Exhibit 99.1

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Identity and Access Management Cyber-Security Provider BIO-keys Q1 Revenue Improved to $1.9M, Driven by 205% Increase in Software License Fees; Investor Call Today at 10am ET

 

WALL, NJ May 16, 2022 - BIO-key® International, Inc. (Nasdaq: BKYI), an innovative provider of workforce and customer identity and access management (IAM) solutions featuring Identity-Bound Biometrics (IBB) and large-scale identity solutions, today reported results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2022 (Q1’22). BIO-key is hosting a conference call today at 10:00 a.m. ET (details below) to review its results and outlook.

 

BIO-key’s revenue improved 3% to $1.94M in Q1’22 from $1.89MN in Q1’21 and 108% from $935K in Q4 2021 driven by a $981,000 increase in software license fees year over year. BIO-key is focused on growing its base of annual recurring software license fees which provide more predictable revenue trends and higher margins than its more episodic hardware revenues.

 

Recent Highlights:

Expanding PortalGuard Penetration with Local Government Customers, including New Deployments in Missouri, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota and Texas counties and municipalities.

March 8th acquisition of Swivel Secure Europe, an IAM solutions provider in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) that generated approximately $3.1M in revenue and $578K in operating income in 2021. contributed $368K of revenue during the remainder of March, and substantially expands BIO-key’s global customer base, geographic reach, and long term growth potential.

Added New Enterprise Customers and Channel Alliance Program partners

Initial Hardware Deployments for Nigerias National Identity Management Commissions National ID Enrollment Program in partnership with Sterling Bank Nigerias Specta online lending platform - BIO-key’s Pocket10 device for mobile biometric enrollments for agent banking is being deployed to support increased adoption and use of the National Identity Number and mobile banking and payments across the country.

 

 

BIO-key CEO Michael DePasquale commented, “As anticipated, we are off to a solid start in Q1’22, with software license sales increasing 205% year-over-year and 168% over Q4’21. This strong performance reflects growing momentum in our Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) base from software licenses, which is a core focus and value driver for our business. While hardware remains an important component and differentiator in our business, its episodic nature can create some variability in our quarterly operating performance. Our Q1’22 performance included just 22 days of operating results from our Swivel Secure Europe operations acquired in March.

 

“Looking forward, we see an expanding worldwide opportunity to grow our software license revenue base, driven by the compelling security, scalability, ease of use and deployment, and customer value proposition of our PortalGuard IAM platform, along with an expanding array of security solutions. Customers are increasingly recognizing PortalGuard’s, flexibility and differentiated multi-factor authentication capabilities, with support for sixteen different factors including BIO-key’s industry leading Identity Bound Biometric capabilities.

 

“PortalGuard continues to gain momentum in the higher education and municipal government verticals and with enterprises as a high-value, easy-to-deploy solution for hybrid access needs. The industry continues to recognize BIO-key as we recently earned four recent 2022 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards and a Security Today magazine 2022 Govies Government Security Award for PortalGuard, in the User Authentication/ Identification/Credentialing and Management category.

 

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Outlook

“There is a clear and growing global need for enterprises of all kinds to protect their data and systems with stronger cybersecurity solutions. BIO-key has built a strong base of products, services and partnerships to address this substantial opportunity. Given the growing momentum in our business, complemented with the addition of Swivel Secure Europe and further progress advancing our opportunities in Africa, we remain confident in achieving our full-year 2022 revenue guidance of $10-13M. Approximately 70% of the lower end of this guidance range relates to contracted recurring software license revenue.

 

“Our revenue guidance represents growth of more than 100% over 2021, benefitting from continued growth in software license revenue, along with hardware and services revenue contributions that are generally tied to specific projects. Our positive outlook is supported by our strong capital position, talented global management and product development teams, and expanded global sales, marketing and channel partner footprint. Further, we believe BIO-key is positioned to achieve break-even operations starting at the lower end of this range, subject to our mix of hardware and higher-margin software revenue.”

 

Financial Results

Q1’22 revenue increased 3% to $1.94M from $1.89M in Q1’21, driven by a 205% increase in software license fees and a modest increase in services revenue, which more than offset a decline in hardware revenue. The year-ago period included $680,000 in hardware revenue related to the initiation of product shipments for one of the Company’s large scale ID projects in Nigeria.

 

Gross profit grew to $1.6M in Q1’22 from $1.1M in Q1’21, due primarily to the increase of higher-margin license fee revenue as a percentage of total revenue in the current-year period.

 

Total operating expenses increased to $2.6M in Q1’22 from $2.0M in Q1’21, reflecting a $0.4M increase in research, development and engineering expense related to our recently announced MobileAuth and IDaaS solutions and a $0.3M increase in selling, general and administrative expense reflecting acquisition expenses associated with Swivel Secure Europe.

 

BIO-key reported an operating loss of $1.0M in Q1’22 vs. $0.8M in Q1’21, as the Company’s increase in gross profit was more than offset by higher operating expenses intended to support long term growth. BIO-key reported a Q1’22 net loss available to common stockholders of $1.0M, or $0.12 per share, compared to a Q1’21 net loss of $0.9M, or $0.11 per share. Weighted average basic shares outstanding were approximately 7.9M in Q1’22 and 7.8M in Q1’21.

 

Financial Strength

BIO-key ended the first quarter with working capital of $10.1M, including $5.8M of cash and cash equivalents and $5.0M in inventory, and a book value of $15.3M.

 

Conference Call Details

Date / Time: Today, Monday, May 16th at 10 a.m. ET
Call Dial In #: 1-877-418-5460 U.S. or 1-412-717-9594 International
Live Webcast / Replay: Investor Webcast & Replay – Available for 3 months.
Audio Replay: 1-877-344-7529 U.S. or 1-412-317-0088 Int’l; code 3884798

   

About BIO-key International, Inc. (www.BIO-key.com)

BIO-key has over two decades of expertise in providing authentication technology for thousands of organizations and millions of users and is revolutionizing authentication with biometric-centric, multi-factor identity and access management (IAM) solutions, including PortalGuard that provides convenient and secure access to devices, information, applications, and high-value transactions. BIO-key's patented software and hardware solutions, with industry-leading biometric capabilities, enable large-scale on-premises and Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) solutions as well as customized enterprise and cloud solutions.

 

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BIO-key Safe Harbor Statement

All statements contained in this press release other than statements of historical facts are "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Act"). The words "estimate," "project," "intends," "expects," "anticipates," "believes" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management pursuant to the "safe-harbor" provisions of the Act. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those included within or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, our history of losses and limited revenue; our ability to raise additional capital; our ability to protect our intellectual property; changes in business conditions; changes in our sales strategy and product development plans; changes in the marketplace; continued services of our executive management team; security breaches; competition in the biometric technology and identity access management industries; market acceptance of biometric products generally and our products under development; our ability to execute and deliver on contracts in Africa; our ability to expand into Asia, Africa and other foreign markets; our ability to integrate the operations and personnel of PistolStar and Swivel Secure into our business; the duration and severity of the current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on our business operations, sales cycles, personnel, and the geographic markets in which we operate;  the duration and extent of continued hostilities in Ukraine and its impact on our European customers, delays in the development of products and statements of assumption underlying any of the foregoing as well as other factors set forth under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to disclose any revision to these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

 

Engage with BIO-key

Facebook – Corporate: https://www.facebook.com/BIOkeyInternational/
LinkedIn – Corporate: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bio-key-international
Twitter – Corporate: @BIOkeyIntl
Twitter – Investors: @BIO_keyIR
StockTwits: BIO_keyIR

 

              

Media Contact Investor Contact
Erin Knapp William Jones, David Collins
Matter Communications Catalyst IR
BIO-key@matternow.com BKYI@catalyst-ir.com
914-260-3158   212-924-9800

  

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BIO-key International, Inc. and Subsidiaries

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

 

   

March 31,

2022

   

December 31,

2021

 
   

(Unaudited)

         

ASSETS

               

Cash and cash equivalents

  $ 5,846,798     $ 7,754,046  

Accounts receivable, net

    2,668,147       970,626  

Due from factor

    51,850       49,500  

Note receivable, net of allowance

    82,000       82,000  

Inventory

    4,956,472       4,940,660  

Prepaid expenses and other

    363,209       216,041  

Total current assets

    13,954,691       14,012,873  

Resalable software license rights

    46,247       48,752  

Investment – debt security, net

    452,821       452,821  

Equipment and leasehold improvements, net

    134,929       69,168  

Capitalized contract costs, net

    279,789       249,012  

Deposits and other assets

    8,712       8,712  

Note receivable, net of allowance

    110,000       113,000  

Operating lease right-of-use assets

    202,513       254,100  

Intangible assets, net

    2,768,067       1,298,077  

Goodwill

    1,648,481       1,262,526  

Total non-current assets

    5,651,559       3,756,168  

TOTAL ASSETS

  $ 19,606,250     $ 17,769,041  
                 

LIABILITIES

               

Accounts payable

  $ 1,084,452     $ 427,772  

Accrued liabilities

    896,702       828,997  

Government loan – Swivel

    580,992       -  

Deferred revenue - current

    798,830       565,355  

Operating lease liabilities, current portion

    156,730       177,188  

Total current liabilities

    3,517,706       1,999,312  

Deferred revenue – long term

    54,699       67,300  

Operating lease liabilities, net of current portion

    54,710       86,974  

Total non-current liabilities

    109,409       154,274  

TOTAL LIABILITIES

    3,627,115       2,153,586  
                 

Commitments and Contingencies

               
                 

STOCKHOLDERS EQUITY

               

Common stock — authorized, 170,000,000 shares; issued and outstanding; 8,406,451 and 7,853,759 of $.0001 par value at March 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively

    841       786  

Additional paid-in capital

    121,509,367       120,190,139  

Accumulated other comprehensive gain

            43,800  

Accumulated deficit

    (105,574,873

)

    (104,575,470

)

TOTAL STOCKHOLDERS EQUITY

    15,979,135       15,615,455  

TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS EQUITY

  $ 19,606,250     $ 17,769,041  

 

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BIO-key International, Inc. and Subsidiaries
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS
(Unaudited)

 

   

Three months ended
March 31,

 
   

2022

   

2021

 
                 

Revenues

               

Services

  $ 395,804     $ 380,022  

License fees

    1,460,183       478,958  

Hardware

    85,184       1,029,658  

Total revenues

    1,941,171       1,888,638  
                 

Costs and other expenses

               

Cost of services

    210,913       175,944  

Cost of license fees

    73,230       38,969  

Cost of hardware

    53,298       551,722  

Total costs and other expenses

    337,441       766,635  

Gross Profit

    1,603,730       1,122,003  
                 

Operating expenses

               

Selling, general and administrative

    1,797,998       1,516,398  

Research, development and engineering

    805,266       441,651  

Total operating expenses

    2,603,264       1,958,049  

Operating loss

    (999,534

)

    (836,046

)

Other income (expense)

               

Interest income

    131       2,615  

Interest expense

    -       (18,000

)

Total other income (expense)

    131       (15,385

)

Net loss

  $ (999,403

)

  $ (851,431

)

                 
Comprehensive loss:                

Net loss

  $ (999,403 )        

Other comprehensive gain

    43,800          

Comprehensive loss

  $ (955,603

)

  $ (851,431

)

Basic and Diluted Loss per Common Share

  $ (0.12

)

  $ (0.11

)

                 

Weighted Average Shares Outstanding:

               

Basic and Diluted

    7,885,008       7,773,688  

 

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