SmartSpace Software Plc (LON:SMRT), the leading provider of ‘Integrated Space Management Software’ for smart buildings, has announced that Evoko, the market leading manufacturer of meeting room panels, has announced the release of Naso, its next generation meeting room solution. Naso is now available to order by Evoko partners globally with the first shipments expected from Monday 7 December 2020.
SmartSpace has worked with Evoko as its exclusive software partner to create the Naso software suite and will share in revenue from the sale of Naso panels and the ongoing SaaS subscription for each panel. In addition, SmartSpace has integrated its meeting room, desk and visitor management solutions with Naso. These SaaS modules will be marketed as Naso ‘Rose’, ‘Pepper’ and ‘Guava’ respectively and are designed so that they can be easily activated and configured by customers.
The launch of Naso represents a significant step in SmartSpace’s strategy of creating a channel partner network, to sell its Space Connect software product globally. The Directors believe the relationship with Evoko has the potential to generate significant future revenues for the Company in the form of both revenue sharing from the sale of Naso panels and SaaS software subscriptions.
Trading Update
The Group continues to make good progress, including;
· Continued momentum of SwipedOn KPIs;
· SwipedOn ‘Desks’ is due to be released imminently;
· SwipedOn to be offered through the AWS (“Amazon Web Services”) Marketplace; and
· Sales of Space Connect through channel partners starting to gather pace, building on our pipeline.
SwipedOn continues to sign an encouraging number of new customers and locations each month, despite the ongoing pandemic and the various stages of Lockdown in place around the world. There has been a noticeable increase in interest in the US and Canada, which is encouraging. In addition, ARPU* continued to grow since our last announcement on 6 October 2020.
The Group has made good progress with the development of SwipedOn Desks, a new module, which uses desk management functionality in Space Connect. From December, SwipedOn Desks will be offered to a targeted audience of UK customers before being made available to the SwipedOn customer base in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in early 2021. SwipedOn Desks represents a significant opportunity for the Group to increase ARPU from existing SwipedOn customers.
SwipedOn will also shortly be made available to purchase on AWS Marketplace, which allows customers to access SaaS business solutions that run on AWS. SwipedOn will be the first visitor management system (VMS) to be offered on the AWS Marketplace.
Our partnership with Softcat continues to deliver new customers and ARR**. As previously outlined, our strategy is to build a channel sales network for Space Connect. We now have partners in the UK, Australia, the Far East and Central America and discussions underway to sign a number of other prospective partners in the UK.
Whilst Anders & Kern (“A+K”) continues to generate revenue, they have not yet returned to pre-Covid 19 levels, as many end-users’ offices in the UK are yet to fully reopen. The Company continues to maintain tight cost control and a number of the staff have been returned to furlough, at least until the end of the year. In the meantime, A+K continues to refocus the business from selling solely Audio-Visual hardware products to becoming a supplier of choice for Smart Building and Space Management technologies.
Aside from the A+K team, our UK and US staff have continued to work remotely during the second Lockdown, with no negative impact on productivity whilst in New Zealand, where SwipedOn is based, it is very much business as usual with the office being fully open since late summer.
Commenting on today’s news Richard Gluckman, CEO of Evoko said: “We are delighted to announce the release of Naso, the next generation meeting room panel from Evoko. Since we showcased Naso at ISE trade show earlier this year, we have had amazing interest from our partners and distributors around the world. I know they will be delighted with today’s news that Naso is available through our sales channels. In addition, we are already in discussion with a number of significant flagship clients who are keen to implement Naso.
This is the first time Evoko has offered a suite of SaaS software tools to help our customers optimise their real estate. Our partnership with SmartSpace has created a great opportunity for Evoko to evolve our business model. The Evoko product team and the SmartSpace development team have worked hard over the past 2 years to create what we feel is a unique offering in the market place.”
Frank Beechinor, CEO of SmartSpace said: “It is great to see Naso finally released into the Evoko partner channel and this announcement is a major milestone for SmartSpace. Naso is a great product and will be one of the best meeting room panels on the market. A competitive entry price, combined with a suite of Naso-branded SaaS modules, ensures that Naso has very clear differentiators in the market.
I am also glad to report the continued positive momentum through the rest of the business. We previously highlighted that our strategy is to build out a comprehensive channel sales network for Space Connect and we are making good progress with this objective, engaging and signing new partners. SwipedOn continues to do very well delivering on further growth in customers, additional locations, ARR and ARPU since our last update in early October. We are looking forward to releasing SwipedOn Desks, as this creates an opportunity for a step change in ARPU. The second Lockdown has been frustrating for A+K but, even so, we have still seen reasonably strong revenues and we have used the time to promote the new space management product lines across its reseller network.
So overall, SmartSpace continues to push forward with strong opportunities across the Group in delivering future significant growth. “
