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Both IM and SR are on record as saying they think that BIRD will be worth £BNs

Whilst we might like to see regular posts of the number of paying users the fact is that we were told only a month or so ago that BIRD would start publishing numbers regularly from the beginning of September this year. I assume that is because they anticipate that is the point at which the push for numbers of paying users will begin in earnest.

24/03/2025

Product: elevate.io

In addition to Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, Firefox and Opera browsers are now supported in elevate.io.

You don't just turn up at SXSW. The passes you will need range from $995 at the music end to $2295 if you want primary access to all events. The organisers say "The SXSW® Conference & Festivals celebrate the convergence of the tech, film and television, and music industries. Immerse yourself in unparalleled discovery, learning, professional development, and networking alongside creatives from across the globe ".

£100M of revenue in 3 years implies 250,000 paying users against their own target of 1M so it would be falling badly short.

If they can repeat what they did in late 2024 (adding 30K of users in 7 weeks) albeit with free usage the number will be much much bigger. I would still not rule out somebody like Amazon adopting it for use by its customers - they helped in elevaes development

At a shareholders meeting IM was asked about cash and he said plainly that they did not need to raise cash for elevate. Separately SBS said that the margins for elevate were over 95%. So if they hit the sales they expect they will be more than able to generate any cash that is needed.

At the end of Q3 2024 Comcast had $8,878M in cash so with 387M shares on issue that represents about $22 a share, which is just short of £18 a share.

I doubt that others would sit idly by when they get to see the launch and for some it offers a better fit for which they would pay more

I'm pretty sure they needed a lot more cash because, it was said, they hadn't found a way to make their product Cloud Native. That's not a surprise because SBS said it could take competitors 10 years , cost a huge pile of cash and they might still not succeed because BIRD had the patents on the one way that is proven to work. elevate.io is intended to cover a wide spectrum of users from bottom end amateur to professionals using it to make a living. they went for 1800 users at the beginning of September to over 10K at the end of the month and in one more recent podcast SR referred to "tens of thousands of users". They now have two NEDs experienced in growing internet based companies very fast.

With the Scenery defections last month to Adobe Figma have lost that interest. They will need a video editing partner(s). elevate.io is an obvious choice because it is so far ahead of the field, it is underpinned with patents and will be launching the paying product in Q1 2025 . They are seamlessly adding updates regularly so what is on offer then will be in advance of what we see now. As of earlier this year Figma had 4m users and in 2023 75% of its user base were product designers.

It's not the possibilty of grants that BIRD is chasing but exposure to the big players who will be there. Every day that passes elevate.io stretches the areas it can transform and that is the message they want to get across.

We’re thrilled to share that we’ve been shortlisted for Best Tech Company at the prestigious SportsPro OTT Awards 2024!

The SportsPro OTT Awards celebrate excellence, innovation, and leadership in the sports industry. Organized by SportsPro Media and judged by industry peers, these awards recognize achievements across a wide range of categories celebrating the pioneers of sports broadcasting.

We are delighted to be recognised among the top innovators in sports media and technology and we congratulate all the other nominees.

The winners of all 18 categories will be announced in Madrid on Wednesday 20th November. Check out the full shortlist here and good luck to everyone!

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The H1 results in early September will give a clue to what will happen. Given that costs have been slashed in every area except elevate.io H1 ought to be better than the H1 bottom line last year. This assumes that spending on the creation of elevate.io will be mostly capitalised. I hope that they will confirm again that elevate.io will be released in 2025 Q1.

Unforunately BIRD, which launched in 2000, has never made a profit which impacts on how professional investors and investors tip sites regard it. Even Stockopedia grades it as "Suckers", which appears to be its least favourable rating. It's not going anywhere else than boom or bust.

Even if they got to 75%, which is very demanding given the spread of share ownership, they would be left with the impossible taget of 90% to force holdout shareholders to sell. If they offered say £10 a share it would not be a problem but how would they finance that?

The stock has suffered from Schroders decision to pull out and sell their shares in he market rather than try to find an institutional buyer. Now that overhang has gone the SP should regain a level that reflects the worth of its patents and products. elevate.io is looking increasingly like really disruptive technology in a sector that is growing rapidly. It has margins of over 95% and consequently if it gains a significant number of users the BIRD shares will move rapidly from p to £. The Player which enables the creator of video to delete unauthorised copies anywhere in the world (which protects the income stream derived from it) does not figure in the price at all - but in addition if the likes of Alphabet, Meta, X become responsible for taking down unlawful content at present the BIRD product is the only available working option to do so almost instantaneously everywhere ( I have seen it used and it really does work).

EVS have released EVS Map which is built on BIRD software. It looks like it will be their core product going forward.

Sumit Rai was Chief Product Officer for VEGAS Creative Software and is now running elevate.io, was previously the guy at Sony Vegas. It appears he left them when they turned down his idea for what is now the original idea for elevate. With BIRDs Enterprise software the market for elevate is much larger than that which exists for what Sony Vegas does.

BIRD was talking to AVID before they were the subject of a bid. The new CEO is keen on the Cloud. Some years ago Stephen Streeter was asked how long it would take AVID to convert their product into a Cloud based one and he said they would need a lot of skilled people, a shed load of money and up to 10 years and they still might not succeed. The one guaranteed way is to resume talks with BIRD. Similarly Adobe is not a Cloud Native product and they face similar obstacles to AVID. They don't have a problem now because elevate.io is not yet flying but when it does it will provide users with "everything that is needed and nothing that isn't". elevate will be adding new options as the opportunities arise. Every time a user logs on they will get the most up to date software to use. The aim was to get 1M users in 2 years (Adobe currently has 33M and the market is growing fast). My guess is that hey already have their marketing strategy sorted and it will use some novel methods to reach the users they are targetting - they have already indicated that customers who refer new users to them will benefit - and presumably the latest technology. AI from Twelve Labs will be important.

"Blackbird plc (AIM:BIRD... announces the general release of elevate.io, its new creator SaaS product, according to its previously announced timeframe."

What has actually happened falls so far short of the "general release" RNS that it looks like an open and shut breach of the AIM Rules. It is at best, assuming that they are actively incorporating changes through each day that passes so that each time you sign the product has been updated, a Beta product still undergoing testing. It has none of the features of what will eventually be sold to users. It is still not possible to buy any version.

The problem is that nobody has yet seen let alone used a paying version.