Genius Sports revenues up 65% but losses widen

Genius Sports has reported a 65% rise in revenues for 2017 to £53.1m with growth driven largely by new contract wins, according to new figures filed with Companies House

EBITDA more than doubled to £11.3m, but a significant increase in capital expenditure led to an underlying loss of £4.4m, up from £1.2m in 2016.

The number of staff grew by 38% to 669 at an average cost of £33,000.

Genius said its costs were impacted by opening new offices in Los Angeles, Colombia, and Vilnius, Lithuania.

The firm has also made major investments into its platform and data-collection technology.

Regulus Partners said the revenue growth demonstrated it was a “good time to be in the sports data business”, but the expanding losses showed how expensive it was to compete in the space, especially against larger rivals like Perform and Sportradar.

The analyst firm suggested the recent acquisition of Genius by private equity giant Apax Partners would help the business compete more effectively.

“Deep pockets will be needed to compete successfully going forward, which cannot be achieved on a hand-to-mouth basis,” Regulus said.

“An investment problem that seems to have plagued Genius for years has therefore been resolved – and it is likely no coincidence that this has happened shortly after such strong topline momentum has been delivered. However, the extent to which big cheques can generate big returns remains to be seen, in our view.”

Genius said after the acquisition the extra financial firepower would be used to target the US, with new hires and potential M&A on the table.