BIO-key Shows Remarkable Growth in Q1 Update

BIO-key has issued its Q1 update, and business is booming for the authentication security specialist.

Revenues for the quarter came in at $1,888,638, compared to revenues of $522,485 in the first quarter of 2020. Licensing revenue increased by more than 100 percent year-over-year, while hardware revenues increased by 1,193 percent.

The company’s net result, meanwhile, was vastly improved, with BIO-key reporting a net loss of $731,431, compared to a net loss of $3,370,282 in the same quarter a year ago.

“We saw improved demand across the business in the first quarter, adding 29 new members to our Channel Alliance Partner program, positioning BIO-key to pursue a much broader base of opportunities on a global basis,” explained BIO-key CEO Michael DePasquale. “Importantly, after several quarters of delay, we commenced initial hardware shipments in support of our large-scale ID projects in Africa and expect to see growing momentum as we progress through the year.” A full $680,000 of BIO-key’s revenues for the quarter came from its projects in Africa.

Related to that success is BIO-key’s expanding Channel Alliance Partner program, which DePasquale said is “expected to be a key component of our long-term growth strategy as it helps us to substantially expand our reach into new customers on a global basis.” BIO-key now has 60 partners through the CAP program, and DePasquale indicated that the BIO-key team is “working to double the size of this program in coming months”.

Finally, the success of BIO-key’s PortalGuard solution mustn’t be overlooked. BIO-key acquired the Single Sign-On solution through its purchase of PistolStar last year, and it immediately began to contribute significantly to the company’s revenues, as became clear in BIO-key’s year-end fiscal update. That trend is ongoing.

“We continue to see building demand for our PortalGuard solution within the higher education and enterprise markets, particularly our cloud-hosted, IDaaS solution, launched in Q4,” explained DePasquale. “PortalGuard IDaaS is an ideal solution for enterprises and institutions that are increasingly moving their IT infrastructure to the ‘asset-light’ cloud model. The transition to the cloud has been accelerated by the pandemic and the rapid rise in work-from-anywhere and study-from-home demands, and we believe the need to support remote access is here to stay.”

Looking ahead, DePasquale indicated that BIO-key is on track to achieve its full-year revenue guidance, in the range of $8-12 million with “potential upside” thanks to emerging but unpredictable opportunities in the African market. The chief executive noted that the midpoint of BIO-key’s revenue guidance would represent growth of more than 250 percent compared to the 2020 fiscal year.

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May 14, 2021 – by Alex Perala