Blackbird Share Discussion Threads

[cabi1] 30/11/2019 11:56

IM LinkedIn.

So thrilled to announce Bloomberg as our latest big US customer.

Blackbird plc signs multi year deal with New York based global financial news behemoth Bloomberg.

Whatever happens in the global news agenda over the next five years whether it’s boom, bust, elections, recessions, Brexit, impeachment, war or peace, the global financial community will be watching its news edited and published on Blackbird.

In an integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Bloomberg will use Blackbird’s industry defining software for all its fast turnaround news production to broadcast, social media and OTT. Blackbird will be deployed in all Bloomberg’s news bureaus across the US, Europe and Asia.

Thank you to all the lovely people on the Bloomberg and Blackbird teams for the work they put in to get this landmark deal done. 👏🏼👏🏼7870;🍾

The industry is gravitating to Blackbird - it’s happening!!

[cabi1] 30/11/2019 10:53

We are at 15.25p with £8+ million in the bank, signing multi year deals with the likes of Bloomberg. What’s not to like. Keep buying. IMHO.

[richard107] 30/11/2019 10:35

I agree . There is no point in endlessly moaning and going over the past . We are where we are with new management. IM is obviously a wealthy man who backs his own judgement. Unlike many public companies the board is not greedy.
Also it is always wise to raise new money when it is not necessary immediately. Trying to raise funds when you are running out of cash is an unpleasant experience .
It would have been difficult to raise this much before the Bloomberg announcement. Any issue would have probably been between 8 to 10 pence and much greater dilution .
Anyone who doesn’t like it shouldn’t buy this sort of company at this stage in it’s life . As someone else as said it is remarkable that the company had survived so long with endless fund raising

[cabi1] 30/11/2019 09:59

Yes me too. Had to buy outside me and the wife’s ISA’s yesterday.

[bonio10000] 30/11/2019 09:47

Looks like I'm buying £10k more around mid December.

Just need to sort the wife's ISA.

[invest360] 30/11/2019 09:42

Yes Bonio. My commentary is about the business under IM’s leadership, not everything that has happened in the past. Though I will give them 10 out of 10 for endurance. Most businesses would of winked out of existence long ago. So we have much to be grateful for. SS is not only the founder, the evangelist, and the tech ground-breaker, but also the survivor. He has now finally managed to assemble a first class team around him, just as the market is finally waking up.

[invest360] 30/11/2019 09:35

As a board you find yourself with an ongoing need to invest, a slowly diminishing cash position, massive potential that’s increasing as each week passes - and an inability to force prospects to make decisions on your timelines. What do you do? Throw your hands up in despair and go home, or fight the good fight? Not only are they having to do all the usual things in business, they also need to break new ground and fight a rear guard action against going bust by simultaneously engaging investors. Not only making sure you raise the cash, but doing so by avoiding too much dilution. It’s a tough gig. Have they made mistakes? I’m sure there have been a few. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. And come what may, as a result of all of this, the business is now in an extraordinary position. Rarely have I seen so much pent-up potential.

[bonio10000] 30/11/2019 09:27

I can't be bothered to even go over old ground about failed USA expansions, Eva, Captevate etc.

They are not blameless. Maybe not IM, but a number of others are.

[bonio10000] 30/11/2019 09:26

There is nobody here who didn't think the booting of Lees meant the end of these shenanigans.

[invest360] 30/11/2019 09:18

The problem is that large corporations never cease to amaze at how slow they are to move. The market is at an early adopter phase as tech this groundbreaking can be seen as a big risk - especially if the provider is under-capitalised. So you find yourself with an incredible pipeline, a need to continuously engage these prospects and to appear at all the right trade shows - you simply have to project corporate confidence. You also have to continue to invest in keeping the R&D on track and attending to the lower level feature requests.

[invest360] 30/11/2019 09:10

If you’re running a business with an amazing product that breaks new ground to the extent that the market hasn’t fully caught up but you know the potential what are you supposed to do? Scale back?

[bonio10000] 30/11/2019 09:04

The above doesn't mean I don't think they are on the move a major way, i just think you have to be more pragmatic about this.

It's hardly as if the USA sales team is signing so many deals they are turning away work due to time constraints.

[bonio10000] 30/11/2019 08:57

Equally pragmatically, they are burning £2m p.a. and need to pay salaries.

I don't buy all the hype it is for deals. It's been 12 months since the boasting of 7 figure deals and the fact no placing has arisen in that period suggests they were not near signing one.

It is also not that long ago there was a 40 per cent dilution. It's fine to say you can buy more in the market, but every 18 months it is happening with the same tag line.

That is hardly ideal and a lot of shareholders won't want to commit every increasing monies into an AIM share.

It is equally likely they would have needed to raise at some point next year and the recent price rise was deemed as good as it gets. They didn't put in the main details of the deal (the RNS was badly worded) to get a quick price pump before finals next March showed the actual financial progress was limited and the need for money was as plain as day.

Maybe if they stopped going to every Mickey Mouse conference?

[invest360] 30/11/2019 08:36

Farr. Of course, none of us like dilution and we’d all rather BB took off fast enough to avoid the need for it. But no plan survives first contact with the enemy. What you need is a board who are savvy and fleet of foot enough to spot early and transact effectively.

[invest360] 30/11/2019 00:43

Totally agree Nickb. ChrisC if you feel you’ve been excluded then just go ahead and buy some more shares for basically the same price as the placing. They’re raising money to strengthen the balance sheet, to land the big corporate deals that are already in the offing (Bloomberg, that we’re all thrilled with, was almost certainly dependent on the placement), accelerate the US sales effort, and to strengthen the tech team - all at only 11% dilution. What’s not to like. And please stop going on about the board of directors when you’ve no idea what they do and whether or not they add value. Same with Allenby.

[nickb] 29/11/2019 22:48

It’s happening I just can’t see how large video enterprises cannot sign up.
(I don’t say that lightly).

The industry has a habit of everyone jumping on the same solution, once you crack it then it all comes to you.

Problems in video post production are essentially universal everyone is challenged by the huge pressures of modern media consumer expectations and it’s only getting worse.

Snowball building.

Ian must be in on lots of interesting meetings with very senior executives no one will get the feedback and market insight as Ian will be getting and he really is filling his boots with shares like I have never seen on AIM before.
Could be a clue😀

[cabi1] 29/11/2019 22:24

The Company has a strong pipeline with multiple ongoing discussions with large companies around the globe.

Won’t be down here much longer. Fill your boots while you can. IMHO.

[pat_cash] 29/11/2019 22:19

Your technical and industry knowledge is much valued nickb, and great to have on this BB! From my POV the past is the past and if raising some more money increases the chances of success and gets us there faster, I’ve no problem with some dilution – in the long-run we’ll be better off. The timing is right for a cash injection to act as a catalyst, though I appreciate it’s tough to take for those who feel let down so much in the past. If someone said 3 days ago we’d be at 15.25p by the end of the week, no one would be complaining. But we’ll have plenty of cash in the bank too.

[geheimnis2] 29/11/2019 22:12

Onwards and upwards!


20p+ next week?

[nickb] 29/11/2019 21:32

I was in the thick of professional video editing 20 years ago and none of us at that time could imagine what Blackbird has now become.

Stephen had tremendous vision and determination back then to change video post production.

I have the benefit of the history and backstory of video editing solutions having lived and worked through many generations of it.

I was a skeptic about Blackbird ever working as some very longtime shareholders here will remember.
It’ll never work too ambitious (see failed £100m BBC Cloud project)

But Blackbird software engineers developers did it!

However What everyone got wrong was the industry’s strong resistance to Cloud but that has dramatically changed this last 12-18 months it’s now centre stage of any fast paced turnaround video companies tech strategy they pretty much have to go Cloud.

We have something very special here and I’m backing it.

No investment advice intended.