Skyfii sets sights on global airport vertical on completing CrowdVision acquisition

Skyfii Ltd (ASX:SKF) has officially completed the acquisition of CrowdVision, Inc, an artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision and video analytics business.

The ASX-listed omnidata intelligence company first announced the acquisition in early April as it set out to raise A$10 million in a placement. The company offered A$1 million as an upfront cash consideration to finalise the buy.

Now, Skyfii will issue more than 26 million SKF shares to satisfy the acquisition’s deferred consideration, with the buy’s total enterprise value calculated at between US$7 million and US$8 million.

Overall, the company maintains the move positions its business as a leading presence in the global airport vertical, while also opening other doors to leverage the technology in stadiums, casinos and rail or transit hubs.

Skyfii says the timing of the CrowdVision buy is strategically countercyclical, positioning the company to generate revenue as global air travel and airport infrastructure investment come back online post-COVID-19.

To extend presence in airport vertical

Commenting on the acquisition’s finalisation, managing director and CEO Wayne Arthur said: “CrowdVision’s AI-driven computer vision technology solutions are highly complementary to Skyfii and extend our presence in the large and lucrative global airport vertical.

“Our ability to leverage the CrowdVision platform to drive and execute on a range of new business development opportunities in both the airport vertical and other verticals will deliver significant upside to existing revenue levels, underpinning the strategic rationale for the transaction.”

Diagram outlines the multi-sensor data capture capabilities in CrowdVision’s offering.

Integrating CrowdVision

Since it first announced the acquisition in April, Skyfii has worked to integrate the CrowdVision technology with its own offering.

To date, the ASX-lister says this has performed ahead of expectations, with the technology platforms aligned and all staff fully onboarded to Skyfii’s operating system.

Ultimately, Skyfii believes its integration and initial business development activities reinforce the strategic and revenue opportunities that stem from the acquisition, including the ability to leverage its technology into new verticals.

Over 2020, Crowdvision delivered US$3.1 million in revenue and tabled a US$1.7 million annual recurring revenue rate.

In the same year, the data analytics business’ enterprise value was calculated between a 4.1 and 4.7 multiple.

Acquisition consideration

As a deferred consideration to support the takeover, Skyfii intends to issue 26,673,811 company shares.

These are subject to voluntary escrow restrictions, with constraints on 15,297,313 of the shares set to expire on April 5, 2022. Escrow restrictions on the remaining 11,376,498 shares will end 12 months later.

Speaking to the buy in early April, Arthur commented: “The acquisition of CrowdVision will further strengthen Skyfiii’s position as the market-leading provider of venue analytics globally.

“The acquisition reinforces our strategic focus of delivering recurring revenue growth via a combination of organic growth and accretive and highly complementary targeted acquisitions.

“The combination of our technology and CrowdVision’s range of blue-chip airport customers provides the opportunity for Skyfii to leverage our broader product portfolio to the CrowdVision customer base and extend CrowdVision’s technology into our existing customer base.

“Our ability to leverage the CrowdVision platform to drive and execute on a range of new business development opportunities will deliver significant upside to existing revenue levels, underpinning the strategic rationale for the transaction.”

A$10 million placement

In tandem with April’s acquisition announcement, Skyfii announced it had received firm commitments to raise A$10 million from sophisticated and institutional investors.

Shares were offered at A$0.165 each — a 17.5% discount at the time to Skyfii’s last traded share price and a 19.6% discount to the 20.5-cent five-day volume-weighted average price.

Skyfii also completed a share purchase plan, raising around A$700,000 to further support the acquisition, working capital requirements and additional resourcing in the US and UK markets.

Story by ProactiveInvestors