Creative Realities SEC Filings Show Yet More Red Ink For Blended Entitity
April 28, 2016 by Dave Haynes
The red ink story has continued at Creative Realities – the blended entity that includes elements of CRI, Wireless Ronin, Broadcast International and .
The company filed its annual report with the SEC, which shows it had a net loss of just shy of $8 million for the 2015 fiscal year. Sales were down about 15%, and that was with ConeXus World revenues rolled in to the mix.
The company it will “likely be required to raise additional funding through public or private financings, including equity financings, in 2016.” That would come on the heels of money raised last year through secured promissory notes at 14% interest.
If you have been in this industry for a while, what’s of most interest here is that one of the blended companies – Wireless Ronin – burned through $100 million in investor money chasing the digital signage software dream.
What Creative Realities does is more than sell a CMS, but I think it’s fair to openly wonder how this thing is still going.
The real issue here isn’t the company, but its investors. It’s been almost a decade and Creative Realities has seen a steady DECLINE in revenue and services. This is all while it takes on larger clients and other businesses. What investment groups are failing to see is the market has begun to shift. Areas where the company was making money have now become a cheaper commodity-type business. There isn’t a way to recoup what has been put in. It’s a viable business, just not one that can return like investors need it to.
The best thing that can happen is the company STOPS taking on more investment capital. Investors should begin the slow process of removing themselves and getting a slow payout. If the company is left on its own, it will naturally streamline as it should have years ago. Ronin and Conexus would need to be shed and the company would have to get back to what still brings in dollars…high-end engineering.
No amount of installations, software sales or design is going to make up the difference in quality, high-end, engineering for folks that needs it. It’s one of the few areas competitors have recognized and are doing well with.