VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 27, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Glance Technologies Inc. (CSE:GET.CN), (OTCQB:GLNNF) (CSE:GET.WT), (FKT:GJT) is pleased to provide this quarterly update.
Dear Shareholders of Glance Technologies Inc.,
We have come a long way since the launch of our first product in September 2016 and we have had a lot of new developments recently, so I thought it would be helpful to review what we have accomplished and where we are heading.
Successful Launch
When we launched our first products in September, Glance Pay brought to market a completely new technology that the world had never seen before, a technology that enabled customers to pay quickly by snapping a photo of their bill and to automatically earn and redeem rewards. Initially we had to prove that both restaurants and consumers would be willing to use this technology. We have grown from a handful of restaurants and users in September, to over 160 signed merchants (including the recent addition of The Donnelly Group chain) and over 16,000 Glance Pay users conducting payments, with many passionate, supportive customers.
Passion for Innovation
Thus we feel we have proven the potential and usability of these initial products and we are excited about their future prospects. But it is important to note that these first products within our platform are just the beginning of our technology roadmap. Because we provide a platform connecting users to merchants, the innovative technologies and solutions we can provide are unmatched in the current marketplace. Innovation is our passion. We are constantly listening to our merchants and our users to determine how we can better help them solve their problems. As a result, although full service restaurants are still currently our main focus, we have expanded our potential market to merchants of almost any type: quick serve, salons, clubs, gyms, cafes, dentist offices, law offices, and the list goes on. Any merchant that accepts payment can benefit from Glance Pay, and for our potential users, the benefits of accessing real-time payment information and participating easily in merchant rewards programs makes Glance Pay an easy sell. No physical credit cards, no rewards cards, no need to dictate your phone number at the till – imagine if all of your interactions with merchants were that simple. By working to place Glance Pay in as many merchants as we can, we can become the standard.
Revenue Strategy
In addition to both establishing a significant base of merchants and users, and expanding our market, we also focused on exploring and testing different monetization strategies for our products. Many of the largest technology companies in the world have spent years building their base of merchants and users before attempting significant monetization of their platform and network. However, we have been working with restaurants to determine what we could charge, and what types of services or add-ons we could implement to enable monetization of our products. As a result, we have added a number of services and features to our platform, and we have now established a strong pricing model which we believe will make it even easier for restaurants to adopt our technology while at the same time bringing in solid revenue. Additionally, we have been exploring other opportunities for near term monetization of our technology through strategic alliances to address markets that are not on our near term roadmap. An example of this is our recently announced licensing deal with Cannapay Financial in the exciting marijuana space, which brings revenue and equity upside to our investors; we continue to explore other similar opportunities for monetization of our platform. With our agreement with Cannapay, we anticipate that we will book over $1,000,000 in revenue in the next year for Glance. We are currently negotiating with several other entities for licensing of our payment platform and app.
In addition to improved monetization, we have learned how to become more cost efficient from our early experience delivering our products. Cost efficiency has been an important near term goal and we feel we have made great strides in that area.
Significant Capital Raising
Another important objective for the company has been to raise sufficient capital to execute our plan. Since the beginning of August 2016 we have now raised $4.31 million including $1.87 million in the past few months. This gives us a solid runway to acquire new customers, expand into other markets such as Toronto, and continue adding significant innovations to our technology.
Proprietary Anti-Fraud Technology
While improving cost efficiency and raising sufficient capital, it was also important to address the high fraud rates typical to card-not-present credit card payments. Fraud is generally a major issue for merchants, and many mobile payment systems from some of the largest technology companies in the world have suffered from very high fraud rates. We felt we had designed some important innovations in fraud prevention that we implemented by mid-December. Since that time we have experienced zero payment fraud on our platform in over 6 months across all of our live locations. This is a great accomplishment and may be one of the most important aspects of our intellectual property to date. I believe this has lasting potential beyond our initial products and markets, and may be a long-term source of competitive advantage for our company.
Additions to our Product Offering
Finally, one of our other main goals in the last two quarters has been to expand and establish a whole product offering that allows potential clients to easily adopt Glance Pay. This provides us with multiple entry points for acquiring new clients. Some of these services or technologies have been developed, and many more are to come, allowing us to continually improve how we position and sell ourselves. Some of those developments include: a very successful social media offering tied to our platform that helps clients improve their social media status; technology to drive positive reviews on major review sites; an ability to advertise events and promotions to our ever-growing user base; an ability to pay through Glance Pay at the counter as well as at the table; and an ability to accept payments through Glance Pay from users anywhere at any time. We are working on many more products and services as we build ourselves out as a must-have in the industry. We are particularly excited about our upcoming ordering capabilities that allow users to order from their table when a restaurant or bar is busy or when a user simply knows what they want, and that allow users to pre-order for pickup and delivery from merchants. As we continue to add to our product offering, the reasons for merchants and consumers to adopt our technology multiply, and will hopefully propel us towards tipping points that make our product an absolute must-have for both groups, allowing us to benefit from exponential growth due to network effects.
By establishing the usability of our technology, expanding our target market to all merchants, improving monetization with more products, improving cost efficiency, raising sufficient capital, eliminating fraud, and building up a whole product offering, we feel the company is set on a strong path. We firmly believe that mobile devices are the future of payments and consumer engagement. Statistics show that in China mobile payments already exceed physical credit card payments. We believe we are well positioned to take advantage of this technological trend as we continue to build our technology and our network of merchants and consumers. Every year mobile phones advance significantly, accelerating the transition to mobile payments and giving us even more tools to work with. Just as it now seems obvious to pay for parking with your phone or to order a car via Uber, we believe it will one day be obvious that the way to pay merchants and the way to engage consumers will be with Glance Pay.
We value all of our customers, users, and shareholders and we thank you for your support – we are excited and grateful to have you with us as we continue to grow.
Sincerely,
Desmond Griffin
CEO
Glance Technologies Inc.
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 corporate update contains “forward-looking statements”, “forward-looking information” and “future-oriented financial information” (collectively herein referred to as “forward looking statements” within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Glance Technologies Inc. (the “Company”) is providing cautionary statements identifying important factors that could cause the Company’s actual results to differ materially and significantly from those projected in these forward-looking statements, including information regarding the Company’s revenue; profit margins; and proposed business plan. The words “anticipate”, “expect”, “believe”, “attempt”, “may”, “could”, “should”, “ensure”, “estimate”, “plan”, “project”, “strategy”, “intend”, “outlook”, “strive”, “forecast”, “likely”, “probably” or other similar words are used to identify forward-looking information. Such statements represent the Company’s internal projections, estimates, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements should not be unduly relied upon. Many factors could cause the Company’s actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, the Company. Such forward-looking information may relate to, without limitation: the future activities and performance of the Company; the value of the Company’s common shares; the technological development of the Company; estimates relating to the amount of funds available to the Company; volatile securities markets; and the manner in which such funds will be used. Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ from the Company’s expectations include, but are not limited to: the Company’s ability to launch its products in an efficient manner; competition; legal requirements and limitations and the possibility that the law relating to the Company’s business could change in a manner that materially adversely affects the Company’s business; the Company’s ability to enter into advantageous agreements and business relationships; the Company’s ability to attract customers and merchants for its products; general economic conditions and those economic conditions specific to the mobile payments industry; the Company’s ability to innovate and improve monetization; the growth of the market for mobile payments; the Company’s ability to reach a broad consumer base; the Company’s ability to expand to different cities nationally and internationally; and geopolitical events such as war, threat of war or terrorist activities.
General Disclaimer
This shareholder update does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of the Company in any jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. We seek safe harbour.
CONTACT: For more information, contact: Christina Rao Vice President, Investor Relations (604) 723-7480 [email protected]