NextPlay Technologies, Inc., a digital business ecosystem for digital advertisers, consumers, video gamers and travelers, reported results for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 ended November 30, 2021.
Fiscal Q3 Financial Highlights
- Achieved record quarterly revenue of $4.2 million, +59% from the previous quarter. This compares very favorably to $0 revenue in the same period last year.
- Gross profit totaled $2.2 million, with consolidated gross margin improving to 53.5% from 51.9% in the previous quarter.
- Assets totaled $121.0 million.
- Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash totaled $21.4 million, up from $8.9 million at the end of the previous quarter as the result of an equity offering completed during the quarter.
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Fiscal Q3 Operational Highlights
- Received conditional approvals for insurance and reinsurance licenses. The licensing enables NextPlay’s NextShield LTD business unit to establish digital primary insurance and reinsurance operations and to offer blockchain-delivered products like parametric comprehensive travel insurance and bank deposit insurance.
- Launched NextPlay X Soma Labs, an innovation and design platform bringing together non-fungible tokens (NFTs), social games, and Metaverse virtual worlds for major brands, creators, and agencies.
- Announced the MedTrek Fund, a blockchain securitized closed-end fund focused on building medical facilities designed to lower the likelihood of infection for four medical asset classes including primary care, tertiary care, long term care and resort convalescent facilities.
- Appointed Jorge E. Miro Hernandez as president and COO of NextBank International and Carla P. Mendez as chief administrative officer.
Management Commentary
“The increase in our third quarter revenues and significant gross margin expansion demonstrate that we’ve arrived at a major inflection point in our growth and development strategy as we gradually and successfully integrate several components of recent synergistic acquisitions to transform our business,” commented NextPlay co-CEO, Nithinan ‘Jessie’ Boonyawattanapisut. “This was the first full quarter that showed 100% contribution from these acquisitions, and we believe that it represents the foundation for further growth and expansion. We are now focused on actualizing operational and sales efficiencies by deepening operations integration, and by cross-selling new products across divisions.”
“During the quarter, our digital interactive media division, NextMedia, delivered Blockbuster 2048, its first in-house casual game, out of the 16 games currently in the pipeline that are scheduled to be released during fiscal Q4 2022 and Q1 2023, to iOS and Android app stores. In conjunction, we have now released HotPlay 2.0, our next-generation in-game advertising platform to our internal teams. It will deliver advertisements and real-world rewards into video games without disrupting gameplay, offering new revenue streams to publishers and advertisers alike. With the continued development of the HotPlay platform and integration of the MakeItGames AI animation platform we anticipate the platform will introduce disruptive and game-changing capabilities to game, virtual reality, metaverse and other immersive experiences as we begin to release HotPlay 2.0 to select partners during the first half of this calendar year and beyond. We also worked on the deeper integration of HotPlay into other parts of our ecosystem to enable digital advertisers and brands to use HotPlay to reach a vast global consumer base.
“Our Fintech division comprises our insurance, reinsurance, online banking and crypto portal operations. Led by successful insurance and banking industry executives, the Fintech division is bringing a diversified set of fintech solutions to market that will offer asset banking, asset management, mobile payment, and a range of retail banking services to customers around the world. NextBank welcomes blockchain industry participants and is focused on providing enabling capabilities to clients in the DeFi, NFT and exchange verticals. We expect NextBank to provide significant contributions to earnings and to cash flow beginning in fiscal Q1 2023. Our Longroot crypto portal is in active negotiations with a number of prospective clients (issuers) who target issuances by fiscal Q2 and Q3 2023. We also plan to issue our own digital insurance tokens, which allow customers to purchase any of our insurance products, as well as a series of stable coins to facilitate remittance services that NextBank will provide. We see considerable synergies between NextBank’s services and our Longroot crypto portal services to meet the financial and operational needs of blockchain centric companies, providing a range of services to blockchain industry participants.”
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In fiscal Q3, our fintech division received conditional approval of its general insurance and reinsurance licenses application from the Labuan Financial Services Authority (Labuan FSA). The licensing advances our mission of pushing the boundaries of insurance and reinsurance innovation with a product portfolio that will be unique to the industry, and it keeps us on track to launch our first two blockchained insurance products in fiscal Q2 and Q3 2023.”
“Our travel division is in the process of integrating NextPlay’s NextTrip ConNextions booking engine with a number of online travel agencies (OTAs). Several are already in the certification process, which is the final step before OTAs gain access to our travel inventory via their platforms. Our global inventory of vacation rental properties provides many new lodging options to OTAs around the world. We anticipate these integrations to help increase our booking volumes as the resurgence in the travel and tourism sector continues following the pandemic related lockdowns.”
“The major equity offering we completed in the quarter fortified our balance sheet and supported our many growth initiatives. We have launched an expense reduction program to eliminate redundant systems and processes due to the acquisitions. Certain one-time expenses related to post-merger activities incurred during this quarter are not anticipated to recur in the future. For these reasons, we anticipate a significant reduction in SG&A expenses and progression to positive cash flow by the end of the second half of fiscal 2023.
“We have scheduled a special shareholder meeting on January 28, 2022, and we encourage all shareholders to submit their votes. We are seeking shareholder approval to complete our previously announced acquisition of certain game-industry intellectual property from Fighter Base Publishing Inc. and certain distributed ledger intellectual property from Token IQ Inc. Both entities are majority-owned by NextPlay’s Chief Technology Officer, Mark Vange, who is a visionary leader in both industries.
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“We expect the addition of Token IQ’s technology to become the core to our products and services, from our Longroot asset-based cryptocurrencies, our digital insurance tokens and HotPlay in-game tokens, to future NextBank fintech services and NextTrip medical tourism offerings. Token IQ also brings valuable technology and software development talent to support the technology integration between our platforms and our partners, as well as further our IP development. We believe Fighter Base Publishing’s AI driven animation technology will bring unique capabilities to our HotPlay platform and significant cost reduction to our game studio operations.
As we complete our final quarter of fiscal 2022 ending in February, we expect to be exceptionally well-positioned for growth across all three divisions: interactive digital media, fintech and travel. We see near-term revenue growth and margin expansion being further fueled by new HotPlay deployments and Longroot cryptocurrency offerings, and we believe that these developments will steadily advance us toward strong cash flow and profitability.”
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