ROC (AI for giant banks and retail store chains) announces another ~$3.3M revenue... on top of its $9.1M annual recurring revenue deal.

Disclosure: S3 Consortium Pty Ltd (the Company) and Associated Entities own 6,999,000 ROC Shares at the time of publishing this article. The Company has been engaged by ROC to share our commentary on the progress of our Investment in ROC over time. This information is general in nature about a speculative investment and does not constitute personal advice. It does not consider your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Any forward-looking statements are uncertain and not a guaranteed outcome.

We think the recent, indiscriminate, SaaS/tech sell off over the last couple of weeks/months (SaaSpocalypse) has been WAY overdone...

The broad sell off has offered up some great valuations for companies that probably aren't going to be affected...

ESPECIALLY for companies that are already AI native, already have major customers AND will actually immensely benefit from faster and cheaper technology development.

Our 2025 Tech Pick of The Year RocketBoots (ASX:ROC) has been “doing AI” for years - and already is in use by major banks and retail store chains.

(way before AI was everyone's favourite investment)

~3 months ago ROC bagged a transformational $9.1M Annually RECURRING Revenue (ARR) contract from a tier-one global retailer.

TODAY ROC confirmed a NEW “Activation Contract” of a further $3.3M in one off revenue has been signed by the same client.

In summary, ROC will be paid $3.3M for its services to implement its tech for the customer, where the license fees will eventually generate $9.1M in yearly recurring revenue.

(incredible given that just ~6 months ago, ROC’s annual report showed ~$660k in revenues for the 2025 financial year).

(source)(source)

AND ROC says they have FIVE more opportunities of SIMILAR size in their ADVANCED stage pipeline... (more on this in a second).

(source)

ROC sells to giant retail and banking enterprises - where privacy, security and stability matter.

(not an easily disruptable, replicable sector for new entrants using AI coding)

ROC’s “Vision Artificial Intelligence” technology is used by giant companies to analyse and respond to in-store customer behaviours.

Allowing them to improve and optimise operations across its sites:

(ROC uses AI and advanced analytics on live in-store camera footage - allowing the giant company to improve operations across its sites - more on how it works and why customers want ROC’s product below).

We called ROC’s December ~ $9.1M ARR contract "one of the best deals we have ever seen from any small ASX listed tech company”.

Today, it got a few million dollars better.

ROC’s December contract was for approximately $9.1M in Annual Recurring Revenue - with a tier-one multinational retailer, for at least 5 years.

That deal alone was a ~1,400% increase to ROC's prior year revenue.

But that’s not the end of the revenue from this tier-one global retailer.

For one thing, the contract is for only 40% of its global stores.

(so if the customer likes the tech, there is still 60% of its stores that can be signed up to use ROC)

And today, ROC signed an Activation Contract from the same retailer that delivers ROC new, non-recurring activation revenue of approximately A$3.3 million, which is progressively earned during rollout of those 40% of global stores.

(so $3.3M in total one-off revenue to activate the ~$9.1M/annum recurring revenue for $60M capped ROC.)

And $60M ROC says it has FIVE more opportunities in its ‘Advanced Pipeline’ that are of a similar size/scale to its $9.1M ARR + $3.3M activation contract.

And now... ROC says multiple of those “have completed trials and are in scaled deployment contract discussions”...

(source)

By the roughest possible calculation (don't rely on this, it's just to illustrate a point) 5x $9.1M = $45.5M in potential ARR in the Advanced Pipeline.

IN ROC’s advanced pipeline - which is defined as currently in contract discussions with ROC...

(Above is our rough estimate of the value of those FIVE opportunities. We could be completely off the mark with our estimate, and the final numbers could be a lot lower than $43.5M, it also depends on ROC’s definition of “similar” sized).

In 2026, tech SaaS valuations on the ASX have stabilised with a median range of 6x to 8x Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) for public companies.

There are also a rare few that trade at 50x+ multiples like $12.3BN Pro Medicus.

We covered valuations in our last note here: How the ASX values Annual Recurring Revenue.

(We will let you do the maths on what ROC could be valued at in the future - take your pick here on the valuation multiple - it’s more art than science - Caution is advised, assumptions can be wrong, timing can drag on, deals can fall over, the universe is unpredictable. )

Other things ROC confirmed today were:

• “EU deployments have already started”
• “US deployments are scheduled for June 2026.” AND

So ~$60M capped ROC now has ~$12.4M in total contracted revenue from this single customer ($9.1M ARR per year + $3.3M activation).

Below is a look at ROC’s historical revenue over recent years.

Today’s deal together with the $9.1M ARR deal signed in December would be 20X higher than ROC’s 2025 revenue number (once fully rolled out) - from just one deal:

(Source, Source, Source, Source)

And that revenue would come from ~40% of that single customer's store network.

If this one customer decides to roll out ROC’s tech across the other 60% of its global stores, we can extrapolate to bring the total to $22.5M Annual Recurring Revenue to ROC.

(Source)

(no guarantees of course - that number is complete speculation on our part, not a guarantee and not a forecast)

How about ROC’s “advanced pipeline of opportunities”

And then there is the rest of ROC’s sales pipeline that we hinted at above.

ROC’s advanced stage sales pipeline currently sits at ~17,000 sites based on the company’s December quarterly (source).

OK now for some more back of the napkin calcs.

Based on the assumption that ROC charges ~$3,500 per site, per year, for its tech (source, ROC investor deck slide 10).

ROC’s advanced stage pipeline now works out to be ~$60M in Annual Recurring Revenue.

(Source)

And as mentioned earlier, of that pipeline, five opportunities “of a similar size” to the one in today’s announcement relates to having “completed trials and are in scaled deployment contract discussions”.

Imagine if ROC can get another monster $5M to $10M ARR deal in...

IF ROC can convert even one or two more deals from that pipeline (of similar size to the deal done today and in December), then the revenue profile for the company can start to look very different...

Of course, enterprise sales cycles are long, unpredictable, and there's no guarantee any additional pipeline deals convert. But today's announcement proves ROC can get from contract to deployment - and that's what pipeline customers need to see before they commit.

ROC has repeatedly shown it can convert the advanced stage opportunities in its pipeline into signed, paying contracts.

As well as the Tier 1 global retailer signed up in December, ROC also counts Bunnings, Suncorp, a major Mexican retail bank and a major unnamed Australian bank as paying customers.

Speaking of Bunnings...

Bunnings was listed as one of ROC’s early customers in the IPO prospectus.

A few weeks ago I wrote about going to Bunnings to buy a plant and trowel so I can brush up on my gardening skills before AI takes my writing job - turns out gardening and groundskeeping were the least affected jobs by AI (read it here).

If you look closely, you can see the two ROC cameras probably making sure I don’t pull any funny business like swapping the price tag for a cheaper plant, and also making sure that if the queue I was in got too long it can alert staff members on the floor to come and open more checkouts:

(read it here)

So ROC has already proven it can sign up and retain major retailers and banks.

IF any more advanced stage opportunities come in then we can start to see ROC moving up the stage 4 (surging growth) of the “hockey stick growth chart” very quickly.

(‘hockey stick growth’ can describe a business’s rapid, exponential increase in revenue after a long period of slow, flat, or linear growth - forming a curve that resembles a.... yep you guessed it, a hockey stick)

No guarantees ROC will keep climbing into surging growth of course - this is still an early stage tech company and things can and do go wrong.

What ROC does, and the addressable market

Aside from ROC, in our opinion, there aren’t many ways of getting genuine AI exposure in the small cap ASX space at the moment.

(especially AI companies that actually make revenue - like ROC)

ROC developed its “Vision Artificial Intelligence” technology for giant companies to analyse and respond to in-store customer behaviours.

This means using AI on live in-store camera footage to analyse customer behaviours, allowing the giant company to improve operations.

Or in a supermarket setting for “loss prevention”, providing a solution to a big problem the supermarket giants face at their self checkouts - theft.

(this is called ‘shrinkage’ in the retail industry - all up its estimated to cause a US$100BN plus annual loss to retailers - this impact on the bottom line is why retailers are so interested in ROC’s technology)

ROC’s tech is currently in use by TWO major, Australian household name companies - Suncorp in the banking sector and Bunnings in retail shopping.

And in the last ~4 months ROC signed a deal with a major Mexican retail bank AND

a new “Major Australian Retail Bank”.

Most of those deals are small relative to the monster deal ROC signed late last year.

So ROC is already established and operating in two markets that we think are big enough to drive a substantial re-rate higher in ROC’s valuations:

1. AI-driven loss prevention - ROC’s target market here is retailers that have implemented self-checkout systems. ROC estimates these losses to be a ~$100BN per annum problem. ROC’s solution can help reduce this problem.

AND

2. AI-enabled labour optimisation - ROC also sells workforce management tech. The global workforce management market is estimated to be US$8.38BN in 2025, growing to US$13.03BN by 2030.

Ultimately, we are Invested in ROC to see it secure multiple large contracts across both those markets and scale up the business to a market cap above $500M as follows:

Our ROC Big Bet:

“ROC re-rates to a $500M market cap by securing multiple large recurring contracts with retail clients and scaling up its business”

NOTE: our “Big Bet” is what we HOPE the ultimate success scenario looks like for this particular Investment over the long term (3+ years). There is no guarantee that our Big Bet will ever come true. There is a lot of work to be done, many risks involved, including development risk, country risk and commodity price risk - just some of which we list in our ROC Investment Memo.

Success will require a significant amount of luck. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

The 9 reasons we made ROC our Tech Pick of the Year

We announced ROC as our Tech Pick Of The Year back in December last year.

Check out that full note from December here.

Here are the 9 reasons why (with updates for some of the reasons):

1. ROC has long term, paying enterprise customers.

Both Bunnings (large DIY goods retailer owned by Wesfarmers) and Suncorp (a bank owned by ANZ) are paying customers of ROC.

They have been customers since before ROC’s December 2021 IPO and continue to renew and expand their licence contracts 7+ years later.

More recently ROC added one of Mexico’s biggest retail banks to its customer list, a major unnamed Australian bank...

And then the big one - an unnamed “Tier-1 global retailer” - see next reason.

2. ROC signed the big “transformational deal” tech companies can take years to land

ROC signed a deal with a global Tier 1 retailer that once fully rolled out would 14x ROC’s current revenues.

The contract is for ~$9.1M in Annual Recurring Revenues per annum for five years once fully rolled out (and potentially longer).

The deal is for only 40% of that single customer's store network - so revenue from that one customer alone could get a lot bigger.

We think this single deal is a sort of “anchor” deal that marks an inflection point for ROC.

🚨 Update: ROC’s also signed up the same customer for a $3.3M activation contract - basically a deal where ROC gets paid to activate the $9.1M in ARR.

3. ROC has ~$60M in potential Annual Recurring Revenues in its “advanced stage deal pipeline”

ROC recently confirmed that it has an advanced stage pipeline of 17,000 sites across grocery, retail and banking verticals from 14 customers.

At $3,500 per site per year, by our rough, basic calcs this represents over $60M in potential annual recurring revenue if ROC is able to convert into sales. (source, ROC investor deck slide 10)

(using a basic $3,500 per site per year times number of sites calc, ignoring bulk discounts and setup fees)

Of course, there is no guarantee these pipeline deals turn into revenues for ROC.

🚨 Update: ROC says there are now five opportunities of a similar size to the deal signed today and in December, in its “Advanced pipeline” and currently in the contract discussion stage.

4. One large deal could multiply ROC’s current revenue

At a price point of ~$3,500 per store, one deal could be in the millions of dollars in recurring free cash flow.

We have already seen ROC land one of these with the ~$9.1M ARR deal - and we know there is the big advanced stage sales pipeline. One big additional deal could multiply ROC’s revenues.

These deals take a very long time to secure (as do most enterprise software deals).

ROC has shown that its enterprise customers tend to be incredibly “sticky” (stay on for a long time).

5. Partnership with Europe’s largest Point of Sale company: Gebit Solutions

Gebit Solutions sells self checkouts to supermarkets and retailers.

Gebit is the point of sale system for some of the largest supermarket retailers in Europe and Gebit supports an “out of the box integration” with ROC’s software.

High-synergy partners like Gebit help improve ROC’s reputation to enter the conversation with big retailers, despite ROC being a smaller player in the space.

6. Original founding team still in place, with experienced tech chairman at the helm

The original team that developed ROC’s technology in the early 2010s are still running the company (including the CEO and CTO).

This is a positive sign for tech startups when a long term founding team has been working on the product for 10+ years.

ROC also has a Chairman with experience in both private equity and tech enterprise sales.

ROC’s chairman Roy McKelvie is also the chairman of an education technology company called Pathify that he helped to scale and raise US$25M at a A$180M valuation.

7. Genuine AI and deep knowledge of how to apply AI to a specific problem

ROC’s AI and machine learning technology has been developed since 2010.

(well before AI became a big Investment theme)

Companies developing genuine AI with over a decade of development efforts AND internal knowledge on how to apply AI to solve a specific and real world problem are rare on the ASX.

And in our view are the best positioned to leverage and apply the rapid recent advances in AI technology and tools to their specific sector of expertise.

8. Vision capture technology valued in the US$250M-$500M range

In late 2022 a company called Trigo raised US$100M off the back of its grocery vision software.

In 2023 one of the largest companies in this space Everseen raised US$70M to advance a very similar technology.

Those large raises are evidence of the size of the opportunity in this space that investors are seeing.

If ROC is able to deliver more sales and capture market share, it could grow to the size of these larger competitors in the space.

9. ROC has a good capital structure and has protected it well.

We think ROC’s capital structure has been managed well - running the company lean, often with a low cash balance but buying enough time to get a mega deal signed (like the $9.1M ARR one).

ROC’s also managed to resist offering options in capital raises which means there will be very few shares on issue (199,313,384 shares after the December 2025 raise is completed).

The major shareholders are the original vendors of the technology and have proven to be sticky since the IPO.

The board and senior management represent ~44% of the shares on issue prior to this recent capital raise, which means they are very aligned to shareholders interests.

🚨 Update: After the deal in December, ROC raised $7M at 25c per share - raising from a position of strength which has kept the shares on issue relatively controlled.

10. Institutional backing (which is rare to see in the small cap ASX tech space)

We like that ROC has attracted deep pocketed institutional investors to its register including the Bombora Special Investments Growth Fund, who is a substantial holder of ROC (over 5%).

Bombora has had a previous win with ROC’s chairman.

We also like that the most recent capital raise had “4 new institutions” come into the company.

The institutional ownership means ROC is de-risked from a future funding perspective because as long as ROC can deliver contract wins, these shareholders will be willing to bankroll the company’s future cap raises.

For us, it's an implicit de-risking of “funding risk” which is usually a very big risk for early stage tech companies on the ASX.

What's next for ROC?

🔄 Rolling out of the $9.1M ARR (+ $3.3M activation contract)

We want to see ROC roll out the contract today’s announcement is related to.

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

✅ SaaS agreement signed (~$9.1M ARR, 5 years)

✅ Activation Contract executed (~$3.3M)

🔄 Rollout commenced (EU deployment underway)

🔲 US deployment (scheduled June 2026)

🔲 Rollout completed (Full rollout across ~40% of customer's global store network)

🔲 First $9.1M ARR payment received

New Sales from the advanced stage pipeline

We want to see ROC convert some of its ~17,000 site advanced-stage sales pipeline into new signed deals.

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

🔄 Multiple advanced pipeline opportunities in scaled deployment contract discussions

🔲 New deal signed #1

🔲 New deal signed #2

🔲 New deal signed #3

What could go wrong?

The key near-term risk for ROC is “Sales and Delay Risk”.

ROC could lose key clients or not seal as many deals, hurting their revenue and share price.

Large organisations like the ones ROC works with don’t tend to adopt new technology very often and the sales cycle can be long.

This feature of ROC’s customer base can cause delays in sales that drag out over a long time.

Macro factors in the market including a recession can cause a reduction in spending on new technology, affecting ROC’s ability to make sales.

ROC now needs to deliver on this deployment across multiple regions, on time, and to the customer's satisfaction.

Source: "What could go wrong" - ROC Investment Memo 24 December 2025

The second is around “Execution/delivery risk”

ROC has never deployed at the scale of the deal it signed a few months ago.

IF the technology doesn't perform as expected during rollout, or IF technical integration issues delay deployment, revenue recognition could be delayed and the customer relationship could be damaged.

See more risks we listed as part of our ROC Investment Memo here.

Other Risks

ROC operates in a rapidly evolving AI vision market. Larger, better-funded competitors could emerge and challenge ROC’s position or put pressure on pricing.

The technology depends on in-store video and behavioural analytics. Changes in privacy regulations or public attitudes could increase compliance costs or limit deployment opportunities.

Currently, ROC’s revenue comes from a small number of key clients. Losing any one of these could have a significant financial impact.

Scaling from initial trials to broader rollouts will test ROC’s operational capabilities. Delays, integration challenges, or customer service issues could slow growth.

Investors should consider these risks carefully and seek professional advice tailored to their personal circumstances before investing.

Our ROC Investment Memo

You can read our ROC Investment Memo in the link below.

We use this memo to track the progress of all our Investments over time.

In our ROC Investment Memo, you can find the following:

• What does ROC do?
• The macro theme for ROC
• Our ROC Big Bet
• What we want to see ROC achieve
• Why we are Invested in ROC
• The key risks to our Investment Thesis
• Our Investment Plan