Last Wednesday it seemed positive results out of Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (ASX: APT) had led the market to question zipMoney Ltd's (ASX: ZML) prospects for continuing to scale up the size and profitability of its business.

zipMoney was able to announce record quarterly revenue last Friday of $6.9 million for Q1 FY18, and the company maintained its guidance for cashflow breakeven on a monthly basis in FY18.

The zipMoney CEO Larry Diamond noted the strong quarterly revenues result, up 22% on the Q4 FY17 figures. Mr Diamond also pointed to the significant amount of new merchant business in the pipeline for the company, allied to a halving of funding costs from the recently available NAB facility. This alongside the stabilisation in the operating cost base were reasons why the company was well placed to expect the cashflow position to move to the point of breakeven.

The company also announced that Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) had recently made a $40 million investment, amounting to a minority equity interest of 17% in Zip. Mr Diamond described this investment as a significant strengthening of Zip's financial position and its ability to pursue growth and investment opportunities as they arose.

The company welcomed iconic brands such as Mitre10 and Beacon Lighting onto its platform and reported that a large number of SMEs and large enterprise retailers were at a contract stage.

The quarterly update shows an increase in the number of merchants using zipMoney of 34% in Q1 FY18 from Q4 FY17, and the number of customers increasing by 34% also in that time. Volume of transactions rose 23%, and the value of those transactions rose by 10% to just over $95 million.

Year on year Q1 revenues have increased 148% and the number of transactions a huge 673%.

Pleasingly the amount of return transaction business grew from 46% at the beginning of the year to 70% in September.

November should see a significant decline in funding costs as the company transitions fully to the NAB facility and away from expensive legacy funding facilities.

The update points out that zipMoney's operations have necessarily scaled significantly over the past 12 months, to both support the company's strong growth and to position it to take advantage of the large market opportunity ahead. This trend will slow now and is forecast to remain largely flat in Q2 18 and to rise only marginally over the remainder of FY18.

The update concludes that zipMoney is rapidly scaling towards breakeven, driven by strong growth in all key operating metrics.

zipMoney is a leading player in the digital retail finance and payments industry, offering point-of-sale credit and digital payment services to the retail, health, travel and education industries.

Shares in zipMoney ended last week at $0.65 cents, up 12% on the day.

The post Why the zipMoney Ltd share price just hit a 52-week low appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Nextdc Ltd (ASX: NXT) is heading towards its November 22 AGM with its share price up 36% YTD. 

Nextdc Ltd also announced on 16 October that its B2 Brisbane data centre had become the first in Australia to receive Uptime Institute Tier IV Certification of Constructed Facility (TCCF). The Uptime Institute is the IT industry's most trusted and adopted Global Standard for the design, build and operation of data storage centres. 

The Uptime Institute website shows the B2 Brisbane facility to be one of only forty data centres worldwide to have reached this peak level of certification.

In announcing record financial results for the financial year ended June 30 2017, Nextdc Ltd had flagged its intention to seek Tier IV certification (TCCF) for each of the company's three new data storage centres, being B2 Brisbane, M2 Melbourne and S2 Sydney.

B2 Brisbane is also the first Tier Certified data centre, globally, with a Fault Tolerant N+1 redundant IP-DRUPS electrical system.

Nextdc is a technology company, which is engaged in the development and operation of independent data centres in Australia.

Shares were trading at $4.97, a new year-to-date high on volume of 1.22m shares. Consensus amongst analysts has the stock as outperform or buy recommendations.

The post Why the Nextdc Ltd share price is near a record high appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Lithium Australia NL (ASX: LIT) shares surged over 12% on Monday after it announced the company has taken a controlling 54% stake in the Electra Lithium project in North Western Mexico. The project is a joint venture between Lithium Australia and a Canadian partner, ALIX.

Shares closed at a high of 17.5 cents, on daily volume of over 4.5 million shares. 

A recent drilling program confirmed the existence of a new 2.5km long mineralised zone of lithium clay with commercialisation potential, a find the company described as the project's best discovery yet. 

Lithium Australia Managing Director Mr Adrian Griffin described the find as a "significant discovery with near-term potential." 

Lithium Australia is a provider of disruptive Lithium extraction technologies. The company has developed strategic alliances and made investments in a number of companies to potentially provide access to a diversified lithium mineral inventory. 

The post Why the Lithium Australia NL share price is soaring this week appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Sigma Healthcare Ltd (ASX: SIG) recently announced that agreement has been reached with the My Chemist / Chemist Warehouse Group in relation to their ongoing supply agreement.

Importantly this clarifies that products won't be procured from other Consumer Service Obligation (CSO) pharmaceuticals providers. The Sigma share price was hammered in May of this year on news that the company was in dispute with the My Chemist / Chemist Warehouse group.

Consequently Sigma has been able to confirm its current year guidance for EBIT at $90 million.

Sigma is Australia's largest pharmaceuticals wholesaler and manufacturer, exposing the company to a diverse range of markets.

Sigma Healthcare is trading at around 87 cents, on volume of 3.5 million shares.

Analysts had an average price target of 84 cents on Sigma prior to the announcement.

The post Why the Sigma Healthcare Ltd share price is on the up appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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