Blue Prism share price rallies more than 30% following half-year results

Blue Prism shares rocketed 30% higher on Thursday after it reported its half-year results.

The specialist in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) told investors that it has seen a ‘significant acceleration’ in sales in its second half of trading, with the company expecting to end the financial year on strong footing.

‘Sales volumes have continued to be high, particularly in upsells, and increased deal sizes have driven material additions in the total business generated in the year,’ the company said in its latest trading statement.

‘As a result, the Group enters 2020 with a record order book.’

Blue Prism’s share price is trading at £11.30 as of 11:35 GMT on Thursday.

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Blue Prism targets mid-tier enterprises

Blue Prism has added 685 net new customers during 2019, while maintaining a customer retention rate of 96%.

The company’s total customer base as of October 31 sat at 1,677, representing an increase of 69% compared with last year, helping the business to upsell, which has driven further sales.

‘I am delighted with our progress in the first half of 2019, with an increase in deal momentum driven by the new commercial framework which we introduced to make Blue Prism easier to adopt,’ Blue Prism CEO Alastair Bathgate said.

‘We have a good track record of helping customers scale, which provides an opportunity to upsell this new cohort.’

Blue Prism has demonstrated its future upsell potential with significant success with its existing customer base, resulting in 1,139 upsells into 544 customers, the company said.

These upsells demonstrate the software's scalability and the strategic nature of customer deployments, it added.

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Blue Prism leads the way in burgeoning RPA market

Sales momentum has resulted in a very strong financial performance with total business over the period of £181 million, up from £143 million last year.

Blue Prism expects 2019 revenues to be at least £98 million, up from £55.2 million in 2018. The company closed the year with a cash position of £74 million, up from £50.5 million last year.

‘The RPA market continues to develop into a significant software category, and we are increasingly well positioned to capitalise on this,’ he added.

‘We are investing into this opportunity, including the acquisition of Thoughtonomy, announced today, which is an important step in targeting the mid-tier and developing our enterprise cloud approach.’