Aware’s biometrics revenue surge continues, ForgeRock and Ping ARRs rise

Earnings reports from Aware, ForgeRock and Ping Identity show robust growth in biometrics and enterprise IAM continues apace, the latter two on higher recurring revenues. SuperCom is raising funds meanwhile, and Idex Biometrics employees are taking advantage of a share-purchasing incentive plan.

Aware revenues up 49 percent

Revenues from Aware’s biometrics were up by 49 percent in its 2021 fiscal year, compared to 2020, on an all-time high of 42 million transactions protected by its flagship face biometric solution Knomi, up 345 percent year-over-year.

Aware reports fourth quarter revenues of $4 million, slightly down sequentially from $4.2 million in Q3, but well up from $3.4 million in the same quarter a year ago. Recurring revenue for 2021 topped $9 million. Net losses declined slightly to $1.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, or a loss of $0.06 per diluted share, compared to $1.6 million each in Q3 2021 and Q4 2020. Higher revenues boosted adjusted EBITDA to a loss of $0.9 million, after adjusted EBITDA losses of $1 million and $1.4 million sequentially and year-over-year, respectively.

“Our results for 2021 reflect the early success of our growth strategy and transformation into a subscription-based SaaS platform company,” says Robert Eckel, Aware’s chief executive officer. “Financially, we achieved several milestones in 2021, including delivering the highest revenue in more than five years and generating robust growth in recurring revenue. Operationally, we expanded our sales pipeline by adding new partnerships across multiple industry verticals and geographies. And, our recent acquisition of Fortress Identity further accelerates the development and market adoption of our SaaS solutions.

Highlights for Aware during the previous quarter include the acquisition of Fortress Identity to boost its cloud biometric capabilities, and following the fiscal year-end the company announced a partnership with Anonybit to enhance its privacy protections.

“In 2022, our focus remains on executing our growth strategy as we advance our SaaS offerings and continue to evaluate strategic initiatives. We have the industry expertise and leading-edge authentication solutions to capitalize on the growing adoption of biometrics. We believe our strong operational momentum has us well-positioned to continue growing our topline revenue at a rate exceeding the biometric market CAGR of about 15 percent.”

The announcement continues a run of strong results for Aware.

ForgeRock revenues and annual run rate rise

If not for Aware’s revenue leap, ForgeRock’s 39 percent increase to $176.9 million in fiscal 2021, backed by a 35 percent boost in annual run rate for its digital identity orchestration platform, would look even more impressive.

During the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, ForgeRock booked revenues of $47.9 million, a 19 percent y-o-y increase, but a GAAP net loss of $12.4 million. For the year, net GAAP loss was $47.8 million, up from a $41.8 loss in 2020.

“Customer demand for ForgeRock’s innovative platform is stronger than ever as customers leverage our platform to drive their digital transformation initiatives,” ForgeRock CEO Fran Rosch comments. “The adoption of the ForgeRock Identity Cloud, our SaaS offering, has exceeded our expectations and now represents 12 percent of total ARR after its first full year of availability.”

For the year ahead, ForgeRock forecasts revenue increases of 31 percent to between $238 million and $241 million.

Ping books higher revenues and costs

Total and annual recurring revenues for Ping Identity were up by 19 and 21 percent on a y-o-y basis, respectively, driven by rapid adoption of the company’s PingOne enterprise digital identity and access management (IAM) platform.

Ping reports $299.4 million in total revenue for 2021, and $75.4 million in the fourth quarter. Loss from operations and net loss were both up significantly for the year, however, to just over $79 million from $26.7 million, and $64.4 million, up from $11.9 million, respectively.

Ping also added behavioral biometrics to its PingOne platform through the acquisition of SecuredTouch earlier in 2021. Since the end of Ping’s fiscal 2021 year, the company has launched its no-code digital identity orchestration service, PingOne DaVinci.

“As the identity market continues to grow and evolve, we remain focused on inventing a new future, one that’s faster, smarter and capable of delivering improved user experiences. We and our customers are building a new security perimeter focused on identity and Zero Trust, one that aims to do away with the data-center perimeter that permeated the past,” says Andre Durand, Ping Identity’s CEO. “In 2022, we are centered on four strategic growth pillars: further driving our cloud transformation, extending our leadership in the customer use case, deepening our channel relationships and ensuring our solutions drive accelerating demand among our enterprise customers in existing and new markets.”

Ping expects total revenues for 2022 of between $330 million and $340 million, and to roughly break even in unlevered free cash flow.

SuperCom to raise $4.7M

SuperCom has reached an agreement with an institutional investor to sell $4.7 million in ordinary shares in a registered direct offering.

The investor receives ordinary shares and purchase warrants for an additional 0.75 ordinary shares for $0.6174 each.

SuperCom does not reveal its plans for the capital in the announcement.

Idex insiders acquire more shares

Insiders in Idex Biometrics are buying up company stock under the Employee Share Purchase Plan (ESPP), with 45 employees taking part in the previously-approved plan.

Idex CEO Vince Graziani and CTO Anthony Eaton each disclosed transactions to pick up thousands of ordinary shares at NOK 1.7 (US$0.19) per share.

Article Topics

Aware  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  financial results  |  ForgeRock  |  identity access management (IAM)  |  identity management  |  Idex Biometrics  |  Ping Identity  |  stocks  |  SuperCom