Group revenues increased by 5% to £24.6m (FY20: £23.4m), with recurring revenue, as a percentage of total revenue, increasing to 43% (FY20: 41%), as the business focuses on developing and selling repeatable software solutions under a SaaS model. Adjusted EBITDA* increased by 12% to £3.6m (FY20:

£3.2m) with a higher margin of 14.8% (FY20: 13.8%). Operating cash inflow (before strategic, integration and other non-recurring items) more than doubled to £4.2m (FY20: £1.9m) with the Group being free cash flow ** positive £0.9m, even after non-recurring one-off items.

These positive results, delivered against the difficult backdrop of the pandemic, provide the business with a strengthening financial footing on which to continue to carefully invest in our products and operations in order to capture more of the growing location data market.

Board and corporate governance

We welcomed Andrew Fabian to the board as Interim CFO in June 2020 and were pleased to formalise his appointment as CFO in October 2020. His understanding of technology businesses and the transition to the cloud is proving incredibly valuable and he is a great addition to the team.

Corporate governance is continually assessed at 1Spatial and we have provided more information on this in the Corporate Governance Report included in this Annual Report. Peter Massey is Chair of the Remuneration Committee, Francis Small is the Chair of the Audit Committee and I am Chair of the Nomination Committee.

Our people

This year, more than ever, we have seen the quality of our teams shine through. Their energy, commitment and passion for customer service has not wavered through this, the most difficult of years for many and I would like to thank every member of 1Spatial for all the effort they have exerted on our customers’ behalf. Our priority continues to be on ensuring the wellbeing of our teams around the world, providing them with the right, healthy environment to continue to deliver the high-quality service our customers expect of 1Spatial.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

At 1Spatial we are striving to make the world safer, smarter and more sustainable for the future. We provide our clients with solutions to support their ESG goals and as a Company we are proactive in evaluating what we can do to innovate and reduce our impact on the environment.

We help our customers unlock the hidden value in their data and provide significant opportunities to support businesses and governments to deliver against important sustainability goals. Be it horizontally between internal business departments, vertically up and down the external supply chain, or across a vast public accessed information infrastructure, our solutions underpin the efficient, effective and sustainable operation of established and emerging industries.

Given the nature of what we do, we have a low impact on the environment but we do lots of things to improve and offset our carbon footprint such as donations to the Woodland Trust to offset travel. From a social perspective we have an active team which has been really focussed during the Covid period on mental health and wellbeing activities. From a governance perspective we have a number of accreditations to ensure appropriate safeguarding our customer’s data.

Looking forward

We have entered the new year with a record level of contracted future revenue, a wide range of customers in stable industry segments and growing proof of delivery both in Europe and the USA. We will continue to monitor the evolving situation in relation to Covid-19, the size of the opportunity ahead and increased win rate provides me and the Board with confidence that we are well placed to deliver sustainable growth at scale and that 1Spatial has an exciting long-term future.

Andy Roberts

Non-Executive Chairman

• Adjusted EBITDA is a company-specific measure, which is calculated as operating loss before depreciation (including right of use asset depreciation), amortisation and impairment of intangible assets, share-based payment charge and strategic, integration, and other non-recurring items

  ** Free cash flow is defined as net increase/ (decrease) in cash for the year before cash flows from the acquisition of subsidiaries, cash flows from new borrowings and repayments of borrowings and cash flow from new share issue.

  CEO’s Review

  We entered FY21 in a considerably improved financial and strategic position, following the successful conclusion of the three-year turnaround plan and were set for a year of growth. The emergence of the Coronavirus in early 2020 re-shaped the year for us, as it did for so many businesses. While our growth aspirations were held back temporarily, we are proud of how our teams responded to the new challenges and of the results delivered for the year.

  Increasingly supportive market backdrop

  There has been a groundswell of interest in our offerings across our chosen markets and industries and we feel that we are at the beginning of a new growth trajectory. There is a growing awareness across multiple industries, not only that location data is a vital element in the delivery of better, faster and safer services, but that the data needs to be accurate and shareable. Location data is increasingly being used as the main points of reference when connecting multiple systems.

  In the past our offerings have been used to address needs such as increased efficiencies or cost savings but more and more we see the drivers of interest being around sustainability, health and safety and infrastructure investment. Our rules engine, 1Integrate, and cloud portal, 1Data Gateway, launched in the year, are increasingly recognised as powerful tools to ensure good quality data and trust when sharing data. We have delivered our solutions to support new systems, such as the next generation 911 system in California and the official base-map for the State of Michigan.

  At the macro level, we believe themes such as the United Nations (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a universal call for action to end poverty, hunger and protect the planet, and specific government initiatives, such as President Biden’s “once in a generation” spending plan to invest trillions of dollars into infrastructure and climate change projects, will be long-term drivers of the need for accurate location-based, shareable data.

  This growing industry need has led to growth in our customer numbers, revenues and pipeline of opportunities.

  Continued investment in innovation

  We have continued to invest in our product offering through the year, both in 1Integrate and 1Data Gateway, but also in business applications targeting specific industries, such as 1Water and the arcOpole Pro government application in France. Our next generation cloud LMDM platform is on track for launch towards the end of the current financial year, bringing together all of our offerings in the cloud, providing greater flexibility of delivery and pricing.

  Resilient performance

  While new business was harder to secure in the first half of the year due to the dislocation from COVID-19, we have seen a gradual return to more normal sales cycles through the second half and into the new year. We saw revenue growth in our French operation in H2 and with the restructuring of our European operations completed post period-end, we have a strong basis for growth in that region moving forward.

  In the UK’s our work with the Environment Agency, and Northern Gas Networks provided both a layering on of recurring revenue for future years, and high-profile proof points for our technology and capabilities.

  The growth in our US business during the year has been particularly exciting. We secured several new landmark contracts in the year, including the State of Michigan and the State of California Office of Emergency Services. The theme of data integrity and data sharing is particularly prevalent in the US and we see a growing pipeline of opportunities for 1Integrate, 1Data Gateway and our 911 Emergency Services business application.

  Our financial performance in the year is encouraging. While revenue growth was modest, at 5%, impacted by Covid-19 related delays, underlying that, we have seen an increase in recurring revenue, a key area of focus, an increase in profit margins and positive free cash flow.

  FY21 Strategic review

  We made solid progress in the year against the three pillars of our growth strategy.

  1. Innovation

     The 1Spatial platform is a comprehensive set of Location Master Data Management (LMDM) software components. LMDM ensures the data management processes are automated and repeatable across the different technology platforms for the whole enterprise. Unlike traditional Master Data Management (MDM), LMDM encompasses both spatial and non-spatial data to provide users with the technology solutions that enable them to automate the collection, control and sharing of data with confidence. Our patented technology also gives them the ability to solve complex and unique challenges in the management of their spatial and non-spatial data.

     The 1Spatial Platform can be split into two key areas:

     • Data Management Solutions - Managing data to ensure it is correct, consistent and compliant

     • Business Applications - Utilising trusted data through business applications to solve specific business challenges

During the year we have continued to innovate in both areas and accelerated the development of our SaaS multi-tenancy cloud platform as a vehicle for further growth and accessibility of our solutions.