SEEEN, a video optimisation platform company, announced this morning the promotion of Adrian Hargrave to CEO of the Group, and the return of Akiko Mikumo and David Anton as non-executive directors following their assignments as interim co-CEOs. The company expects to appoint a CFO in the near-term, with Mr. Hargrave continuing to work with the finance team until then.
Prior to being appointed CEO, Mr. Hargrave led the closure of several customer wins and helped develop the company's sales pipeline and pricing structures. Chairman Patrick DeSouza, commented on the appointment:
"We welcome Adrian to his new role that really is not new to him. As SEEEN has gained commercial traction during 1H with customer wins, Go-to-Market partnerships and various customer deliveries of our video moments technology, Adrian has been in the middle of the process showing leadership in support of Akiko and David, our Interim Co-CEOs. Adrian also brings the important dimension of having worked in the London financial market for most of his career and is well known to our institutional investors."
New Customers
As SEEEN noted in its recently released FY21 and YTD22 results, in H122, the Company launched its initial products and has now successfully introduced its Go-to-Market program with several customer wins and a growing sales pipeline.
Customer wins include two companies in the financial publishing sector that have recently signed on to SEEEN's CreatorSuite service, used to drive e-commerce applications. They join two previous CreatorSuite customers in the same sector.
Additionally, SEEEN announced this morning that the Daily Mail had signed a contract for a CreatorSuite license, a major win for the company. The Daily Mail will use the service in conjunction with its proprietary video player to increase SEO traffic to its website and in turn increase advertising revenue.
Financial Performance
These recent new customer announcements have complemented SEEEN's final audited results for FY21 and H122, announced on 30 June. For FY21, the Company reported US$2.1 in net cash, significant given the Company's current market cap of US$5.3m. This large cash position should allow SEEEN to continue executing on its sales pipeline.
SEEEN's MCN (multichannel video network) video content business also saw improved profitability in FY21 despite somewhat decreased revenues. Profitability was driven by increasing revenues per 1000 views by 29%. This in turn was facilitated by an increased focus on higher quality channel partners and increased video content relevance. MCN has seen further record profitability in H122.
In FY21, the company launched the aforementioned CreatorSuite and Dialog-To-Clip (AI-assisted video editing) products, using its consumer-oriented Vertical Markets strategy that targets specific sectors and shorter sales cycles.
View from Vox
SEEEN has accomplished a lot since its IPO two and a half years ago. While FY21 adjusted EBITDA was lower YoY (US$1.47m vs $2.12m in FY20), that is a clear result of SEEEN transitioning from product development to product sales. Since launching its product line, SEEEN has been steadily adding customers, and its sales pipeline is growing. Therefore, SEEEN is on track to achieve monthly EBITDA break-even in early 2023, given its customer win momentum.
SEEEN's three-pronged Go-to-Market strategy has been effective. It consists of: 1) Licensing to customer in 3 verticals - financial publishing, sports and retail; 2) Licensing and managed services to strategic customers and 3) e-commerce applications for consumer-oriented services providers.
Financial publishing in particular is a big addressable global market where the company has already made a name for itself. Its existing CreatorSuite customers in the space should provide a strong reference for future sales, driving further growth.
Global demand in SEEEN's key markets is growing, particularly in media monitoring, which is expected to grow to $11 billion by 2028 according to Fortune Business Insights, and video e-commerce, which is expected to grow to $35 billion in the US by 2024 according to Statista.
So far SEEEN has been on track with its commercialisation plan, and has had strong momentum with accelerating customer acquisitions in its technology business, and improved profitability of its MCN business.
The company gave a fair self-assessment in its final results update "We remain well-positioned despite current market volatility as the world continues to increase its dependence on video for information and decision making. As we are seeing with our customer wins, tools to take advantage of this shift are critical for publishers, brands and retailers."
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