Finally some recognition...Tourism stocks look to travel well...

Finally some recognition...

Tourism stocks look to travel well after navigating trying conditions

TIM BOREHAM

12:00AM FEBRUARY 23, 2019

Jayride (JAY) 36c

Having jostled with a corpulent fellow passenger for a fair share of the armrest for most of the flight, the last thing a weary long-haul traveller wants to do is to deal with shuttle bus touts at the airport or face a long queue for the taxi.

Once in the cab, there’s a huge risk of being taken for a ride in more ways than one.

There’s nothing like being met by a uniformed fellow with a peaked cap and being whisked through the melee. Of course, it’s always possible to pre-book a service in any number of ways, but there’s been no way of comparing services on the one platform and then booking them online, a la bookings.com for flights and hotels. With its homegrown technology based on a geospatial database, the Sydney-based Jayride is addressing the market gap with its platform that has now been rolled out in 31 countries.

Jayride reported $960,000 of revenue in the second (December) quarter, up 93 per cent year-on-year on total transaction value (TTV, the value of the fares) of $3.6m. Jayride also lost $1.83m, holding end of quarter cash of $2.28m. Given expected cash outflows of $1.98m for the current quarter, the ASX politely inquired as to the company’s solvency, to which management replied the forecast outflows did not take into account an expected $876,000 of cash receipts.

On management’s “aspirational economics”, the company breaks even when annual TTV reaches $50m — four times the current run rate of $12.6m.

Jayride raised $13m in pre-IPO funding and then a further $1.5m on listing in January 2018 (at 50c a share). The company raised a further $1.75m in a placement in December, at 43c a share.

The company looks to be well placed with a first-mover advantage; management’s job is to build critical scale from its current 0.13 per cent global market share before any putative rivals wake up to the opportunity.

Tim Boreham edits The New Criterion