VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 27, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glance Technologies Inc. (CSE:GET.CN / OTCQB:GLNNF / FKT:GJT) (“Glance” or the “Company”) ​today announced financial results for the second quarter ended May 31, 2018.

“Our second quarter involved a difficult proxy contest and I want to reiterate my appreciation to our shareholders for their patience and support as the company emerges from the impact of this contest,” said Glance CEO Desmond Griffin, “now that this is behind us, we are reinvigorated and concentrating our energy and efforts on our long-term strategy of building and enhancing our technology and growing an ecosystem of engaged merchants and users. Further, with the recent change in management, we have progressed to a more cost-conscious and performance-based culture and we are focused on executing on our strategy.”

“We firmly believe that mobile devices are the future of payments and consumer engagement, and that blockchain is a fundamentally transformative technology,” said Griffin, “We believe we are positioned to take advantage of these two powerful trends as we continue to focus on:

• growing the Glance Pay network,
• expanding our target market to additional verticals and geographies,
• allowing merchants to download an app (Glance PayMe™) to be up and running quickly,
• improving capacity for monetization with a strengthened product offering,
• preventing fraud through our anti-fraud technology,
• building out a blockchain technology platform,
• developing our Glance Coin rewards platform and cryptocurrency, and
• maintaining a strong balance sheet.”

Q2 2018 Financial Highlights:

(all figures are rounded to the nearest thousand)

• Revenue of $229,000, compared to $127,000 in Q2 2017. The current period includes licensing revenue of ($51,000) and marketing revenue ($25,000), in addition to application and service fees ($153,000). As anticipated, licensing revenues have fluctuated significantly in recent quarters due to certain license agreements specifying large initial payments and fluctuations may continue in future quarters depending on the nature of any new deals signed.
• Operating expenses of $3,851,000 compared to $1,264,000 in Q2 2017, reflecting the significant ramping of the business over the past year.
• Software development costs were $745,000 compared to $130,000 in Q2 2017, reflecting the expansion of the development team and the Company’s move into the blockchain space.
• A notable expense change was corporate communication and investor media expenses, which were $347,000 compared to $150,000 in Q2 2017. However, this was a significant decrease from the $2,353,000 which was spent in Q1 2018 and was consistent with the Company’s previous indications that it intended to reduce spend in that category as it works to spread awareness efficiently and effectively.
• Another notable expense item was proxy contest costs which the Company does not expect this to be a recurring expense and which are not within the normal course of business. Glance has gathered publicly available information and reported costs from some other Canadian public companies that had proxy contests and completed an analysis of the proxy fees. The results show that, on average, the proxy contest cost in 2017 and 2016 for a Canadian public company was approximately $2 million. Glance’s anticipated total cost of its proxy contest is expected to be $1.33 million, of which $998,000 was incurred during Q2 2018.
• Overall, the Company continues to work improve to expense efficiency in many categories and has made significant changes to better utilize its cash resources going forward.
• Net loss was $4,567,000 or $(0.03) per share, compared to $1,142,000 or $(0.02) per share in Q2 2017.
• As at May 31, 2018, the Company had $10,667,000 of cash ($10,294,000 at November 30, 2017) and no long-term debt ($nil at November 30, 2017).

Q2 2018 Highlights:

• Launched the ability to pay parking tickets – demonstrating the ability to use the mobile payment application in another vertical.
• Hosted a full-day Blockchain Summit in May 2018 called The Future of Blockchain, featuring industry experts speaking on potential applications for blockchain and what businesses can do to prepare.
• Significant customer announcements included the Company’s first live locations in the U.S., its first U.S. restaurant chain and the signing of Vancouver-based Freshslice Pizza -the largest restaurant chain in the Glance Pay network.
• Announced the opening of offices in Melbourne, Australia and London, U.K., furthering the Company’s global presence.

Subsequent to the quarter, Glance published a white paper describing the Company’s plans for a blockchain-based rewards platform utilizing smart contracts intended to enable merchants to reward, incentivize, and provide deals to their customers using the Glance Coin cryptocurrency token.

The Company’s complete financial results for the second quarter of 2018 are available in its Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements and Management’s Discussion and Analysis, each of which have been filed with Canadian securities regulators at www.sedar.com.

Outlook

Management intends to pursue a number of technology, product and marketing initiatives to continue to drive growth in 2018.  The Company’s strategic priorities include:

• Grow monthly recurring revenue through a tiered “Software-as-a-Service” (SaaS) subscription model by adding new merchants and consumers, and generate new revenue from advertising, promotions and consumer fees for premium features;
• Launch a new downloadable merchant app that enables merchants to quickly set up Glance Pay on their own devices and facilitates our migration towards a higher-volume digital sales model;
• Establish Glance as a leader in the blockchain space by developing innovative applications and pursuing opportunities to monetize our blockchain platform;
• Further the development of the Glance Coin reward token, which is intended to simplify and enable the adoption of cryptocurrency into everyday life;
• Leverage the Company’s superior anti-fraud technology to expand into online purchases, e-commerce and other markets;
• Expand into new vertical markets through both direct sales and joint efforts with our licensing partners;
• Continue Glance Pay’s international expansion through the launch of our apps in several new markets; and
• Broaden our geographic footprint across more North American cities, building on its existing presence across Canada and its recent launch in California.

IFRS

The operational and financial information in this release is based on the consolidated figures in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS).

About Glance Technologies Inc.

Glance owns and operates Glance Pay, a streamlined payment system that revolutionizes how smartphone users choose where to shop, order goods and services, make payments, access digital receipts, redeem digital deals, earn great rewards & interact with merchants. Glance offers targeted in-app marketing, geo targeted digital coupons, customer feedback, in-merchant messaging and custom rewards programs. The Glance Pay mobile payment system consists of proprietary technology, which includes user apps available for free downloads in IOS (Apple) and Android formats, merchant manager apps, a large-scale technology hosting environment with sophisticated anti-fraud technology and lightning-fast payment processing. Glance has also recently purchased a blockchain solution and is working on a rewards-based cryptocurrency (the whitepaper for which can be found on its website).

For more information about Glance, please go to www.glance.tech.

For more information, contact:

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: “may”, "believe", “thinks”, "expect", “exploring”, “expand”, “could”, "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", “plan”, “pursue”, "potentially", “projected”, “should”, “will” and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. These forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties, relate to, among other things, the discussion of Glance’s business strategies and its expectations concerning future operations (including advancing its technological roadmap), the expectation that Glance will grow its Glance Pay network, reduce its expenses in future quarters, growing monthly recurring revenue, launching a new downloadable merchant app, establishing Glance as a leader in blockchain space, furthering the development of the Glance Coin rewards token, building a rewards-based cryptocurrency platform using blockchain technology, leveraging Glance’s anti-fraud technology to expand into online purchases, e-commerce and other markets, continuing international expansion, improve its capacity for monetization, maintain a strong balance sheet, develop a software-as-a-service model, monetize its blockchain platform, expanding into new vertical markets, and broadening geographic footprint across more North American cities. Although Glance considers these forward-looking statements to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among other things, the risk that Glance is unable to continuously add new merchants as planned, the risks related to the development of Glance Coin and integration into the Glance Pay app, risks related to expansion, both internationally and in North America, and risks related to, the business of Glance’s licensing partners. The forward-looking information in this press release is also based on certain estimates, forecasts and projections, as well as expectations, beliefs and assumptions, including, among other things, that Glance will be able to achieve its business objectives, that Glance will be able to develop proprietary software to implement its plans, Glance will be successful in obtaining and retaining clients and licensees for its software, that the new downloadable merchant app will enable merchants to quickly set up Glance Pay on their own devices, the blockchain platform will continue to develop and grow in utilization and adoption in the world, and that Glance  will be able to expand its operations successfully in new geographic markets and new industries.  For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements in this press release, see the section entitled “Risk Factors” in the most recent Annual Information Form and Prospectus of Glance, which may be accessed through Glance's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Glance cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by Glance is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking information, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur.