New funding for Bio-key to support ongoing growth and Nasdaq up-listing plan

In a private placement with an existing investor and member of its Board, BIO-key International has raised $1 million through the sale of common stock priced at $3.60 per share, a 42% premium to yesterday’s closing price.

The company has also secured a $5 million Common Stock Purchase Agreement with a 36-month term from an accredited institutional investor. BIO-key, at its sole discretion, is able to sell up to a total of $5 million of its common stock to the institutional investor in a series of transactions with a floor price no lower than $3.60 per share, provided certain conditions are met, including the company’s stock trading in excess of $3.83 per share.

BIO-key does not have any near-term plans to utilize the facility but has put it in place to provide a source of future funding as it seeks to up-list its shares to Nasdaq and to enable it to move quickly to fund future potential business opportunities.

Last month, BIO-key appointed Robert J. Michel to its Board of Directors, to serve as Chair of its Audit Committee. As a CPA with over thirty years of accounting and financial management experience, Mr. Michel meets Nasdaq requirements for an audit committee financial expert and will chair the Audit Committee.

Michael DePasquale, CEO of BIO-key, said, “We are grateful for the continued strategic and financial support of our investors as we seek to position BIO-key for listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market. The funding initiatives – both priced well above the recent trading prices of BIO-key shares – are intended to support our ongoing growth in the business and Nasdaq up-listing plan.

“We believe that we are off to a good start in 2017. As we mentioned on our last quarterly call, revenue for Q1 2017 was tracking over $1M, versus $0.4M in the first quarter last year. The rate of adoption for our authentication solutions has been growing at an encouraging pace, and we anticipate the momentum to continue for the remainder of the year. We look forward to providing a more detailed business and corporate updates when we report Q1 results in mid May.”

In March BIO-key issued the financial results for its Q4 2016 and year-end, in which its Q4 2016 revenue increased to $1.7 million compared to $1.67 million in the same period one year ago.

Article Topics

BIO-key  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  investment