edgeTI’s CEO Provides 2023 Outlook and Path Forward

Rhea-AI Summary

Edge Total Intelligence Inc. (OTCQB: UNFYF) provides a 2023 outlook emphasizing significant advancements in operationalizing AI and digital innovations. The company, after facing market challenges, has maintained shareholder value while securing strategic partnerships and contracts, including a US$950M ceiling IDIQ with the U.S. Air Force. EdgeTI aims to expand its annual recurring revenues (ARR) to US$5.1M this year and projects over US$19M by 2027. The company highlights its flagship platform, edgeCore™, which enhances AI implementation and operational efficiency, and anticipates a growth trajectory fueled by a focus on customer adoption and partnerships.

Positive

• Secured a US$950M ceiling IDIQ contract with the U.S. Air Force.
• Recent debt restructuring improved cash flows by more than US$100K monthly.
• Targets ARR of US$5.1M for 2023 and over US$19M by 2027.
• Successful customer programs yielding up to 300% ROI within the first year.

Negative

• Faced a volatile market and tightening access to capital.
• Rising interest rates and supply chain challenges impacting operations.

Software Firm Positioned to Operationalize AI and Other Digital Innovations

ARLINGTON, Va., March 16, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Edge Total Intelligence Inc. (“edgeTI”, “We”, “Our” or the “Company”) (TSXV: CTRL, OTCQB: UNFYF, FSE: Q5i), a leader in real-time digital operations software, provides the following 2023 outlook to shareholders, customers, and prospective investors. This interim update highlights market trends and progress as well as important initiatives edgeTI™ has underway and planned for 2023.

A Short Summary of the Outlook

• Highlights of the 1^st year as a public company
• What’s next for edgeTI in terms of growth
• How edgeTI is helping customers operationalize and scale artificial intelligence (AI)
• How customer prototyping drove innovation in automation
• How Digital Twins fit in the future of business operations
• 2023 initiatives and signposts

“Completing an RTO at the end of 2021 and returning to trade in January 2022, we found ourselves in a volatile market for enterprise software that reached across every stock exchange,” said Jim Barrett, CEO of edgeTI. “We saw a tightening in access to capital, rising interest rates, supply chain challenges, and delays in U.S. Federal contracting due to budget ratification delays. Equally important, economic indicators and growing market pessimism led us to conserve our spending and preserve cash. Despite these strong head winds, we maintained shareholder value and secured strategic wins that establish a springboard for 2023 growth, further wins, and increased shareholder value as customers embrace AI and other digital innovations.”

1^st Year as a Public Company Foundations and Milestones

• Public Relaunch at CTRL on the TSXV
• Addition of two strategic billion-dollar government systems integrators (SI) who operate edgeCore for their internal operational excellence and are selling and integrating solutions to government and commercial markets
• Addition of technology partnerships in AI-driven risk intelligence and critical communications with OnSolve and AI-driven business simulation with Silico
• Awarded a multi-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) with a US$950M ceiling by the U.S. Air Force
• Defense Tech Connect recognized EdgeTI with a Defense Innovation Award and a cash award for Security Innovation sponsored by Homeland Security
• Recognized in Gartner® studies: Market Guide for Technologies Supporting a Digital Twin of an Organization and Emerging Tech Impact Radar: 2023 in Digital Twins¹
• In recent weeks, CB Insights positioned edgeTI as an important alternative to Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR)
• Recent debt restructuring improved cash flows by more than $100K a month and extended maturity due dates.

What’s Next for edgeTI?

“With our path defined, I look forward to executing our growth initiatives to expand on the foundations we secured in 2022,” said Jim Barrett. “As we model and project outcomes for 2023, we intend to land and onboard 5 new deals and exit the year with forward annual recurring revenues (ARR) of US$5.1M and by 2027 more than triple our forward ARR to near $19M. Operationally, we have line of sight to reach cash flow positive during 2023. We are also taking steps to support increased investor activity as investors adjust their portfolios and take new positions in AI and digital innovation technologies.”

Helping Customers Operationalize and Scale AI

According to Precedence Research, the global AI market size was estimated at US$ 119.78 billion in 2022 and it is expected to hit US$ 1,597.1 billion by 2030 with a registered compound annual growth rate (“CAGR”) of 38.1% from 2022 to 2030.

AI shows real contribution and results in many segments. Yet, AI solutions are difficult to implement and operate according to multiple studies citing inability to scale and/or achieve projected results². edgeTI’s flagship platform, edgeCore™, makes operationalizing digital innovations like AI, cyber, data mesh, automation, generative AI, quantum, and metaverse easier to achieve results, maximize return on investment (ROI), and accelerate user adoption. The Company believes these innovations foretell continual tech disruption and new levels of competitive performance — signaling new waves of growth in digital transformation and consolidation.

“We track and act upon digital innovations on a continual basis fueled by internal research and pilot requests from our partners and customers who are leaders in their respective industries. As a hub for operationalizing disruptive technologies, edgeCore uniquely portrays what’s happening in real-time and we expect this continual disruption to drive demand,” continued Jim Barrett. “What we didn’t expect was how quickly customers would gravitate to combining intelligence and automation into a single system to achieve more value and better stakeholder engagement.”

Customer Prototyping Raised the Bar in Automation and Outcomes

Through customer programs looking at automation, rapid deployment, and use of AI, one customer of edgeCore achieved a +300% ROI in the first year and recouped their investment inside of four months. Another customer working with automation challenges was able to achieve automation rates in excess of 80% and accelerated process execution by a factor fourteen times — turning an hour into four minutes.

“Our customer success, development, and DevOps teams met every challenge while delivering greater ease of use, better visualization, and ability to compose operations,” added Jim Barrett. “In addition to aiding these specific programs, they enabled original equipment manufacturing (OEM) programs, integrated AI partnerships, and we are poised to tackle additional challenges.”

Digital Twins Move Across Organizations to Operationalize AI and Automate Workflow

“Not long ago, analysts described Digital Twins (DT) in relationship to Internet of Things (IoT) or limited their use to simulations,” said Nick Brigman, VP of Product at edgeTI. “Throughout 2022, we heard leaders of businesses, government and U.S. military, express frustration in the form of questions like: Why can’t I create a digital replica of my business in real-time? What did it look like last week? Where are we headed? What happens if we lose supplier x? These operational quandaries and expectations suggest demand for a unified approach to operational intelligence and intelligent automation.”

edgeTI has been answering challenging questions like these for more than twenty years. The challenges and customer needs to which they relate are just moving from the war room into the boardroom and functional centers of operation. While analysts call programs that model an organization's operations and situations to address these challenges ‘Digital Twins’, they also exist in customer settings with names such as ‘Total Visibility Center’, ‘Operational Excellence’, ‘Digital Ops’, ‘Executive Information Systems’, ‘Corporate Performance Management’, and ‘Customer Success Center’. Whatever the situation or operations, people do three things over and over: See what’s happening; Decide what’s best, and Act swiftly — then See how the action results in outcomes.

A Media Snippet accompanying this announcement is available by clicking on the image or link below:

Brigman continued, “What began in IoT, now looks at business functions, entire companies, and ecosystems. Coined by Gartner and others as Digital Twin of an Organization (DTO). This space is expected to experience significant growth as multiple analyst studies now estimate DTO software to grow in parallel with AI at near 40% CAGR for the next eight years to reach US$35B by 2031, driving services opportunities at two and a half to three times the software market size.³”

edgeTI’s DTO solutions guide and empower stakeholders and participants to See, Decide, and Act at an ecosystem perspective to discrete process operations. edgeTI’s Continuous Relevance Cycle™ enables customers of its edgeCore platform to sustain relevance and achieve new levels of awareness and performance in targeted areas and then expand and extend the platform into other business operations.

2023 Initiatives and Signposts

Increase Ease of Adoption: edgeTI looks to introduce derivative, upgradeable products that create a lower price of entry and solution focus so new customers are able to start using the products quickly. To achieve this objective, edgeTI plans to focus on OEM, customer fusion teams, and other future markets. All derivative, upgradeable products are expected to be portable to the enterprise flagship edgeCore platform. The Company anticipates that derivative products will increase the Company’s new customer intake and opportunities for expansion.

Operationalize AI for Success and Scale: Company expects to continue integrating with AI solutions and other disrupters like ChatGPT and GPT-4. Through integration, edgeTI looks to help these systems reach quality data, explain what is happening in the business, and facilitate better decisions enacted quickly. The Company anticipates that customer success rates with AI will improve with edgeTI as edgeCore resolves many hurdles to deployment and barriers to scaling operations.

Deliver In-Domain Expertise and Scale: edgeTI expects to continue establishing strategic partnerships with industry and functional specialists (aka system integrators and consultants) that understand what customers need and are able to rapidly deliver purpose-built results with edgeCore. Delivered via OEM partnerships or pure consulting and deployment services, the Company believes that partners will benefit by the large opportunity in services that surround AI, automation, and Digital Twins solutions.

Grow Recognition and Awareness: Fueled by future investment in 2023, the Company intends to invest in sales and marketing capabilities, including marketing programs, in person events, and training to increase awareness and guide partners and customers through creating their ideal solutions to Achieve the Impossible.

On behalf of the board of directors of the Corporation:

James Barrett
Chief Executive Officer and Chair
Edge Total Intelligence Inc.

About edgeTI

edgeTI helps customers sustain situational awareness and accelerate data-driven action with its real-time digital operations software, edgeCore™. Global enterprises, service providers, and governments are more profitable when insight and action are united to deliver fluid experiences via the platform's low-code development capability and compostable experiences. With edgeCore, customers improve their margins and agility by rapidly transforming siloed systems and data across evolving, complex situations in business, technology, and cross-domain operations — helping them achieve the impossible. Learn more at https://edgeti.com

For further Information contact:

Nick Brigman
Phone: 888-771-3343
Email: ir@edgeti.com

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Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Information and Statements

Certain statements in this news release are forward-looking statements or information for the purposes of applicable Canadian and US securities law. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding-looking wording such as "may", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intend", "believe" and "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, including but not limited to business, economic and capital market conditions.

Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the demand for its products, anticipated costs, and the ability to achieve goals. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include, the continued availability of capital and financing, the impact viruses and diseases on the Company's ability to operate, competition and general economic, market or business conditions, , statements regarding plans and revenues based on current conditions, , statements regarding the expected growth and opportunities in AI and other tech sectors, the Company's ability to successfully introduce derivative, upgradeable products that create a lower price of entry, the Company's ability to invest in sales and marketing capabilities and successfully increase awareness and new customer intake, the Company's ability to continue to integrate with AI solutions and other disruptors, statements regarding the continued development of edgeCore™ and its ability to provide an enhanced AI customer experience, the Company's ability to create and maintain strategic partnerships with industry and functional specialists, including the ability to secure five new deals in 2023, and statements regarding the Company's increase in forward ARR. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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¹ Gartner “Market Guide for Technologies Supporting a Digital Twin of an Organization” by Marc Kerremans, January 4, 2023, and Gartner, “Emerging Tech Impact Radar: 2023”, Tuong Nguyen, Annette Jump, Danielle Casey, 22 December 2022. GARTNER is the registered trademark and service mark of Gartner Inc., and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or internationally and has been used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
² Sources: McKinsey Talks Operations, Deloitte AI Institute, Gartner Surveys   
³ Source: Combined results of studies by edgeTI, GrandView, MarketWatch

FAQ

What is the 2023 outlook for Edge Total Intelligence (UNFYF)?

Edge Total Intelligence anticipates growth in operationalizing AI and targeting an ARR of US$5.1M in 2023.

What major contracts has EdgeTI secured recently?

The company secured a multi-year IDIQ contract with a US$950M ceiling from the U.S. Air Force.

What is edgeCore™ and how does it benefit customers?

edgeCore™ is EdgeTI's platform that simplifies the implementation of AI and digital innovations, aiming to enhance operational efficiency and ROI.

What challenges has EdgeTI faced in 2023?

Challenges include a volatile market, rising interest rates, and supply chain issues affecting access to capital.

How has EdgeTI's financial restructuring impacted its operations?

Debt restructuring has improved cash flows by over US$100K per month, aiding operational sustainability.