Biometrics stocks: analyst bullish on Zwipe, Idex insiders buying, Ipsidy results mixed

An analyst has raised its expectations for Zwipe’s share price, while Ipsidy has announced mixed results in a challenging year, but one in which Veritone booked record results. BIO-key and Idex Biometrics have investor events coming up, and Synaptics is touting the potential of its moves to bring biometrics and personalization to the IoT.

Analyst says Pay ONE gives Zwipe ‘trump card’

Zwipe is up to agreements with 21 of the top 50 players in the card manufacturing space to use its Pay ONE biometric card payments platform, according to analyst Redeye.

A new report from Redeye suggests that Zwipe Pay ONE is a “trump card” in the emerging biometric payment cards market, prompting the firm to raise its base case for Zwipe stock to NOK 27 (US$3.18), up from NOK 24, with a bull case of NOK 46 ($5.42).

The report forecasts Zwipe could earn potential revenues for full-year 2024 of NOK 825 million ($97.2 million). Part of the optimism stems from Zwipe’s strategy of signing up small and mid-sized card manufacturers, for whom its expertise and turnkey solution are compelling. Selling to major players like Thales, G&D, Idemia and Goldpac do not have the same incentive to use an aggregator like Zwipe to keep component costs down.

Tag, which recently placed a small order for the Pay ONE biometric platform with Zwipe, supplies 100 million payment cards annually, and “had every chance go for other technologies instead,” according to Redeye.

BIO-key to participate at Maxim Growth investor conference

BIO-key will participate in Maxim Group’s Emerging Virtual Growth Conference to discuss biometrics-powered identity and access management, the company has announced.

Chairman and CEO Mike DePasquale will also join a roundtable discussion on Security IT during the event, which will be held on March 18, 2021.

Idex announces investor event appearances, share acquisitions

Idex Biometrics will participate in the upcoming Loop Capital Markets Consumer, Industrials and TMT Conference on March 12, and the 33rd Annual ROTH Conference on March 16.

CEO Vince Graziani and CFO Derek D’Antilio will both participate in each virtual event.

The company has also issued a mandatory notice that Graziani and D’Antilio, who are primary insiders in Idex, have purchased American Depository Shares in the company on the Nasdaq. Graziani acquired 2,000 ADSs, or 150,000 ordinary shares, at $28.80 per ADS, while D’Antilio paid $31.50 each for 500 ADSs, representing 37,500 ordinary shares.

Following those purchases, the company’s board resolved to issue 1,060,179 ordinary shares at NOK 1.83 per share through an employee share purchase plan. The plan was approved last year, and participated in by 53 employees, including primary insiders Graziani (23,093 shares), D’Antilio (51,960), CTO Anthony Eaton (2,989) and VP Finance Erling Svela (14,606).

After the issuance, Idex total share capital is NOK 137,463,240.15 ($16.2 million) in the form of 916,421,601 shares at NOK 0.15 each.

Ipsidy revenues and costs lower

Ipsidy has reported total revenues of $2.1 million and adjusted EBITDA loss of $5.2 million for full-year 2020 for its face biometrics-based authentication products.

Revenue was down from $2.6 million in 2019, but the adjusted EBITDA loss was 19 percent, or $1.2 million lower than the year before, due to lower expenses. The revenue drop was attributed to the effects the pandemic. In response to the altered market, Ipsidy adapted its biometric technology for web browser applications.

Basic and diluted net loss per share was $0.02, the same as the prior year.

“In 2020, we strengthened our management team, reduced our expenses, and quickly adapted to work-from-home restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic,” comments Phillip Kumnick, chairman and CEO of Ipsidy. “We also saw increasing demand for our biometric identity services, as organizations accelerated efforts to deliver services online, while avoiding the increased risk of identity fraud. We expanded our global partner network and integrated with major companies having operations and customers in the United States, South America, The Middle East, Africa, and India. We launched services with customers both domestically and internationally and look forward to further implementations in 2021.”

Veritone beats top and bottom-line guidance

Veritone has reported record revenues in Q4 and full-year 2020, beating its guidance for both top and bottom-line results.

The company earned $16.8 million in the quarter and $57.7 million on the year, with record contributions from its advertising business, as well as its aiWARE SaaS solutions. Veritone announced aiWARE’s compatibility with the CUDA developer platform from Nvidia in late-2020, and noted the potential for fast and secure biometric authentication through Nvidia deployments.

GAAP net loss improved by 17 percent on a year-over-year basis for the fourth quarter to $12.4 million, and by $14.2 million to a loss of $47.9 million on the year.

Synaptics sees portfolio broadening with IoT biometrics and edge AI

The new IoT focus from Synaptics is detailed in a post to MarketScreener suggesting that the company is well-positioned to deliver edge voice biometrics, video object and facial recognition, gesture controls, predictive maintenance alerts and user preference capabilities.

Synaptics position is due in part to its VS600 SoC family, according to the post, including the VS640, recently introduced as a low-cost option for consumer IoT devices. The other reason for the company’s strong position is its partnerships, with the company pointing to its recent deal with ID R&D as an example.

Article Topics

BIO-key  |  biometric cards  |  biometrics  |  financial results  |  Idex Biometrics  |  investment  |  Ipsidy  |  stocks  |  Synaptics  |  Veritone  |  Zwipe  |  Zwipe Pay