Fiscal ’22 ‘transformative’ for biometrics providers Trust Stamp, Zwipe

A number of biometric ID vendors are releasing financial reports, and the only trend for the category might be that there is no trend. That becomes clearer as more annual reports are filed.

Executives are reacting to and being buffeted by rapidly changing economic and political developments. But companies also are in different business stages and product development cycles.

Here, in no particular order, are insights gleaned from the annual reports of Trust Stamp, Zwipe, authID and BIO-key.

It may be remembered that fiscal 2022 was a mixed bag for Trust Stamp. Executives earlier this year reported a sizable jump in net revenue for the fiscal ended December 31, but also a wider loss, compared to 2021.

The net loss before taxes was $12 million, or $2.55 per share, on net revenue of $5.3 million compared to a loss of $9 million, or $2.40, on revenue of $3.6 million. Cash and equivalents dropped as well. It was $1.2 million in 2022 compared to $3.4 million a year earlier.

In a statement, CEO Garth Genner in his annual report called last year “transformative.”

Twenty-five financial institutions with assets in excess of $50 billion became clients last year as the company’s products and services became modular.

Indeed, Trust Stamp executives attributed the revenue increase to the continuing move away from being a custom software ID shop to off-the-shelf. The firm’s orchestration layer as an API, for instance, debuted as a service in February 2022. It is “typically” billed per use or per user, according to executives.

All of this is a good recipe for lowering costs for the company over time. As it is, however, cost of services provided and the cost of sales both rose compared to 2021 (significantly so for sales).

As it happens, the CEO of Zwipe, Robert Puskaric, describes fiscal 2022 (ended December 31) as “transformative” in his annual report, too.

Puskaric says Zwipe now has an “execution-first” posture, having spent time primarily setting up products in R&D. It is “ready to achieve commercial traction and scale in 2023.”

He is primarily referring to Zwipe’s Pay fingerprint-biometric card. During fiscal 2022, Pay was finalized as a product, and it also was certified by Visa and Mastercard. Puskaric claims Pay is the first payment card sold on the open market to win those coveted certifications.

He says that last year set up its access management product, Access, as a standalone business line. Access is one of two ID access management products being tested in a pilot at Frankfurt Airport, according to the company.

Zwipe reported a loss of 104.7 million Norwegian kroner (US$10.1 million), or NOK2.80 ($0.27) per share, on revenue of NOK3.9 million ($380,000). This compares to a loss of NOK83.4 million ($8 million), NOK2.45 ($0.24), on revenue of NOK2.5 million ($240,000).

The company’s gross margin tumbled to 45 percent last year from 66 percent in 2021.

ID authenticator authID has not yet published its annual report for the period ended December 31. It has, instead, released the raw data.

Executives have reported a loss of $24.2 million, or $0.97, per share, on revenue of $527,000. This compares with a loss of $17.6 million, or $0.78, on revenue of $64.7 million in fiscal 2021. AuthID doubled its software license revenue to $200,000.

The company views 2023 as the year of its “next stage of market growth.”

CEO Rhon Daguro said in a statement that 2022 will be remembered internally as the year that is had “a perfect score in testing for ISO level2 biometric presentation attack detection.” Its software also was certified by the FIDO Alliance.

Daguro joined authID from Socure last year. Joe Trelin joined as board chairman.

BIO-key, likewise, has reported its fiscal year ended December 31 via a statement. The company reported a loss for the year, attributing it to a corporate buyout, marketing costs, development of a pair of new products and personnel spending related to production.

Executives are addressing the loss with layoffs, overhead cuts and smaller hardware inventories.

BIO-key reported a loss of $10.2 million, or $1.26 per share, on revenue of $7 million in 2022 compared to a loss of $5 million, or $0.65, on revenue of $5.1 million.

Article Topics

authID  |  BIO-key  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  financial results  |  stocks  |  Trust Stamp  |  Zwipe