MAIS.L Regulatory News (MAIS)

8 October 2013

blur (Group) plc

("blur," the "Group" or the "Company")

Q3 Metrics Update

s-commerce adoption accelerates

blur (Group) Plc (BLUR), the technology company that's reinventing commerce at blurgroup.com, experienced its most successful quarter to date in the third quarter of 2013, seeing a marked acceleration in s-commerce adoption and significant growth in all of its key metrics. With 178% y-o-y growth in the number of new projects, a 493% y-o-y growth in total value of projects submitted and a 115% y-o-y growth in average project value during the quarter this shows a continuation of the momentum recently highlighted in blur Group's half-year results. The total value of projects submitted to the Exchange is now over $50m, with $17.3m in the quarter. This growth from $20.2m cumulative values at the start of the year, a total that took 4 years to achieve, was facilitated when project value ceilings on its blur 3.0 platform this quarter were increased to $5m.

Philip Letts, CEO blur Group commented on the outstanding quarter: "It's widely acknowledged that Q2 was our tipping point for the adoption of s-commerce. We raised funds in Q2 to accelerate growth through continued platform development and investment in our digital marketing and sales channels and Q3 showed rapid results from this plan. With large value, long lifetime projects starting on the Exchange we now have a predictable and long-term revenue stream and an increasingly robust platform designed to deliver services projects of all sizes and values." 

Projects submitted

● 598 projects submitted in the quarter once again breaking the total for a quarter and bringing total to date to 2,778.

● Highest ever total quarterly project values of $17.3m, beating the previous highest of $9.4m in Q2 2013 and representing an annualized rate of nearly $70m

● Average submitted project value increased to $28.8K

● 95 projects (16% of the total submitted) were from existing customers, representing over 50% of total project values, demonstrating again both the scalability of the model and the trend for repeat customers to submit larger projects.

The 598 projects in Q3 showed not just the highest number of projects submitted to date in a quarter but a year on year increase of 178% providing evidence of the acceleration of growth in this quarter following the launch of blur 3.0 in Q2 2013. This means that the total submitted project values for the year to the end of Q3 2013 ($30.6m) is already 50% greater than the combined totals in the first four years of the Exchange (to the end of 2012) ($20.2m). The values to date in Q3 mean that the annualized total is now approaching $70m and with $50m only reached in September 2013, this confirms the rapid acceleration of s-commerce adoption.

This has partly been driven by the increase in project values handled on the Exchange. The ceiling was increased to $1m in Q2 2013 and to $5m in Q3 2013 and this success was evidenced by nine projects of $500K and above including four over $1m of a total of 21 over $200K. These high value projects came from companies including one of the world's largest providers of video content platforms, a property company, a mobile service provider and two music media companies who have adopted the platform as an s-commerce provider. Danone, which first used the Exchange in Q2 2013, became a premium account subscriber so that its procurement team can better manage services projects through the platform from multiple functions and locations.

As a result of new and repeat customers like these the average project value was $28.8K, a 115% y-o-y increase.

Continuing in its position as the most significant region for blur Group, the US represented 48% of the total number of projects submitted; the UK 33% and India 10%.

Projects completed

● Projects completed grew to a record 160 in the quarter

● 135% y-o-y growth over Q3 2012

Of the projects that completed on the Exchange, 19% were from existing customers.

One of the most significant new customers in the quarter was All Oceans Interactive Media. One of the world's largest providers of video content platforms, the first project started on the Exchange in the quarter and the company now has multiple projects underway with a combined total of over $3m. The first projects are to promote the world's largest Reggae and Dancehall music festival, Sting, in December of this year for which they will be providing the video stream. This was followed by apps development. Impressed by the quality of the Exchange they then passed the management of sponsorship strategy through to the Exchange and have now briefed for promoting a further two events in 2014. The power of projects like this isn't just the overall value, but the fact that the projects are long-term and therefore enable a predictable revenue stream through the duration of the project, with repeat projects extending the lifetime customer value.

Experts

● Over 31,000 expert service providers are now on the eight Exchanges with 2,917 joining in the quarter, representing a 42% increase since Q2 2012

● The three newest Exchanges now have 10% of all experts, with Technology representing half of that total. This exchange growth has been reflected in projects as well - 13% of all projects submitted are now run on the Technology exchange.

Other blur Group Developments in Q3

There were significant additions to blur 3.0 with new apps and enhancements included on to the platform to continue to improve user experience.

blur 3.0 has

● extended to include expert platforms to provide an increasingly unified experience between the community and expert dashboards

● launched an enhanced billing system to further streamline the process from project kick off to payment

● new pitch app for easier expert pitching and automatic generation of statement of work

● new maximum project value of $5m rising from the previous $1m ceiling

In organizational terms, blur Group announced James Davis as Group CFO and promoted Gerry Gross and Kara Cardinale to Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Community Officer respectively. These new appointments accompanied the announcement of blur Group moving its Global HQ to Exeter following its relocation of its R&D Centre there and taking advantage of the technology and innovation focus in the region.

Philip Letts concluded, "The pace of development at blur Group continues to be evident in terms of our acquisition of customers, our development of the blur 3.0 technology platform and our growth and organization of teams. The latest development with the move of our global HQ to Exeter shows our intention to deliver a world class billion dollar technology business and continue our market leadership in s-commerce."

For further information please contact:

About blur (Group) plc at blurgroup.com

blur Group is a technology company reinventing how businesses do commerce at blurgroup.com. Its Global Services Exchange delivers services differently: a new way to buy, manage and pay for core services. Approaching 35,000 business users in 141 countries have adopted this s-commerce platform and changed the way they work.

blur Group (BLUR) is a public company headquartered in the UK with offices in the US and Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market. blur was founded in January 2006 and launched in alpha in 2007 with the full, formal launch of the Global Services Exchange in January 2010. At that time, just over three project briefs per month were submitted. Now 200 projects per month from companies like Broadridge, Coral, Exceed, HCA, Momentive, Red Commerce, the Financial Times, Berlitz, Butlins, GE Healthcare and Tyco are received. Over the same time, average project value has grown from approximately $1,500 in 2010 to $28,800 in Q3 2013.

Today, more than 2,800 projects have been submitted with a combined value of over $53 million. These have come from the US, UK, Europe, Africa and Asia with over 31,000 expert service providers on eight exchanges responding to them.