orlando. A key theme from the event was security and enabling password less authentication, including biometrics as a secure approach for users to access their devices and information. We had significant booth traffic and strong customer interest at this event, which led to a very promising number of customer leads that we are now pursuing. They have been optimistic in the past about the potential of Microsoft to drive enterprise demand for our solutions. What is very different today versus two years ago is the extent to which Microsoft is devoting resources to driving adoption of its newest operating system and server solutions. As more enterprises embrace Windows enterprise applications, such as Windows Hello for Business, Asure and Windows Servers, we anticipate rising demand for BIO-key’s hardware and software offerings, which are compatible with Windows 10 and earlier OS versions. Identifying new markets of opportunity remains an important component of our sales and marketing efforts. One such area of market opportunity was identified in the area of voting security, where we were successful in selling our ID Director for Windows software and EcoID fingerprint biometric readers to two Florida County Election Boards. The solutions will be utilized to deliver enhanced security for the identification and authentication of Election Board’s staff members and volunteers managing the voting process. While it is a small initial contract, we are optimistic in the prospects to expand our reach into this market, which will need to address growing concerns about voter tampering, fraud and possible security breaches, especially in the next two years with the upcoming Presidential Elections. Similarly, we see potential in the financial services sector, where customer prospects such as banks, credit unions and others are faced with growing levels of regulatory compliance. In the third quarter, a New York regional bank selected BIO-key to enable compliance with the New York State Department of Financial Services Cybersecurity Law. Our solutions enabled the bank to comply with multifactor authentication requirements for employees accessing company computer devices and connected banking applications, and we look forward to building on this initial deployment. Also during the third quarter, we launched a strategic partnership with Quantum Business Advisory, an IT infrastructure and security firm that is bringing our solutions to enterprises in India. Given India’s focus on deploying technologies to enhance the country’s economy and the lives of its citizens, we believe it represents a very attractive potential market for BIO-key. Turning to our corporate structure. During the third quarter we appointed Fred Corsentino as our Chief Revenue Officer, a new role at the company. Fred possesses substantial experience in managing sales processes at emerging technology companies, with a strong track record of success. In particular, Fred is helping to focus our business development, sales and integrated marketing functions on those areas with greatest potential to maximize growth and bottomline performance. I’m pleased to have Fred join our team and to have you all hear from him directly a little later in this call. In summary, though our financial performance remains highly variable on a quarter-to-quarter basis, we are very pleased to now be solidly positioned to achieve revenues of $8 million to $9 million for the full year 2018. Reflecting our outlook, we have revised our full year guidance to $8 million to $9 million in revenue from an initial range of $8 million to $12 million at the outset of the year. Our revised revenue guidance represents anticipated growth of approximately 30% versus last year’s revenue of $6.3 million. Importantly, while we have positioned BIO-key to achieve very solid year-over-year growth in 2018, as well as expected EBITDA breakeven results, we will enter 2019 with roughly $7 million in contracted sales, which to form a very solid base to achieve further growth. With that, I’d like now to introduce Fred Corsentino, our new Chief Revenue Officer to comment on his vision and areas of focus moving the company forward. Fred?