When Stockhouse Editorial first introduced our audience to
Visionstate Corp. (
TSX-V: VIS,
OTC: VSSSF,
Forum)
back in May, we learned about a company so unique that their Internet of Things platform has, essentially, no direct competition in the marketplace. Visionstate invests in technology that has a positive global impact with the goal of investing in smart tech within companies that promote sustainability and greater well-being.
Stockhouse Media’s Dave Jackson was joined by company Founder & CEO John Putters to aluminate investors and shareholders to get us up-to-date on all things Visionstate Corp.
(CLICK IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO)
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
SH: To start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the history of the company?
JP: I'm John Putters, CEO of the company. Visionstate was started in 2005, doing interactive directories. We disrupted that industry because we were involved with facility management. It led to our WANDA product, which is an IOT product that tracks and monitors cleaning protocols, which of course is very topical in today's environment. It started out as a technology company, still is a technology company, but pivoted toward the IOT sector probably about five to six years ago and have focused on WANDA ever since.
SH: Can you update our investor audience and your Visionstate shareholders on any new company developments, especially in the wake of COVID?
JP: Last year 2021 was pivotal for the company. We really started WANDA as a tablet that was restroom centric in fact. These tablets were installed at the entrance to restrooms, in our mind that wasn't a complete facility management solution and it had challenges with regard to scalability because the tablets were fairly expensive. So, what happened as a result of COVID of course, is that everything's gone touchless we determined our best approach is to launch a mobile app, a mobile version of WANDA, which we did in 2021 to a huge success and we've been developing that further ever since. The most meaningful impact of that is that it's no longer restroom centric, it's now a scalable product and we're literally tracking everything from ash trays to cannabis grow rooms now in terms of the cleaning and monitoring of the supplies and the rest of it. We've changed a lot in the last year, we now have a scalable business model and we're going gangbusters with it.
SH: You just provided an update on the company’s business activities, sales, and new technology development. Can you expand on this for our investor audience?
JP: Absolutely. In 2021, we actually had a profitable year. The fact of the matter is that Visionstate is a software service business model, we measure our success by client acquisition because this is booked revenue, typically our deals are three to five years in duration. In the last year we've added a large number of new clients that are now on our SAS model. The fact that we launched the mobile app as well makes it way easier because there's no upfront costs associated with infrastructure hardware. We can deploy to a school board with 250 schools within a week and the rest really is residual income. We're seeing tremendous growth with that and we are booking revenue well into 2024, 2025 at this point.
SH: You’ve also recently announced how Visionstate's I-O-T technology is “pivotal in the fight against COVID-19.” This may be news to many investors. Can you unpack the benefits of it?
JP: Absolutely and that's a fabulous question. The fact of the matter is, is that since COVID, we live in a new environment and there's a renewed emphasis on meeting protocols related to the cleaning process. Many of these are new protocols that didn't exist prior to COVID but I can tell you fundamentally that tracking performance and monitoring the staff's compliance with protocols can't be done on a paper-based basis anymore. They need analytics. The second point I'll make is that in many cases, the overlooked, unsung heroes of this pandemic or the frontline cleaning stuff that were out there cleaning and doing their thing even while many of us were locked down. They require tools in their ability to conduct their jobs and that's what WANDA is, it is a tool for them to be able to do their jobs better, to make the environment safer because we know that the protocols are being met and that might be right down to cleaning a doorknob on a door. So very detailed and granular but it really empowers the cleaning staff to have the right tools in hand to meet the challenges of this pandemic and any other future disease or virus that we may encounter.
SH: The Company looks set for strong growth in 2022. How are you placed to expand operations to meet demand?
JP: Well because we're really focused on our app now. We have huge scalability without having to add significant amount of resources. For the most part, our technology is built. We add new features as we go along, usually from the front lines but that is the spectacular part about Visionstate is that we don't have to add a bunch of staff in order to meet the demands of our technology. We also have a global partner who's highly invested in the WANDA product that are in the cleaning and hygiene industry. In fact, they're the experts, this is a company that trades on the London stock exchange in this multi-billion-dollar company and they see that this is the future. We have access to a global sales force. Now the impact of pivoting to the mobile app has been profound in that respect as well because everybody is very familiar and used to using mobile app. The ability for that global sales staff to sell the app is very, very, very promising, and optimistic. We don't see that we need to increased cost significantly as we grow and expand our product throughout the world.
SH: For company shareholders and potential investors, what kind of future development and progress can we expect with your innovative Wanda platform?
JP: Well, good question. We do have new technology in the queue, what we found is that as the app and as our technology got more and more out into the marketplace, we had customers coming to us and saying, hey, we'd like to do this, and I'll just give you an example. Our next technology that we're working on is actually RFID, or radio frequency identification and this is to track high value assets in hospitals that frankly get lost all the time, shockingly but it happens, and not only do they need to know where those high value assets are, but they also need to know whether they've been cleaned or not, which is a huge challenge. So, let’s just take a gurney for example, who used it when, where is it and when was the last time, it was clean?
Our footprint in the hospital set is going to increase significantly as a result of this technology because they have the same challenges, on the sales side of things, we're actually gearing up right now for sort of a relaunch of WANDA with all the new features throughout our entire global sales force with our partner. We are very optimistic about coming here because of omicron obviously, even more emphasis on frontline cleaning and the fact that we can deploy as quickly as we can means that we've got the solution to address this part of the pandemic. We're very excited about our prospects for the coming year.
SH: What separates Visionstate from the competition and makes your business model unique?
JP: Great question. In terms of the technology itself, it started out about six years ago as a digital audit platform for restrooms to monitor the activities to minimize slip and fall injury. In other words, there was a slip and fall, lawsuit comes eight months later and it's a off to the warehouse of paper to try to find who did what, when? We address that. I think that what really makes our technology exceptional is the fact that it's really driven by the front lines, including how we started as a technology that could address this slip and fall liability lawsuits. Today, we have really the global leader in cleaning and hygiene as our partner and a lot of our development is really based on the input that we get from that company and from the front lines of the people that are actually utilizing it because we're not out there on the front lines doing this work. We're highly dependent upon that.
I think our partnerships are extremely important in terms of the old overall success of the company and like I said before, our global partners are heavily invested into WANDA and sees that it actually is the future for their company particularly because of the analytics and this is something that I haven't discussed in this presentation so far but the world lives by analytics and without those analytics, you have no real insight as to how you can become more efficient in the delivery of service and analytics, basically every sector nowadays, including sports , in fact I don't think you could have a competitive sports team without using analytics. I think it's a combination between the core technology that we've developed that really meets the needs of the front lines and the partnerships that we have in place in order to quickly gain market share and be the dominant leader.
SH: John, I have to mention your stock has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride this past year-to-date. What can you tell our investor audience regarding the current valuation of your stock and why you think it’s a good buy right now?
JP: Well, Visionstate has an insurance policy with its global partners. It's invested so much into the platform and into our partnership that it's going to be really difficult for us to go sideways at this point. Really, it's a growth story like we have a very low overhead model and it's all just growth at this point. it's customer acquisition and building those residuals behind the software as a service model and we just think that well, I mean, we know for a fact with omicron now being very pervasive that this is just going to be adopted more and more. You're going to see it in schools, airports, shopping centers, basically any publicly accessible facility requires this technology for us to get out of this constant cycle of COVID 19 really and I think people are fatigued with it and are willing to make the investment and into combating on the front lines, this threat to society. I believe that it's undervalued at this point. I think it's a very, very good deal at where it's trading at today and we have nothing but outside from here on in.
SH: What’s the long-term strategy for the company moving forward and what should retail and institutional investors be looking out for?
JP: Well, I think the biggest measurement of our success is going to be our customer acquisition. What is the rate of our customer acquisition? What kind of customers are we getting and what kind of sectors are we getting into? We have footprints in hospitals and airports and shopping centers, etc. However, there's a whole world out there and if you can imagine that every publicly accessible facility, no matter what it is requires this technology for a bunch of reasons, for liability reasons, for health reasons, to create an environment where people do want to come back to the facility, this technology is extremely important. If I'm out there as an investor, I'd be looking for how quickly are they growing? How quickly are they acquiring new customers? and what sectors are really landing in with the technology? and that's going really well.
SH: Can you tell our audience a little bit about your corporate management and board teams, along with the experience and innovative ideas they bring to the I-O-T data collection and analytics space?
JP: Sure. I have a very talented staff of programmers that have been with the company for a long time. The Chief Technology Officer really created WANDA and he's been with the company out for 10 years and continues to innovate on a whole bunch of different levels with our technology and potentially new technology but really our whole team is highly entrepreneurial and very innovative based on their background. We have a very strong management team, a lean management team that is really poised for execution and innovation and really that's what we're all about because when you think about it, we have global partners that are selling our product, as long as we equip them with the right information to go out there and do their job on the sales side of things, our focus is really on developing new technology and continuing to enhance the WANDA platform and be able to expand into other areas. As I mentioned, RFID in other areas that not only enhance our product but provide new revenue streams so very, very good management, very nimble and really the right team to execute on this product.
SH: And finally, John, if there’s anything I’ve overlooked please feel free to elaborate.
JP: Well, I think the big message is that we want to get out is the fact that our technology is integral to the fight against not only COVID-19 but any other disease or pandemic that might be coming down and they've happened before let's face it and it will happen again but what's it going to take for somebody to get on a cruise ship today given these threats and the only thing that I can think of is implementing technology like WANDA, so that you can do your best at making sure that protocols are being met and we're creating safe environments for everyone. I think we're really excited about the fact that we're finding the adoption rate going up significantly because of our mobile app and we're very excited about 2022 and beyond with the direction that we're going.
For regular updates, visit
www.visionstate.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.