UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) (“UrtheCast” or the “Company”), a technology company that is developing a platform for democratizing Earth Observation, today announces financial results for the three and nine months ended on September 30, 2015. The Company reported revenues, excluding non-cash barter services, of $9.3 million and $17.5 million for the three and nine month periods ending September 30, 2015, respectively, compared to nil revenues for the same periods in 2014. Our non-IFRS adjusted EBITDA, excluding share-based payments, was a loss of $4.3 million (2014 – $3.4 million) in the quarter and a loss of $5.1 million (2014 – $9.8 million) for the year to date. For the nine months ending September 30, 2015, our cash inflows from operations were $5.7 million as compared to a cash outflow of $7.7 million in the nine months ending September 30, 2014.
Recent highlights include:
UrtheCast Signs Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) for the Constellation
The Company has advanced negotiations with an anchor tenant customer for the planned constellation of 16 Earth Observation optical and synthetic aperture radar (“SAR”) satellites (the “Constellation”) and has signed a non-binding MOU for US$175 million. This MOU is with the Company’s existing US$65 million engineering services and data customer. A portion of the original US$65 million was for Gen 2 data sales, which under the terms of this MOU will be repurposed to assist in the funding of the Constellation. Total signed MOUs for the Constellation now stand at US$370 million. Assuming these MOUs are converted to binding, definitive agreements, these customers will provide substantive funding for the Constellation.
High-Resolution Camera (“HRC”) Begins Commercial Operations
The High Resolution Camera (“HRC”) began commercial operations in this quarter. We continue to improve both data quality and processing capacity as our engineering team works to achieve Full Operating Capability (“FOC”).
Increased Revenue Visibility
The Company has firm backlog contracts for both data sales and engineering services of over $100 million, plus another $30 million in options. In this quarter, we generated revenue from all four sensors, Deimos 1, Deimos 2, MRC and HRC. This points to UrtheCast growing rapidly as a new supplier into the Earth Observation industry, with a diversified data offering and a disruptive cost structure.
Deimos Imaging Integration On Track
The integration of the recently-acquired Deimos business continues according to plan. Cross-selling of data products by the combined sales force is well underway.
Accelerating Constellation Plans (Moving Directly to Constellation)
The increasing momentum of the Constellation in response to customer interest that we have received has prompted the Company to accelerate the Constellation’s implementation timeline by redirecting the Gen-2 sensor development program currently underway to the Constellation. The company will no longer proceed with the installation of the sensors on the International Space Station (“ISS”). The company believes this will result in a faster, lower-cost, more capital efficient path to deploying the Constellation and becoming a diversified EO company with a world-class suite of sensors in space. This decision will compliment our powerful ISS platform and is consistent with our ambitions to democratize access to EO imagery. We are thankful for the key support we have and continue to receive from our ISS partners.
