CleanSpark developing software that helps companies become more energy efficient

Develops energy-control software and builds microgrids Expanding into global markets and cannabis sector Record quarterly revenues in first three months of 2020 What CleanSpark does:  CleanSpark Inc (NASDAQ:CLSK), based in Bountiful, Utah, develops software to help companies become more energy efficient. The company also designs and builds microgrids while providing engineering, consulting and turn-key implementation services. It also offers software for energy monitoring and system controls. CleanSpark's software - mPluse and mVSO (Microgrid Value Stream Optimizer) - enables a microgrid to be scaled to the user's specific needs and can be used by agricultural, commercial, industrial enterprises as well as the military and municipal governments. Customers include not only energy consumers but independent power producers (renewable energy) and energy-storage vendors. The company, founded in 1987, runs on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) distribution model. CleanSpark’s mPulse software and control suite operates on-site in real-time, providing economic dispatch controls to maximize performance and resiliency operations to back-up critical energy loads in the event of a utility disruption. The company says its software is ideally suited for the rapidly expanding distributed energy resource (DER) market, which it has been targeting as a key revenue generator.  The global energy infrastructure is ageing and unreliable due to increases in loads and lack of new large-scale generation facilities (nuclear and coal). Meanwhile, renewable energy resources like solar, batteries, fuel cells and clean-energy generators are connecting to the grid, sometimes intermittently, stressing it and making it more complex to manage. But, at the same time, consumers such as defense installations, industrial complexes and campuses across the world are turning to virtual power plants and microgrids to decrease their reliance on the grid to tap directly into renewable energy providers and to strengthen their own energy security against blackouts. In a sense, these consumers become their very own utilities.  As a result, CleanSpark’s mPluse and mVSO software and control solutions are designed to provide these consumers of all sizes with the mission-critical technologies that can help integrate and operate DERs as reliable energy generators on the grid. For those consumers who get energy off the main power grid, the company’s technology helps them modernize their own distribution microgrids while replacing fossil fuel generation with clean-energy suppliers. CleanSpark’s microgrids monitor energy rates continuously in 15-minute cycles, tapping the least expensive source. How is it doing: CleanSpark began 2020 firmly on the front foot as it uplisted onto the Nasdaq exchange, hoping to reach enterprise software investors. Since then, the orders have kept rolling in, with recent wins including a shipment of its intelligent switchgear to support the new US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. This was followed in early April by a $577,000 order for the company’s intelligent automatic transfer switch (ATS) switchgear, technology used to ensure uninterrupted power by automatically transferring power to a backup source when it senses a failure or outage, to provide power to grocery stores. The company’s subsidiary, p2klabs, which it acquired in January, is also making progress, announcing in mid-March that it had helped design a neighborhood security app called AlertNest which collects and shares police, crime, local current events and weather data as well as updates from the Centers for Disease Control and other vetted sources about the coronavirus pandemic. CleanSpark itself is also working to help efforts to combat the virus, having entered a joint venture in April with members of its multinational supply and distribution channel partners to import Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for US hospitals. The company said the JV has already secured significant quantities of N-95 masks, KN-95 masks, gowns, gloves and other PPE to be supplied to hospitals and frontline medical personnel in dire need while fighting the outbreak. Looking into its finances, CleanSpark began the year on a strong note, posting record quarterly revenues in the first three months of 2020. The company saw revenue of $3.6 million during the three months ended March 31, 2020, 405% more than the $723,889 it recorded in the same period last year. Gross profit jumped 434% to $704,037 from $131,881 over the same period and the net loss narrowed to $1.13 per share from $1.88 per share. The company also said it expects to exceed its fiscal 2019 revenue of $4.5 million in the first six months of fiscal 2020, with $5.6 million in revenue under contract from its three major lines of business as of March 31, and it is targeting $7 million in delivered equipment sales before the close of its fiscal year at the end of September. Inflection points: Increasing equipment sales Expand further into international markets More business for p2klabs subsidiary What the boss says: In a letter to shareholders commenting on the group’s first-quarter results in May, CleanSpark chief executive Zach Bradford said: “The past months have been challenging for the entire world and our hearts go out to all those that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We count ourselves as very fortunate as we delivered our seventh consecutive record-setting quarter with a significant increase in year-over-year revenues during this trying period.” “This acquisition [of p2klabs] has enabled CleanSpark to accelerate the development and deployment of new features to our software platforms while also expanding our overall sales and marketing capabilities. In addition to the internal resources provided, p2klabs produces high-margin service revenues and contributed a total of $231,000 in revenues between February 1, 2020, and March 31, 2020”, he added.