ALB.L Regulatory News (ALB)

This announcement contains inside information which is disclosed in accordance with the Market Abuse Regulation.

5 December 2017

Albert Technologies Ltd.

("Albert Technologies" or the "Company")

SaaS Business Update and Cessation of Indirect Business

In light of growing momentum and revenues in its core SaaS business and following a review by the Board, Albert Technologies (AIM: ALB) today provides an update on its SaaS business and confirms its intention to cease trading of its Indirect business by end of 2017.

Core channel - SaaS business update

Our SaaS business continues its rapid growth with new contract wins and increased pipeline activity. We expect to generate SaaS revenues of at least US$1.7m for the year ended 31 December 2017, having achieved an annualised run-rate of over US$3m in the final quarter to date. This revenue performance is ahead of our initial expectations for 2017 and represents a 9x increase over the previous year.

We continue to be highly encouraged by the growth trajectory of our SaaS platform following significant new client wins during 2017, and growing revenue from our existing client base, as Albert proves its value in delivering enhanced performance as well as operating cost efficiencies. The Board believes that shareholder value will be maximized by investing the Company's resource in its SaaS channel which is well positioned to meet growing structural demand for autonomous marketing solutions.

Rationale for ceasing the Indirect business

As previously announced, the ecosystem in which the Indirect business operates has experienced severe and prolonged disruption commencing in late 2015. Advertising exchanges reduced their inventory levels, many exchanges consolidated or merged and, in parallel, the market started to shift from using open exchanges to private and self-serve exchanges. This disruption resulted in loss of supply for major online advertising exchanges and a loss of demand from major media buyers, the consequence of which was a dramatic decrease in transaction volumes and significant pressure on margins in the industry.

The Company has sought to minimise the impact of disruptions described above, including working to diversify its partnerships and customer base, however the Indirect business became unprofitable in H1 2017 for the first time and the market in which it operates remains extremely volatile. Conversely, the Company's core SaaS business is gaining momentum and is not subject to the pressures described above as revenues from this business are based on tier levels of the software usage and not on utilising opportunities for gains from trading activity.

The Board therefore believes it would be in the best interests of shareholders to cease the Indirect business by the end of 2017 in order to focus its efforts and resources solely on its SaaS business and reduce the losses of the Company. There are expected to be no material net costs associated with the closure and the intellectual property utilised by the Indirect business will remain under the direct ownership of the Company.

Or Shani, Chief Executive Officer of Albert Technologies, commented:

"Witnessing the changes in the past two years in the industry, we are confident in the strategic change we are making. Having positioned our AI platform at the forefront of the industry, we will now be able to better support and focus on enhancing our fast-scaling SaaS business."

For further information, please contact:

About Albert Technologies Ltd.

Albert (AIM: ALB.L) is the first-ever fully autonomous artificial intelligence marketing platform, driving digital marketing campaigns from start to finish for some of the world's leading brands. Albert's mission is to liberate businesses from the complexities of digital marketing-not just by replicating their existing efforts, but by executing them at a pace and scale not previously possible. He serves as a highly intelligent and sophisticated member of brands' marketing teams, wading through mass amounts of data, converting this data into insights, and autonomously acting on these insights, across channels, devices and formats, in real time. This eliminates the manual and time-consuming tasks that currently limit the effectiveness and results of modern digital advertising and marketing. Brands such as Harley Davidson, EVISU, The Big Red Group, and Dole Asia credit Albert with significantly increased sales, an accelerated path to revenue, the ability to make more informed investment decisions, and reduced operational costs.

The Company's core focus is its SaaS Sales Channel, which offers its artificial intelligence-based software, Albert, to brands using a SaaS model. Albert Technologies Ltd. listed in 2015 to accelerate both investment into and commercialisation of Albert.

The Company and Albert have received many awards in its short existence, including two platinum MarCom awards and silver in the Best in Biz awards 2016 for best new product of the year. Albert was also named AI Application of the Year by The Global Annual Achievement Awards for Artificial Intelligence.

About Albert

Albert replaces the human campaign manager in managing a brand's online advertising campaigns. A brand provides Albert with access to its Google, Facebook, Bing, Twitter and other online marketing channels. When a brand manager wishes to launch a new online advertising campaign, she simply logs into Albert and deploys that new campaign, which is usually no more than a 15 minute task.

Albert autonomously creates hundreds of micro campaigns across all relevant online marketing channels (Google, Facebook, Bing, Twitter, Instagram, Display, Email, etc), then reviews these hundreds of micro campaigns every few minutes and optimises each of them as needed. Albert works in very much the same way that a human campaign manager would, making correlation and cost/benefit based decisions.

Where an experienced campaign manager could possibly make circa 100 decisions per day, Albert can make thousands per minute. Albert's ability to launch hundreds of micro strategies and review and amend them all every few minutes typically brings about a significant increase in ROI. In addition, all learnings from the decisions made remain in house, so the brand has full and instant transparency and can easily scale up marketing activity through larger budgets or application to new brands and new geographies without hiring new expert campaign managers.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT

This announcement includes statements that are, or may be deemed to be, "forward-looking statements". By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty since they relate to future events and circumstances. Actual results may, and often do, differ materially from any forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements in this announcement reflect Albert Technologies' view with respect to future events as at the date of this announcement. Save as required by law or by the AIM Rules for Companies, Albert Technologies undertakes no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statements in this announcement following any change in its expectations or to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this announcement.