Launching a new product line cost effectively requires ongoing new business development outreach, which takes consistency, time and patience. Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, our prospecting efforts have secured a pipeline of approximately $1.5 million in new business opportunities, comprised of both existing and new customers. We’ve investigated 55 projects, which have resulted in 25 confirmed orders. Many of the projects that have not resulted in a win have been the direct result of being unable to find the particular marker is being requested. The overall pricing and value proposition of the program have been very well accepted by our customers. Now for sales and marketing initiatives for 2024. We continue to scale. We have launched a new sales strategy to maximize new business opportunities in 2024.
We’ve moved to a team and line of business-oriented sales structure, with key account management being a primary focus. Five global zones have been created, each zone comprised of an account director and specialists in remnants and bank specimens. These own teams are associated with our line of business teams internally, which fosters better communication internally from marketing through fulfillment, while also giving accounts more focused on specialized retention. Sales team members are properly incentivized to focus on closing purchase orders and growing key accounts, rather than fulfillment, which is the domain of our operations teams. Most recently, we entered a pilot program with TriMetis Life Sciences, a provider of digital pathology, laboratory and AI workflow and automation solutions for hospitals, pathology, diagnostic and pharmaceutical companies.
Initially focusing on a substantial subset of solid tumor types, utilizing TriMetis AI-powered automated digital pathology solutions, this partnership is expected to help standardize and enhance tissue sample evaluation, furthering our ability to support our research customers with the highest quality tissue samples available today. We are currently conducting a pilot test to screen a cohort of specimen. The next steps are technology and media integration, sales and marketing cross-training and finally, operational steps to ensure continuity. This relationship will allow iSpecimen’s sales and marketing teams to highlight and focus on enhanced quality for our tissue customers. This also allows sales personnel to offer cost and time effective add-on services for tissue-related projects, which helps address important limitations.
Tracy, I will now hand it over to you.
Tracy Curley: Thanks, Eric. Turning to our results. For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, revenue was approximately $9.93 million compared to approximately $10.4 million for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022. The decrease in revenue for the 2023 fiscal year was primarily due to a decrease of 2,938 specimens or 11% in specimen count, from 27,503 specimens during the year ended December 31, 2022, to 24,565 specimens during the year ended December 31, 2023. The effect of the decrease in specimen count was partially offset by a change in the specimen mix, which resulted in the average selling price per specimen increasing by approximately $26 or 7%, from approximately $378 per specimen during the year ended December 31, 2022 to approximately $404 per specimen during the year ended December 31, 2023.
To provide further color regarding the full-year results, during our Q1 2023 earnings call, we expressed our concern about what we perceived as a general economic uncertainty in our industry and an overall downturn in business. These concerns were realized, as our business was negatively impacted in Q2 2023. Despite the fact that we recognized record levels of opportunities in quote, we experienced lower-than-expected conversion of quotes to purchase orders in Q1 2023, which in turn left us with a much lower backlog of purchase orders at the beginning and early portion of Q2 2023 compared to prior quarters. As a result, we recorded approximately $1.63 million in revenue for Q2 2023. The average quarterly revenue recorded for the other three quarters of 2023 was approximately $2.77 million.
Cost of revenue increased by approximately $63,000 or 1% from approximately $4.76 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, to approximately $4.82 million for the year ended December 31, 2023. Although there was an 11% decrease in our number of specimens of session during the year ended December 31, 2023, over the same prior year period, the average cost per specimen increased by 13% from approximately $173 per specimen for the year ended December 31, 2022, to approximately $196 per specimen for the year ended December 31, 2023. For the year ended December 31, 2023, we increased our cash spend for technology to approximately $5.39 million from approximately $4.45 million for the same period in the prior year. The increase in spend for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to the same prior year’s period is directly related to the record level of technology investment in 2023, which we believe has enabled the continued advancement of our online marketplace to be innovative in our industry.
This spend was significantly greater at approximately $3.4 million for the first half of 2023. For the year ended December 31, 2023, this cash outlay was comprised of approximately $3.77 million of capitalized internally developed software and approximately $1.62 million of technology expenses that we were not able to capitalize and therefore classify this technology expense. The remainder of technology expense for the year ended December 31, 2023, was comprised of approximately $1.95 million of non-cash amortization related to internally developed software and approximately $142,000 related to stock compensation expense. Total technology expense for the year ended December 31, 2023, was approximately $3.57 million compared to approximately $2.66 million for the same period in the prior year.
Sales and marketing expenses increased by approximately $511,000 or 15% from approximately $3.45 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, approximately $3.96 million for the year ended December 31, 2023. The increase was primarily attributable to increases in payroll and related expenses of approximately $345,000, external marketing expenses of approximately $201,000 and general and operating expenses related to sales and marketing of approximately $6,000, which was partially offset by a decrease in advertising and promotions expense of approximately $41,000. General and administrative expenses decreased by approximately $998,000 or 14% from approximately $6.93 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, approximately $594 million for the year ended December 31, 2023.
