Boiler optimisation firm Sabien Technology (LON:SNT) told investors it had grown its sales pipeline but reported an increased net loss in its latest half year.
For the six months to end December the loss before tax was £984,000 compared to £521,000 in the same period of 2014.
Sales revenue came in at £321,000 compared to £542,000 previously, while net cash at the end of the year was £868,000 compared to £1.27 mln in June last year.
Sabien's M2G real-time monitors are retrofitted and allow commercial boiler units to function more effectively. It has also developed M1G, a retrofit control technology designed to reduce the operating costs of direct-fired water heaters.
Last summer, it unveiled a new sales strategy, where it waived fees for initial pilot programmes, to speed up the process.
"The key objective for management was to significantly scale up large multi-site M2G pilots in each year over the next 5 years both in the UK and overseas by running up to 35 pilots in the 2015-16 heating season, compared to 8 in 2014-15, and to improve on this level in the 5 years to 2020," the firm said.
As of today, 30 clients have signed a pilot agreement, and, of these, 12 are installed and are being monitored while the remaining 18 are currently awaiting survey.
It is expected these pilots will be completed before the end of the current heating season at the end of April.
Sabien said gross margins had been hit in the period, at 61% lower than in previous periods due to an increase in costs relating to the pilot programme.
Since the end of last year, £412,000 of orders have been received giving total orders received for the year to date of £680,000, compared to £2mln for 2014/15, it noted.
The sales pipeline now stands at £6.4mln, compared to £5.8mln last October, which includes both opportunities with an order date in the future and those where we have been asked to quote but where no order date has been indicated.
"The board anticipates that the trading performance will be in line with its expectations for 2016 dependent on the group receiving a number of orders by 30 June 2016 for which customers have given an indication of the likely order date."