North East software firm Bede Gaming toasted a 6.3% rise in sales in a year which saw it snare its biggest ever contract and open a new office in Canada.
The Newcastle business, set up in 2012 by Dan Smyth and Joe Saumarez Smith, makes software for the online gambling and social gaming industries and has blue chip clients across the 海角视频 and overseas.
Accounts published for 2018 show turnover rose 6.3% from £9.035m to £9.61m, after Bede signed the largest single contract in it history with the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation to put in place and run its new digital player platform.
Its operating losses widened, however, from a loss of £1.4m to £2.3m, a figure it attributed to expansion and significant research and development spends.
An increase in staffing levels, from 116 to 132 employees in the accounts period, also took the wages bill up by 37% from £5.13m to £7.02m.
Last year the business added to its offices in Newcastle, London and Sofia, Bulgaria, with a new office in Canada as part of its overseas expansion.
And since the year end the firm has also opened a Networks Operation Centre in Newcastle which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, resulting in more job creation.
John Dougal, the firm’s CFO, said: “Our trading loss in 2018 reflects a significant increase in R&D activity, over £1m more than 2017 at £4.1m, and substantially increased business development activity which culminated in the selection of flagship contracts with the Ontario Lottery Group (OLG), one of the world’s biggest lotteries.
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“OLG is a crown agency that develops world-class gaming entertainment for the Province of Ontario. OLG has provided nearly $47bn to the people and Province of Ontario to support key government priorities like healthcare; the treatment, prevention and research of problem gambling; and support for amateur athletes. Bede has been selected to underpin their 2020 digital transformation.
“We’re currently at 220 employees worldwide, a big expansion for us since 2017 which we ended with 117 employees. 2018 also saw us take on 50 employees in Sofia, Bulgaria and set up an office in Canada as part of our international diversification.”
Looking ahead, Mr Dougal said Bede’s main focus is on the delivery of its contracts with OLG, which will keep it busy into 2020, adding that half the workforce is currently working on the project.
He said the firm’s heaquarters has now expanded onto a second floor at Bevan House, taking the Newcastle workforce figure up to 147.
He added: “At the same time we are giving serious attention to how we expand into new markets and are in significant talks with several US lotteries and 海角视频 operators about their digital transformations to this end.
“We have also recently opened a new 24x7 Network Operations Centre in preparation for our global expansion which has created a number of vacancies for shift based workers.
“We considered the Far East and Bulgaria as locations for the centre but ultimately decided that Newcastle offered us everything we needed to provide this service.”