Welcome to the AB Dynamics Capital Markets Day presentation. Thanks for joining us. I'm James Routh, the CEO, and I'm joined by Sarah Matthews-DeMers, our CFO, and members of our executive committee: Andrew Ong, President of Testing Products; Dan Clark, President of our Simulation sector; and Neil Carpenter, who leads Testing Services. I'll start by setting the scene with an overview of the group, then Andrew Ong will introduce Testing Products. We'll hear from Dan Clark on Simulation, and Neil Carpenter will introduce Testing Services. Sarah Matthews-DeMers will then follow with a financial overview. The objective of the day is to demonstrate our confidence in delivering our stated growth objectives and to give an overview of the group: who we are, what we do, and the markets and geographies in which we operate.
We will focus on market drivers and competitive position in each of our divisions and demonstrate how these support double-digit revenue growth over the medium to long term. This revenue growth is a significant part of our value creation plan. Our aspiration is to double revenue and triple operating profit over the medium term through revenue growth, margin expansion, and acquisitions. Sarah will give further details of how these factors come together as part of the financial overview. It's also important to note that our plans are underpinned by our strong balance sheet and consistent cash generation. AB Dynamics is a leading global provider of development, test, and verification solutions to the global transport market, facilitating the development of vehicles that are safer, more efficient, and more sustainable.
Our solutions fall within three categories: Testing Products, Testing Services, and Simulation, all of which are used in automotive R&D and vehicle certification. Testing Products include driving robots and ADAS platforms, which are used to test the performance of ADAS on autonomous equipment, on prototype and production standard cars during vehicle development. We also provide large SPMM machines, which are used to assess vehicle dynamics, and electrical test equipment used to evaluate high-voltage systems in EVs and hybrids. In FY24, Testing Products contributed 62% of revenue. Testing Services includes our proving ground in California, on-road testing in China, and powertrain and environmental testing in Michigan. We provide a range of capabilities, including the evaluation of vehicle active safety systems, testing of autonomous technologies, and assessment of EV battery performance. This division contributed 15% of total revenue in FY24.
The Simulation Division contributed 23% of revenue and comprises our physics-based simulation software, rFp ro, and driving simulator motion platforms. These products are used during vehicle development to characterize ADAS, vehicle dynamics, and performance across a range of applications, including conventional vehicles, motorsport, and autonomous vehicles, reducing development timescales, risks, and costs. The group is well-diversified by sector, geography, and customer base. The largest division is Testing Products at 62% of the group, followed by Simulation and Testing Services. It is important to note that five to six years ago, both Simulation and Testing Services were not part of our portfolio. By geography, Asia-Pacific is our largest geographic market at 44% of FY24 revenue, with the remainder split between the U.K. and Europe and North America. Revenue by customer category can vary, but it is usually broadly around 80% automotive OEMs, with the remainder split between service providers and tier-one suppliers.
We supply to all major automotive OEMs, with 145 different customers split across established manufacturers and new entrants. No single customer contributes more than 10% of revenue. This diversified spread of customers across different geographies means we are OEM-agnostic, which protects us from the downside risk from the current competitive environment between conventional manufacturers and Chinese EV makers. We believe we have a compelling investment case which is clear and consistent. Firstly, the group has strong structural and regulatory growth drivers across our markets, supported by road safety technology developments and increases in regulation of active safety systems in terms of complexity of requirements and across new geographies and vehicle categories. In addition, the emergence of new powertrains and new OEMs drives growth in the number of vehicle models, all of which need testing and certification across each market in which they are sold.
Secondly, we have a highly resilient business model solving customers' technology and sustainability challenges. Our global, diversified customer base and high-quality, long-term customer relationships provide resilience. We support customers throughout the vehicle development cycle, and as speed-to-market and cost efficiencies become increasingly important, this will drive further adoption of our technologies, particularly simulation. We deliver strong margins with a clear strategy for expansion to above 20% as set out in our value creation plan. Our highly differentiated products, with continued investment in innovation, underpin strong gross margins. Margin expansion will be delivered through operational gearing, improvements in the supply chain, and operational efficiency. The group is highly cash-generative, with a clear capital allocation framework. Our strong cash generation enables us to fund ongoing investment in organic growth across all our markets and to fund acquisitions.
Lastly, the group now has a solid and scalable operating platform from which to capitalize on a multi-year organic and inorganic growth opportunity. Our vision is to accelerate our customers' drive towards net zero, improving road safety, and the automation of vehicle applications through leadership and innovation in engineering and technology. To deliver this, we innovate with partners at the cutting edge of vehicle automation and development, providing products and services across testing, simulation, and automated systems to accelerate the development of their automated and autonomous products safely and securely. This is underpinned by our values and delivered through focus on our strategic priorities, which again have remained consistent over the last few years, and they include products and innovation, capability and capacity, acquisitions, services and support, international footprint, and diversification.
It's supported by our collaborative culture, and one of the things that's been most rewarding over the last couple of years is the growing collaboration between teams across different business units and between divisions. These relationships take time to build but make a huge difference once you get them right. It sounds obvious, but providing product and service excellence and staying close to our customers, responding quickly, and having the right relationships at the right levels of the organizations is key to maintaining our market-leading positions across not only the OEMs but also the service providers and industry bodies. Strategic acquisitions have created a diversified, resilient business with a global footprint and market-leading products and services. Over the last six years, the group has expanded significantly, delivering on our strategic goals to build a sustainable and resilient business with strong financial and operating performance.
Building on the strength of our core business, coupled with six value-enhancing acquisitions, the business has been transformed from a single entity in the West Country to a multinational group with 12 facilities in six countries across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific. We have sales and support offices close to our customers' operations and manufacturing facilities in the U.K., U.S.A., and Europe. This global footprint enables us to remain close to our customers and gives us flexibility in dynamic market conditions such as the current disruption in relation to tariffs. The group supplies market-leading products which are critical to our customers' future success. Our ongoing organic growth is also supported by high-quality, long-term customer relationships across all major automotive OEMs and many new entrants, as well as tier-one suppliers to the OEMs and service providers running proving grounds and in-cab test facilities.
This slide shows the multiple touchpoints with categories of customers across the ABD Group through the development cycle from concept design to vehicle launch. At the concept design phase, OEMs may use our simulators, human factor studies, and our SPMM machines to benchmark the ride, handling, and safety systems of the new model. At the subsystem design phase, we support both OEMs and tier-one suppliers simulating and testing subsystems early in the design cycle to optimize the design and minimize downstream risk of product failure. Once a prototype has been built, we provide track-testing products and services for the OEMs and tier-ones, as well as providing products for durability testing and conducting on-road testing services. Our products and services are also used by regulators and ratings bodies for type approval and in-cab consumer testing. Our growth is supported by very long-term structural and regulatory growth drivers in four main areas.
The first two market drivers relate to the wider automotive market: the launch of new vehicle models, which in turn drives growth, and the emergence of new powertrains. The third and fourth market drivers are linked to rapid developments in safety technology for assisted and automated driving functions. This technology is incorporated into regulation and into consumer ratings, which are typically driven by in-cab or new car assessment program, and I'll cover each of these in more detail on the next slides. I'll start by focusing on the wider automotive market and the first two market drivers: new vehicle models and new powertrains. Remember, we don't sell anything that goes into a production vehicle. We're selling it into the R&D teams and the organizations independently conducting testing. Therefore, production volumes are not directly relevant to us.
However, by way of background and context, global automotive markets had been recovering to pre-COVID levels. However, the impact of tariffs is likely to cause this growth to level off in 2025 and 2026. Forecast growth out to 2030 is expected to come from non-mature markets, with China continuing to dominate, but strong growth coming from India and other key markets. By 2030, global light vehicle sales are expected to increase to around 98 million vehicles. Global growth in the adoption of EVs in 2024 was driven by China, while there has also been significant growth of full hybrid vehicles in the U.S. and Europe. In the first half of 2025, EV sales have continued to grow, with particularly improved growth in Europe, and EV sales are expected to increase significantly in the long term.
The number of automotive OEMs has also increased significantly, with competition for new entrants who are innovating at pace with different cost structures and faster speeds to market. The traditional OEMs are responding by innovating and developing faster, more cost-efficient methods of developing new models. In summary, the long-term trend supports an increased number of models across multiple powertrains, and OEMs need to innovate and develop faster, more cost-efficient methods of developing new models. For the group, as we are powertrain agnostic, we are well placed to benefit from the number of new models, whatever the mix between differing powertrains. The higher levels of R&D and testing will drive demand for our products and services. The need for cost efficiency and speed of development will drive greater adoption of simulation.
Despite recent sentiment, the forecast still looks very positive for the transition to EVs, with strong growth forecast in every region and a doubling of models available in the next 10 years. The graph on the left shows EV sales volume forecast to 2035. The EU is forecast to catch up with China by 2035, driven by legislation, with the US growing from a low base that's staying behind throughout the period. The graph on the right is the one that is more relevant to us, as it shows the number of new EV models available globally, with model launches expected to increase significantly in the medium term. The number of available models is expected to nearly double by 2035. As the number of new models launched levels off, the existing platforms will then roll over into the update cycle of being refreshed every three to four years.
Coupled with renewed growth in hybrid platform development over the same period as the transition to EVs is occurring slower than originally forecast, this supports significant levels of activity in new platform development. There is always much discussion and fanfare about full autonomy and how soon all our cars will be replaced by robotaxis, but in reality, the transition to full autonomy is many years away. However, we do expect to see major growth in level two and level three technology adoption as premium technologies filter into more affordable mass-market cars. McKinsey predicts autonomous driving to create $300 billion-$400 billion in revenue by 2035. Today, the only commercially available robotaxi service is Waymo One, which provides over 200,000 paid trips every week.
However, issues such as safety across the tens of billions of scenarios, insurance, and legal liability still need to be worked through, and regulation remains a significant headwind. U.S. and Chinese governments see fully autonomous rollout as strategically important, leading to some regulatory easing. President Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE initiatives have already made several statements to this effect. Global data forecasts of vehicle sales by autonomy level to 2036 assumes that level four plus adoption will be restricted by high costs and geographical limitations, which will exclude this technology from most privately owned vehicles until late 2030s. In level four, the vehicle covers all driving functions on a specific type of road. Level three technology is currently included in high-end premium vehicles, but this is expected to expand to more mass-market vehicles because of the momentum from Chinese brands such as BYD.
Level three still requires a driver to be ready to intervene. Level two is expected to be used in most vehicles in mature markets through the period. This includes functions such as automatic emergency braking and lane-keeping assistance systems. Level zero to one vehicles will be increasingly adopted by emerging markets such as Brazil and India. While transition to full autonomy is many years away, growth in level two and three technology adoption will result in more regulation and testing. Essentially, these levels are ADAS systems being combined to create discreet automated driving capabilities in certain scenarios such as motorways. In addition, there are currently no protocols or international agreement for testing level four technology. These will need to be developed and adopted by consumer ratings bodies and regulators to allow widespread autonomous driving on public roads.
The increasing adoption of automated driving functions and autonomous vehicle technology is a positive driver for us as it drives regulation, testing, and simulation requirements. Coming back to the third and fourth drivers on the slide, consumer bodies such as Euro NCAP or New Car Assessment Program, Japan NCAP, and China NCAP are independent safety organizations that provide car safety ratings determined from a series of vehicle tests. These tests represent, in a simplified way, real-life accident scenarios. In order to obtain an NCAP safety rating when launching a new vehicle model, each variant of that model must be certified by an NCAP test laboratory. Globally, there are 10 active NCAPs, of which Euro NCAP is currently the most stringent. It's expected that other NCAPs will move towards adoption of these stricter standards.
Euro NCAP's long-term roadmap outlines future certification requirements leading to increased test complexity and an increased number of tests and scenarios. The testing requirements have been increasing significantly since 2014, with further growth expected beyond 2026. This growth in testing volume and complexity drives demand for ADAS platforms and driving robots that are both more capable and more versatile. The group has responded by investing in new products such as the Launch Pad Spin, the Soft Pedestrian 360, and the Soft Motorcycle 360. It's also expected to drive growth in simulation, as not all the growth in testing will be able to be met through physical tests, and NCAP have released a protocol for using virtual testing to support certification with clear KPIs for real-world correlation. Euro NCAP standards are expanding into other vehicle categories beyond passenger cars, creating a new set of target customers for the group.
Firstly, commercial vehicles. In 2024, NCAP extended its safety assessments to include light commercial vehicles. This includes evaluating safety features such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB) and lane-keeping assist systems. For heavy goods vehicles or HGVs, Euro NCAP released the first results of its Safer Truck Rating program in November last year, focusing on HGVs for the first time, evaluating truck safety in safe driving and crash avoidance. Finally, for motorcycles, while not directly under Euro NCAP, there are initiatives like the Motorcycle Safety Foundation and other regional NCAP programs that are looking into adopting similar safety standards for motorcycles. All these provide further new opportunities for the group. Many countries and regions look to Euro NCAP when developing their own safety standards and regulations. These include the umbrella organization Global NCAP, with NCAPs in Australia and New Zealand, China, Japan, and India.
This, combined with the growth expected in non-mature markets, makes these regions key to our continued growth. In addition to consumer ratings, the market for ADAS and active safety is driven by regulation from bodies such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, UNECE, and the U.S. regulator, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, or NHTSA. Regulation tends to follow after consumer ratings. For example, to get a five-star rating, cars have had to have automatic emergency braking or AEB for a number of years, but this has only recently come into regulation in the EU and is due to come into the U.S. in 2029. With an estimated 1.35 million road deaths per year, of which a growing number in the U.S., there is growing pressure on regulators to improve standards, leading to further increases in the number and complexity of tests required.
In 2024, NHTSA released an updated roadmap to 2033, including enhanced crash avoidance, vulnerable road user protection, and an updated rating system. As part of this process, it's released the snappily titled FMVSS 127, mandating requirements for AEB that come into force for cars sold into the U.S. from 2029. All this drives further development and testing requirements, and hence the additional need for our products and services. Now, a little more detail around the important FMVSS 127 regulation in the U.S. The new standard is significantly more challenging than the Euro NCAP equivalent, requiring vehicles to come to a complete stop from higher speeds and covers passenger cars and light trucks. The standard requires that automatic emergency braking is fitted to all new cars sold from September 2029, and they must avoid contact with the vehicle in front when braking from 62 mi per hour.
They must also be able to detect pedestrians in both daylight and darkness and be able to apply emergency brakes at up to 90 mi per hour. This is significantly more challenging than anything else in the market and will affect all global OEMs who wish to sell into the U.S. market. In order to meet the 2029 deadline, OEMs need to start developing this capability now, and despite the recent turbulence from tariffs, feedback from the U.S. OEMs is that their programs are continuing at pace. This will provide further demand for our equipment during the development phase and then later in the program for formal testing and certification. The UNECE General Safety Regulation mandates active safety equipment that must be included on all new cars sold in the countries that have adopted these regulations, which include the U.K., Europe, and Japan.
They exist to get harmonization of standards across multiple territories and mandate the use of ADAS systems to improve road safety. There are several regulations that relate to ADAS, and all manufacturers have to demonstrate compliance through testing, and they are increasingly moving towards ADS or automated driving systems. In summary, the market drivers indicate increased demand for our products and services in the medium to long term as new technologies, regulations, and market adoption drive significant growth in opportunities for the group, supporting the aspirations we set out in our value creation plan. Remember that we are both OEM and powertrain agnostic and are selling into R&D teams, so we are not directly affected by shifts in vehicle sales between different geographic regions, new entrants versus traditional OEMs, or by production volumes and the rate of transitions to EVs or other alternative powertrains.
Having set the scene against the overall market backdrop, I'll hand over to the respective divisional leaders and Sarah to give more detail on the markets for each sector and how this comes together in our value creation plan.
I'm Andrew Ong, President of Testing Products Sector. I joined the group four years ago, having previously held senior leadership positions at Diploma and Fenna, both with diverse products and services portfolios in automotive, mining, and infrastructure sectors. During my time with AB Dynamics, we have expanded our global portfolio of customers, helping to create the geographically diverse revenue profile we have today. I led the commercial drive for the sector and the acquisition of BTS and BEYLAB. Today, we have established a talented team of people with a great suite of products and solutions. Testing Products is the group's largest sector, generating circa two-thirds of the group's revenue.
The sector is comprised of AB Dynamics and BEYLAB. The core of AB Dynamics' testing products, such as driving robots and ADAS platforms, are manufactured here in Bradfor- on- Avon and sold globally, with international sales facilitated by our offices in Germany, the U.S., and Japan. BEYLAB was acquired in September last year and is based in Germany and supplies niche automotive power electronics testing solutions for automotive subsystems and components. Our testing products are used during road vehicle development for the tests and verification of ADAS autonomous systems, EVs, and vehicle dynamics. The primary product categories include driving robots and ADAS platforms used on proving grounds and test tracks and suspension parameter measurement machines, or SPMM, used in laboratory testing. BAYLAB supplies both low voltage and high voltage equipment for testing automotive subsystems and components for conventional, hybrid, and electric vehicles.
Revenue in the testing products division has increased from GBP 46 million in FY21 to GBP 69 million in FY2024, all of which was organic growth, delivering an operating margin of 19% in FY24. The long-term regulatory and structural drivers in our market offer great opportunity to continue the track record of organic growth, while margin improvement is expected through the effects of operational gearing and operational excellence initiatives, which Sarah will cover in more detail later. The main drivers for growth in testing products are consistent with the overarching themes James described earlier, and I have set out examples across three areas: consumer ratings and regulation, customer development needs, and software development. For consumer ratings and regulation, as James mentioned, NCAP testing requirements for ADAS have been increasing significantly, with even more expected beyond 2026.
To illustrate this with an example, last year, Euro NCAP introduced 40 new on-track tests requiring driving robots and ADAS targets, doubling the test effort with a greater focus on vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and motorcyclists. Euro NCAP testing is already a time and cost-consuming process, and these additional tests place a greater workload on manufacturers and test houses. In addition to increasing range and complexity of tests for Euro NCAP, the impact speed for certain tests is going to increase in the future, driving a requirement for our platforms to be able to travel at speeds greater than 130 km per hour. This is one of the areas of focus on our product roadmap. The category of vehicles requiring testing is also expanding to include commercial vans and trucks. Due to their size and weight, HGV crashes cause more serious consequences.
Therefore, it's surprising that consumer ratings have only just been introduced, and we would expect regulation to follow in time, driving demand for our heavy-duty ADAS platforms. Moving to more specific customer development needs, the introduction of EVs, which are heavier than conventional vehicles, has driven an evolution in the development of ADAS. For example, heavier EVs require recalibrated ADAS sensors and adapted ADAS algorithms to account for altered brake distances and vehicle dynamics in collision scenarios. As a greater number of EV models are introduced to the market in the coming years, we would expect this to drive a continuing requirement for our products in the development phase.
The customer's need for efficiency savings, consistency of test results, and increased focus on driver health and safety has created an opportunity for us to combine driving robots with our new detect and warn capability to provide a multi-vehicle driverless testing solution. This can be used for automated mileage accumulation and durability testing to remove human drivers from this demanding and strenuous role. The testing is designed to accelerate the wear of vehicle components and involves repeatedly driving a vehicle significant distances over rough surfaces. A primary competitor recently exited the market, creating opportunity for us to dominate this new use case. Finally, in relation to software development, we are seeing growing demand from customers for customization and integration, optionally in software, for example, to complement mileage accumulation and durability testing.
The software enhancements that we have recently developed as part of our new automated mileage accumulation testing solution are a testament to this. We were able to facilitate 20 cars driving in synchronization at one time via enhancements to our ground traffic control software and are excited by the further opportunities for software development in this area. Looking further into the future, the ability for software to access and process camera feeds is another exciting area of development due to the demand for in-vehicle and driver monitoring. Turning to market share and the competitive landscape, we have a strong competitive advantage in being able to supply a complete package of synchronized testing products. For driving robots, we have been designing and selling these for over 25 years, and we are the market leader.
We are the preferred supplier for the majority of the top automotive OEMs and all 10 of the active Euro NCAP laboratories and government agencies, including NHTSA. There are a handful of smaller competitors with less sought-after alternatives, but reliability and repeatability is key for our customers in this area, and therefore they opt for our high-quality, reputable hardware and accompanying patented software. For ADAS platforms, there are two main competitors in the market in which we operate: for active systems and Humanetics. Due to the high level of competition in this market, while we aim to differentiate on quality and superb hardware performance, our pricing power is slightly lower when compared to driving robots.
4A is a small privately owned business based in Austria and also competes in the smaller soft targets market, for which it currently offers a large range of products and has a greater market share. Our recent product launches for soft targets, such as the Soft Bicycle 360, are part of a strategy to expand and improve our soft target offering in order to achieve further organic growth. Humanetics is based in the U.S. and is owned by private equity and is mainly known for its passive safety crash test dummies. While we show each category separately on the slide, it is becoming more common for customers to purchase packages of all three together. It is here where our patented Synchro software, which is used to control and coordinate the timing of test object movements, helps us to differentiate from competitors.
In relation to other products outside of the ADAS testing suite, our SPMMs are market-leading with no major competitors, and BEYLAB's main competitor is a subsidiary of AMETEK, the US conglomerate. BEYLAB's competitive advantage is its flexibility to update and customize its testing solutions quickly as regulation changes. Our ADAS product roadmap is designed to address the opportunities of NCAP testing over the next five years. For our platforms, the GST and the LaunchPad, due to the growing number of tests and higher uptime demanded by our customers, battery capacity and charging speed is becoming increasingly critical, and we are developing products that allow faster charging speeds, hot-swappable batteries, and thus higher uptime. Similarly, reliability and robustness of our platforms is becoming more and more important given the higher volume of tests and also the introduction of heavier new vehicle categories.
Our platforms will be faster and more robust than ever. We are developing further soft targets, increasing our variety of dummies to support new ADAS requirements. In software, our track application suite, which allows customers to repeatedly run pre-programmed test scenarios, will continue to be updated regularly for the latest NCAP testing protocols as they grow in number and complexity. At a time when OEMs are prioritizing efficiency in the validation process, this is pivotal. Looking further forward to 2030 and beyond, we envisage future adoption of automation throughout entire customer proving grounds with mixed operations and fleets of robot vehicles. We are proud of our recent technological breakthrough in this field with our automated mileage accumulation system and are excited about the future engineering solutions that we can provide for our customers in this new area.
Our customers are at the core of what we do, and their satisfaction with our products and support offering is critical. We build deep relationships with our customers, often supporting development teams over a number of years. While these teams are often reluctant to publicize too much in relation to the area of new product development for obvious reasons, over the next two slides, we have listed some feedback from a range of different customers. The slide includes feedback from Euro NCAP, accredited service providers IDIADA and MIRA, as well as the NASCAR racing organization and AVL Zala Zone, one of the largest automotive proving grounds in Europe. IDIADA commented on the accurate solution and repeatability of their testing. MIRA relies on our SPMM to be efficient and flexible. NASCAR described the data they obtain using our products as extremely important.
Zala Zone said that our comprehensive suite of test equipment met all the current and future requirements. We have worked with many of the major OEMs for over 20 years and have supplied over 1,000 driving robots to support their development programs, establishing excellent working relationships. Ford described our steering robots as the key for the objective approach in design and verification of Ford suspension steering and ESC systems. Volvo, who we have supplied with robots for more than 20 years, used our products to get good repeatability and precision in the test maneuvers. Toyota, who have a significant install base of our products, stated we are truly a customer-orientated company that will go the extra mile. Finally, BMW, another long-term customer, said that AB Dynamics' products have been an important success in test projects for the BMW Group.
In summary, there are a number of clear drivers for organic revenue in the testing product sector. Consumer ratings and regulation are driving an increase in the range and complexity of tests. The expansion of testing to a wider number of vehicle categories is accretive to market size. The need for customers to reduce costs of development and increase speed to market is creating opportunities for new, novel solutions such as automated mileage accumulation. Software requirements are expected to grow in line with increased testing complexity and customers' need for integrated or customization. We are the market leader in robots and SPMMs, but have opportunities to increase our share in ADAS platforms, soft targets, and BEYLAB products. The superiority of our robots and synchronization software should benefit our other products as customers purchase combined packages.
We have a diverse global customer base selling to all major OEMs, NCAP laboratories, and regulators.
Hi, I'm Dan Clark, President of the Simulation Division, which comprises Ansible Motion and rFp ro. I'm an engineer at heart with an upbringing and degree in mechanical engineering. I've spent 19 years in aerospace and defense companies with a particular focus on turbomachinery and dynamic control. I've held various roles in engineering, project management, commercial management, and senior leadership, and have experience in managing large international teams. In the latter part of my aerospace career, I led a company with a focus on the design and manufacture of controls for flight simulators. This interest led me to join the ABD Group in 2022 to lead this Simulation Division.
In terms of progress over the last three years, we have supported the acquisition and integration of Ansible Motion into the group and successfully merged it with the existing ABD simulator business. We have strengthened the technical and commercial collaboration between Ansible Motion and rFp ro, whilst allowing both businesses to remain agnostic to maximize business opportunity. We have introduced new simulator hardware and simulation software into the product portfolio to address industry demand and deliver growth. The group's driving simulators and advanced physics-based simulation software are used by automotive manufacturers and motorsport teams to reduce vehicle development time scales in a virtual environment before committing to real-world testing, reducing risk and cost by allowing meaningful, objective, and subjective evaluation early in the development process.
The division comprises Ansible Motion, which provides driving simulators based in Norfolk, and rFp ro, which provides simulation software and digital environments based in Romsey. Revenue has increased from GBP 9.3 million in FY21 to GBP 25.2 million in FY24 through a combination of organic and acquisitive growth, delivering an operating margin of 28% in FY24. Simulation is a growing market in the automotive industry and is now entering a phase of mass adoption with many prominent OEMs, tier one suppliers, and tire manufacturers buying their first systems. Ansible Motion provides high-fidelity driving simulators that connect real people to virtual vehicle evaluations. Our customers use simulators to safely and efficiently develop vehicles in a virtual environment, create a repeatable and sustainable lab for accumulating test mi, discover real issues and respond inside project timeframes, achieve significant cost savings and product quality improvements whilst reducing environmental impact.
We supply a range of simulator types, from transportable and static to full-size dynamic simulators with our Theta, Sigma, and Delta product series. We have 35 large dynamic simulators installed and supported around the world with an equal distribution of simulators for roadcar and motorsport customers. Our simulators are used in a wide variety of applications and use cases: for vehicle dynamics to assess ride, steering, and handling, entire development for prototype production, design evaluation, weather and surface variations, for ADAS system development for human factors and user experience design, and in motorsport for race car setup, race strategy, and event preparation. Simulator contracts are characterized by long and complex sales cycles for an industry that is outwardly keen to embrace virtual technologies that will reduce development times, cost, and environmental impact.
Add to this that driving simulators are significant investments which need a multi-year return on investment outlook, and there's a real need for technology education, trust, and partnership to be developed with our customers. rFp ro provides the world's leading engineering-grade simulation software to accelerate the virtual development, testing, and validation of vehicles and their subsystems. We offer both real-time graphics rendering for use with driving simulators and ray tracing for high-fidelity offline simulation for software-in-the-loop testing. Our software enables complete configuration and control of the environment, weather, lighting, scenarios, actors, and objects. rFp ro has the world's largest digital model library with over 180 digital road models, which include public roads, city centers, proving grounds, and motorsport race circuits. We create high-definition road surfaces accurate to one millimeter using LiDAR scanning technology.
Our software is used in a wide variety of applications and use cases: for roadcar development with a focus on vehicle dynamics and tire development; for ADAS and autonomous vehicles, enabling the creation of synthetic training data to train sensors and AI systems using our new AB Elevate product, which enables simulation to be massively scaled to test limitless driving scenarios; and in motorsport for race car setup, event preparation, and race strategy. The organic growth drivers for simulation can be divided into three market segments: roadcar, ADAS and autonomous vehicles, and motorsport. For roadcar development, given the current disruption in the automotive industry, the main driver is the time and cost savings that can be made in adopting a virtual development process as opposed to physical prototype testing. It gives OEMs the opportunity to define, refine, and validate features and brand attributes much earlier in the development cycle.
The pace of change with developments in EVs and hybrids and new market entrants into the market, as well as new ADAS technology and tire development, all drive the need for simulation. Tier one suppliers are using simulation for efficiency purposes and aligning with OEM methodologies. New use cases are emerging for ADAS and human-machine interface applications. For ADAS and autonomous vehicles, simulation of sensor technology is becoming increasingly important. High-fidelity ray tracing rendering accurately simulates how a vehicle's sensor system perceives the world. AV control systems use AI, which needs to be trained and tested. rFp ro's new product, AV Elevate, can tune, train, and test sensors using simulation, reducing the reliance on real-world models. There are currently no regulations regarding testing of AVs prior to being deployed on public roads.
As deployment becomes more widespread, test protocols and regulations will need to be developed, and AVs will need to be tested across a vast number of scenarios and edge cases. AI is likely to play a key role in defining and generating these scenarios. For motorsport, the demand for vehicle performance requires the simulation to be accurately correlated with real-world physics. Budget caps and track testing limits drive the need to test and set up cars more efficiently. New teams joining race series drive the procurement of digital circuit models, and the addition of new and modified tracks to the racing season also drives sales. Whilst the higher-tier race series have already fully embraced simulation, there is a business opportunity as lower teams are now starting to adopt simulation.
Adoption of this simulation technology in roadcar and ADAS use is well behind the motorsport industry, meaning that the future opportunity for growth in the roadcar sector is both significant and sustainable. There are two main competitors for driving simulators: VI-grade and Dynisma. VI-grade is part of Spectrus and competes in the roadcar and ADAS markets. Dynisma is a new entrant specializing in the motorsport market. Ansible Motion's strengths are its reputation for engineering integrity and product quality. Its driving simulators are suitable for a wide range of use cases and feature a large motion space, high payload capability, and industrial strength and stiffness. There are a number of competitors for rFp ro, although rFp ro is the most sophisticated physics-based engine and has the advantage of being able to interface with other systems and models.
The VI-grade software package is only used within the VI-grade ecosystem, whereas OEMs prefer to be able to interface with their preferred software packages for vehicle dynamics and tire modeling. Competitors include IPG and AV Simulation, all of whom offer a wider range of software but are not as strong as rFp ro in its niche area. rFp ro's engineering-grade simulation software is regarded as technically the most accurate and the highest quality in the market, with the flexibility and ability to interface with a range of simulation software and hardware. For the roadcar market, we are adding to our range of driving simulators through the development of the Delta S3 Spin, an enhancement to our current Delta S3 with higher accelerations and infinite yaw motion. We are also broadening our Theta range of static simulators to provide solutions for a range of use cases and budgets.
In software, we are implementing secure content licensing technology to better protect our intellectual property in new territories and providing additional integrations for all industry-leading tire modeling platforms. For motorsport, we have developed the Delta T1 Sport driving simulator with a high-frequency response, a small footprint, and at an affordable price point for lower-tier motorsport teams. We are currently developing the Delta S3 Sport, a motorsport variant of the Delta S3 with higher accelerations, infinite yaw, and high-frequency response for a lighter payload. In software, we are integrating our terrain server, which defines the road physics, with a wider range of real-time hardware solutions to enhance our compatibility with customer systems. We are also continually updating our digital circuit models to remain at the cutting edge of realism and immersion.
For the ADAS and AV market, we are developing a new simulator control center, which has an enhanced user interface for controlling and configuring simulated tests and scenarios. We are also furthering our deployment of virtual reality to enhance driver immersion. In software, we have launched AV Elevate, a new product that can be used to enable the creation of synthetic training data to tune, train, and test sensors using simulation, reducing the reliance on real-world training models. We are currently investigating the use of AI as a means to define and create a vast array of training scenarios.
The biggest barrier to the development of autonomous vehicles has now been lifted. Welcome to AV Elevate, a fully integrated simulation platform powered by rFp ro that minimizes the industry's dependence on real-world testing. Tune, train, and test the entire AV technology stack in a precise engineering-grade virtual environment.
Generate synthetic data with 100% accurate ground truth to train and test AV systems safely and efficiently away from public roads. Scale testing exponentially and on demand through limitless scenarios in the cloud. AV Elevate, safer, faster, smarter.
Customer feedback includes the simulator allows our development engineers to drive and test the real-time computer simulation on a virtual track, just like they would in a physical prototype from General Motors. Chevrolet says it takes only half a day to produce the computer model that tests a new configuration of the car. We can test four suspension setups with four drivers on four tracks in a single day. rFp ro has loyal customers who have been with us for many years. Its rate of annual license renewal by existing customers is 90%.
A few comments from customers include from Toyota Motor Europe: Our new system combines high-fidelity simulation models with the most realistic imaging possible in order to trigger driver responses that correspond fully with their reactions in real-life situations. From Nismo, we chose rFp ro because of its high-quality graphics and engineering-grade track models. The high level of correlation between simulation and the track has helped us to improve our race car development and to make the process more repeatable. Here is a short video from another one of our customers, the Formula E racing team DS Penske, who are a customer of both Ansible Motion and rFp ro.
I'm Julian Andres Garcia-Grajales. I am the Race Director and Head of Research and Development of the team.
My overall job is basically I'm overseeing the whole operation of the team and heavily, heavily involved on the performance side, especially on the engineering side. When I'm heavily involved in that, I'm working on setups, car balance, energy management, strategy. Basically, in everything that makes the car quicker, I will be involved with the engineers. Also, as part of my job as Head of Research and Development, I'm always looking at the future. I'm always planning what to do. It's a next step. In motorsport, you just can't stand still. You need to keep developing things. You need to keep making the car quicker, and you need to be always ahead of the game. Back at the time, the simulators were just only to train the drivers, just for the drivers to learn the track and stuff like that.
Nowadays, the simulators are much, much more than that, especially when you have state-of-the-art simulators like the ones that we currently have from Ansible. What we are talking here is that the level of correlation, the level at which we are mimicking the real world here is to the level of milliseconds in lap time, to the level of 10 newtons in the forces, which means that we are working to a very low level. That means that we are actually training the driver as we used to do in the past, but we are also training the dynamics of the vehicle. We are training the engineers. We are training every single person that is involved in the race team, and the whole simulator environment becomes the center of all of this. We chose Ansible Motion because we thought it was the best. It was a very easy choice.
When you buy and when you make the decision of the simulator, it's not like you are going to a shopping mall and you pick just something based on what you see. It's way more complex than that. The relationship needs to be based on trust. I'm really pushing here to be at the state of the art of every single thing we do. By going with Ansible, you are pretty much securing that you are going to be at the state of the art in terms of simulators. We are trying to mimic a car that is moving in a very, very particular way at a high frequency. You need hardware that is able to deliver those movements with minimal delay, with no latency, and that's really key to be able to deliver what we do.
We also did it because they are the best, and what you do not want is to be thinking about the simulator itself. My job is not to run a simulator. My job is to make the car quicker. I need something that does the job, that I can trust, that I can be supported as what we are currently doing with them, and then I can focus on making the car quicker. Because my job, as I said, is not running the simulator. My job is to make sure the car is quicker, and the best thing that you can do is to make sure that you have the best hardware with the best people behind supporting you, and then you can focus on what is your job.
We chose rFp ro basically because they are the best in terms of the graphics, in terms of the quality of the tracks, in terms of the scans. When you mix the best hardware with Ansible and you get together with rFp ro, they are fully integrated, and what that gives you is, again, this mental situation that the whole simulator environment itself is transparent to you, so you can focus on making the car quicker, so you can clearly see that you have the best on the track, the best tracks, very, very low-level detail on everything that you can see in the graphics. Everything you can see in the scans is realistic. You are very well supported as well because we also report back to them, "Look, we have seen this in the track.
Can you please refine this, refine that? That relationship, plus the Ansible Motion, is basically very intertwined and is transparent for us. It is very well connected, and it was a very easy choice just because they are the best, working with the best, and then it is very, very easy for us to work with them.
In summary, organic revenue growth in our simulation division will be facilitated by the market drivers across all three industry sectors that support continued growth, with adoption in the roadcar market still in its infancy. Both Ansible Motion and rFp ro hold market-leading positions in highly technical areas, positioning the group well to benefit from increased adoption of simulation. Both businesses have strong relationships and high levels of repeat business. I will now hand over to Neil to talk about testing services.
Good afternoon. I am Neil Carpenter, the President of the Testing Services Division.
I've been with the group for just over a year. My background is in thermal systems, combustion, and exhaust aftertreatment engineering, as well as sales and general management. I've been with various suppliers in the automotive industry for the past 25 years. Testing services encompasses three entities: DRI, VTS, and VadoTech, and in fiscal year 2024, comprised 15% of group revenue. DRI is our proving ground in California, performing testing throughout the engineering V cycle, whether it be development, verification, or certification. DRI expertise is utilized in projects for ADAS systems, vehicle dynamics, and human factors on behalf of OEMs, technology developers, and NHTSA, the regulator and government ratings agency. On our private test track, DRI performs testing in accordance with federal motor vehicle safety standards and new car assessment programs, including but not limited to automated emergency braking, electronic stability control, and dynamic rollover resistance.
We also perform testing to assess vehicle ride, handling, lateral performance, and braking, as well as human-machine interface studies. Our human factors team also conducts testing in the laboratory via simulation. This assists our customers in improving the interaction between drivers and vehicle systems. From driver assistance and autonomous technologies to vehicle-to-vehicle communication and driver distraction studies, we offer customized research aimed at optimizing user experience and enhancing safety. VTS is our Michigan laboratory performing mileage accumulation on dynamometers, as well as offering climatic chambers for various engineering development activities and electric vehicle and range and efficiency testing. The mileage accumulation testing is performed on behalf of OEMs who are required to put 150,000 mi on each new model prior to launch following a specified drive cycle. The emissions performance is then tested at specified intervals.
For EV range testing, VTS is a fully compliant facility according to CFR 1066, SAE J1634, and SAE J2951 standards in line with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulatory compliance. This includes full climatic control with solar loading capability to conduct the optional five-mode testing. VadoTech provides on-road vehicle testing services, predominantly in Asia for European OEMs launching models into the Asian market. Each product launch requires a country-specific test of on-road vehicle performance, particularly focusing on EV characteristics such as charging capability, as well as ADAS, infotainment, and vehicle connectivity. We perform testing during vehicle development for quality assurance of pre-series vehicles and testing of series production vehicles. Revenue in the Testing Service Division has increased from GBP 10.1 million in fiscal year 2021 to GBP 16.7 million in fiscal year 2024, delivering an operating margin of 25.1% in fiscal year 2024.
As mentioned, DRI's automotive proving ground near Bakersfield, California, is capable of a variety of testing. It includes two marked four-lane roads, 1 kilometer in length, as well as a Euro NCAP intersection that you see here. These features are ideal for testing intersection collision warning and intervention systems, including U.S. NCAP lane departure warning tests and Euro NCAP lane support systems tests. We also have a vehicle dynamics area, which is ideal for a wide range of testing, including trailer handling tests and fishhook rollover tests. Our track is supported with secure workshop facilities, including vehicle lifts, tire changing, and wheel alignment equipment. We carry a wide range of sophisticated ADAS test equipment, including AB Dynamics driving robots for accurate, precise, and repeatable testing.
We also utilize our soft car, motorcycle, and pedestrian targets in conjunction with our GST and LaunchPad VRU platforms, which are also capable to test according to IIHS standards, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Finally, the area also features a NHTSA strikable surrogate vehicle commonly used for testing automatic emergency braking systems, including forward collision warning, crash imminent braking, and dynamic brake support performance evaluations. Our human factors research is largely conducted in a controlled environment via our driving simulator, as shown here. We also conduct studies in vehicle on road or track where applicable. This research is conducted on any interaction between vehicle systems and humans. Some examples include driver distractedness and occupant ergonomics. At VadoTech, we test prototypes and provide technical support during vehicle development. Our technicians drive the customer's vehicles under a wide variety of weather and climate conditions to document, analyze, and evaluate faults.
Depending on customer requirements, there are different driving profiles. The testing of pre-series vehicles is the last fault analysis before market launch. In this phase of vehicle testing, the focus is mainly on software and hardware. This includes, for example, the testing of navigation systems, ADAS, infotainment, or apps. At this point, our technicians test from the perspective of the end customer. Vehicle testing is also relevant after market launch. Testing of production vehicles includes the testing of updates or new components. It may also be that a car manufacturer changes suppliers and wants to continue to ensure the quality of its vehicle and the associated components. High voltage qualifications are now essential for those working with EVs and associated areas. As well as training our own staff, we offer training for professionals who work on high voltage components and systems.
Depending on the area of responsibility and experience, there are various qualification levels that differ in duration and scope. Finally, our most recent acquisition in Testing Services, VTS, is based in the Metro Detroit area of Michigan. Our thermal test cells are equipped with dynamometers, providing the capability to emulate real-world dynamic testing conditions. This is necessary to perform EV range and efficiency testing according to U.S. EPA standards and provides a fully functional test bed for engineering development activities. VTS also offers dynamometers specifically for the objective of accumulating mi, whether it be for durability or emissions purposes. This facility delivers roughly 1,000 mi per vehicle per day, offering a cost-effective and time-efficient solution when compared to accumulation on road or track. Furthermore, the risk mitigation of situations due to wild animals or inclement weather provides advantages for our customers as well.
The main drivers for growth are similar to those for testing products and include consumer ratings and regulation and the introduction of new models and new powertrains. Regarding consumer ratings and regulation, the new regulations and development of new technology are driving growth in the number of tests and complexity and accuracy of test requirements. Specifically in the U.S., the new regulation that James referred to earlier, FMVSS 127 for automatic emergency braking, is driving significant development in this area by the OEMs and will drive growth for DRI through working with OEMs during the development cycle and with NHTSA to certify vehicles under the new requirements. The new standard is effective for sales in 2029, which means that OEMs are having to start work now. For EV testing, the relevant regulations are energy consumption and range test procedures for EPA certification, namely SAE J1634.
The number of new models being launched supports the growth in Testing Services as follows. Using dynamometers for mileage accumulation reduces time and cost compared with testing on track, as previously mentioned. VTS provides additional capacity for OEMs with finite testing facilities and resources. The facility is capable of accommodating new models independent of their propulsion technologies, from internal combustion engines to plug-in hybrids and full battery electric vehicles. VTS supports our customers' development efforts in battery and charging technology with a fully capable electrical infrastructure. VadoTech is supporting these efforts as well, as new charging technology requires on-road testing in the local market. These facilities are expensive to set up, and new entrants to the market can accelerate time to launch through outsourcing to our facilities. We serve a number of new entrants through both DRI and VTS. The shift in powertrains also drives growth.
More modest growth for EVs has led to renewed interest in alternative powertrains, and as hybrid vehicles are now expected to be available for longer, this will support testing volumes. While the current disruption to the automotive industry is causing OEMs to take stock of manufacturing locations, the feedback we have on the ground is that they are not canceling or delaying any current model launches or certification programs. The market for Testing Services is widespread and fragmented, with a large number of small players and niche applications. In geographic markets in which we operate, we presently have a low proportion of market share for each type of service, with a clear path to capitalize on the opportunity for growth. Competitors for track test services include TRC and IDIADA, both of whom also perform testing for NHTSA.
For mileage accumulation, range certification, and on-road testing, many of the OEMs perform this in-house. However, with the increased complexity of variants and new models, OEMs are quickly becoming capacity constrained and looking to outsource. Finally, for new entrants, many are outsourcing instead of investing in their own facilities. As there are a number of smaller outsourced test providers, we focus on differentiating ourselves based on our customer centricity and testing expertise. While we serve a very wide range of customers, we have chosen to highlight a few specific points of customer feedback, highlighting our commitment to helping our customers achieve their goals through our engineering expertise. Subaru is able to develop their vehicle technology and performance as a result of collaborating with DRI and ultimately confirm U.S. regulation and safety testing. NHTSA has contracted DRI for a variety of projects.
As one example, DRI is making a truck trailer target, the first ever of its kind to be used for crash avoidance testing. Further to these, we would like to share a short video interview with one of DRI's customers, Mazda.
Hello, I'm Jennifer Morrison, Director of Vehicle Safety at Mazda North American Operations. I lead our vehicle safety and research initiatives on our expanding and dynamic fleet of U.S. vehicles. As a leader in safety, Mazda is deploying more vehicle safety systems than ever before. We are doing this because we are committed to a world without crashes. Mazda leverages DRI's customized testing solutions to evaluate our vehicle safety systems against the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's evolving testing protocols.
These protocols are undergoing significant transformation, from updated front crash prevention assessments to the federal government's most comprehensive suite of crash avoidance tests. Without a dedicated proving ground in the U.S., Mazda relies on DRI as a trusted testing partner to help validate our vehicle safety systems. Through rigorous real-world testing and strict testing protocols, DRI helps validate that our safety systems will work reliably when it matters most. DRI's technical expertise in efficient, repeatable, and trusted testing services helps support Mazda's ability to develop and deploy safer vehicles. Mazda really appreciates working with DRI because we know that their test reports are going to be trusted by those that we need to submit them to, being National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government, or the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Vehicle safety technologies are more important today than ever before.
We have over 40,000 people that lose their lives on our nation's roadways. This is why we need to work with trusted partners like DRI and the evolving federal regulations to keep a very close eye on the types of technologies that we're putting in our vehicles and how they can truly save lives.
In summary, the Testing Services Division has strong growth drivers supported by increases in regulation and consumer ratings, new model launches, and new powertrains. These market drivers can act independently or in conjunction with one another. The services we provide are not contained to validation or certification alone. A significant portion of our business is in support of engineering development efforts. Our business has become more diversified over time, not only focusing on safety testing, but capturing these market drivers across other attributes as well.
The widespread and fragmented market, with a large number of small players and niche applications, gives rise to opportunities to increase share and expand our service offering. OEMs are experiencing capacity constraints, and we are able to offer relief to accomplish their objectives on time. We have strong customer relationships with traditional OEMs, new entrants, and tier one suppliers. Our focus on customer satisfaction drives a high level of repeat business.
Thanks, Neil. So far today, we focused on our markets and the opportunities for top-line growth. To put that into context, we thought it would be useful to set out how we've developed the business and built the supporting infrastructure to ensure we have a solid platform for the next period of growth to take advantage of those opportunities. As a reminder, here are the objectives we set out in 2019 and achievements against them to FY24.
We have invested in R&D to enhance our product range, invested in people, infrastructure, skills, and capabilities to right-size the business for the next phase of growth, and invested in geographical coverage to improve our support capability, which, along with the expansion of Testing Services, has led to an increase in recurring revenue to 45%. This, along with six acquisitions, has built out our customer offering. We've also built out our governance framework. The share price performance and key valuation metrics reflect the improvement in maturity and quality of the group. In short, we've done what we said we were going to do. As a result, we now have a business which has coverage, recurring revenue, resilience, and strong financial fundamentals of organic growth, improving margins, and strong cash generation. The graphs show our strong track record of improvement in our key metrics.
Our ability to turn our profits into cash is demonstrated by the rolling three-year average cash conversion of 116%. We've delivered this while investing in our operating capability and capacity to build robust foundations for further profitable growth. All of this puts us in a great place to continue to grow revenue, expand margins, and invest in further acquisitions. I'll recap on our growth strategy and value creation plan. The key financial enablers supporting this include our capital allocation policy. Our first priority is to invest in organic R&D and CapEx and in ABD Solutions, then M&A, and finally dividends. We aim to continue our cash conversion record at 100% through the cycle. Our strong balance sheet gives us flexibility with GBP 30 million of cash and a GBP 20 million RCF facility.
While we prefer to remain debt-free, our debt capacity at two times EBITDA is now approximately GBP 50 million, which, for the right acquisition, we could use for a short period, then pay down from cash generation. All this is underpinned by our great people, with over 200 qualified engineers and technicians supported by an experienced team of professionals across sales, operations, and finance. Having done the hard work over the last five years to position the business for further growth and put strong foundations in place, in November 2024, we set out our value creation plan for the medium term. To illustrate our ambition for the group, the graph demonstrates the compounding effect of delivering 10% organic revenue growth each year, expanding operating margins to 20% plus, and investment in acquisitions, continuing our disciplined approach against well-defined acquisition criteria.
This will deliver our medium-term aspiration of doubling revenue and tripling operating profit against the FY24 baseline. Taking each of these in turn and starting with revenue, as we have illustrated today, the long-term market drivers in each of our sectors support double-digit organic revenue growth, with new models and powertrains, increased certification and testing requirements, and the growth in simulation. I will cover margin expansion and acquisitions in my next slides. It is important to note that this can be achieved without any contribution from ABD Solutions, our nascent technology accelerator set up to diversify into adjacent markets such as mining and defense. This provides an opportunity for cream on the top, driving further incremental revenue and profit growth. At a group level, operating margin expansion will be achieved through delivering operational gearing as we scale the business.
The investment we've put in means we have the capacity to deliver the next phase of growth without a corresponding step change in overheads. Simplifying the business, we are focusing on improving our supply chain, rationalizing the number and quality of suppliers to obtain discounts and improve quality and efficiency, as well as rationalizing the number of product variations and combinations in the market. Standardizing our processes and procedures, we've already made many improvements in this area, but there is significant opportunity to streamline our manufacturing, improve design for manufacture, and drive the benefits from our ERP system. In testing products, there are opportunities to improve margin across all three of these areas. In our main manufacturing facility in Bradford on Avon, we're already seeing the benefits of continuous improvements to quality control, capacity planning, and improved inventory management with the introduction of barcode scanners.
We've delivered increased production volumes on constant headcount and manufacturing footprint. In Testing Services, margin expansion will come through scale and increased utilization of our people and our assets, as well as taking opportunities to provide solutions that are higher up the value chain. In simulation, margin expansion will be achieved through scaling up our simulation software offering and market penetration with AB Elevate, as well as improving efficiency of the production process for the driving simulators through using the ERP system. We've demonstrated a strong track record in delivering and implementing value-enhancing acquisitions. The market is fragmented and consists of a high number of small to medium-sized businesses, which we screen against well-defined strategic and financial criteria. These are then filtered down into targeted approaches, which are usually off-market opportunities with vendors with whom we've built a relationship over a period of time, but are sometimes structured M&A transactions.
Our sweet spot is bolt-on acquisitions with high gross margins in areas that we can add to our existing product or service capabilities and that can be sold through our existing international sales channels. As you have seen, across each segment, there are a large number of small players in niche applications, giving rise to opportunities for acquisitions to expand our market share in each area. In terms of geography, we're most likely to pursue opportunities in Europe and the U.S., while being mindful that given the current market disruption, we'll need to be comfortable that any U.S. business is resilient to the impact of potential changes in tariffs. We're looking for profitable, cash-generative businesses at reasonable multiples, which are EPS-accretive. We typically have several acquisition opportunities in various phases of the transaction process at any one time.
Our approach to deal execution is highly disciplined and well-structured, allowing us to deliver acquisitions that are modeled and assessed on an acceptable level of return on investment. This disciplined approach has in the past led to withdrawals from transactions over concerns arising during due diligence. We have a promising pipeline of opportunities and sufficient resources to take advantage of opportunities that arise, particularly in the event that current market volatility is reflected in target valuations. During the first half of FY25, the first reporting period since setting out our medium-term plan, we made a strong start to delivering the plan with 11% growth in revenue and 21% growth in operating profit. This continues our track record of delivering consistent revenue and profit growth and margin expansion, backed up by cash conversion. Revenue growth was delivered through strong market demand for our testing products.
Margin expansion was delivered through the full-year effect of operational improvements, operating leverage, and revenue mix. After investing in the acquisition of BOLAB, we ended the period with GBP 27.2 million of cash. To summarize year-to-date performance and the outlook for the remainder of the year, as confirmed in our trading statement this morning, we are pleased to report that performance over the first nine months of FY25 has been in line with the board's expectations. The group has a solid order book, providing visibility into the final quarter of the year. The balance sheet remains robust, with net cash at the 31st of May 2025 of GBP 31.2 million. The group's strong cash position and ongoing cash generation leave it well-positioned to continue to invest in organic growth opportunities and further value-enhancing acquisitions, key enablers to delivering the growth ambitions in our value creation plan.
Whilst being mindful of a potential slowdown in timing of pipeline conversion due to the wider macroeconomic disruption and potential foreign exchange headwinds, the board remains confident that the group will make further financial and strategic progress this year. With good trading momentum entering the final quarter and improving margins, the board expects to deliver adjusted operating profits for FY25 in line with current expectations. To summarize today's presentations, here are the key messages we'd like to leave you with. The group's main market is the automotive R&D sector. We do not sell anything that goes in a production vehicle, so production volumes are not directly relevant to us. OEMs need to innovate to get new models to market faster and more efficiently to remain competitive. Therefore, even in periods of market disruption, R&D budgets remain resilient.
The group's geographic diversification and broad customer base means we are OEM-agnostic, providing protection against the current competitive environment between conventional manufacturers and Chinese EV makers. We are also powertrain-agnostic, with transition to EVs shifting to the right and a longer tail of internal combustion engines and hybrids. This supports an increase in the number of new models for a longer period, from which we are well-placed to benefit. Despite the current market disruption, our market drivers support double-digit revenue growth in the long term, with developments in safety technology and increased regulation driving the need for further certification and testing, along with the growth in the number of new models and new powertrains. This revenue growth contributes significantly to our value creation plan. We have a solid and scalable platform from which to deliver this growth and expand operating margin to over 20% through operating leverage and operational improvements.
We have a track record of delivering acquisitions and a healthy pipeline of opportunities, demonstrating our ability to grow inorganically. This is underpinned by our strong balance sheet and consistent cash generation, enabling us to invest in both organic and inorganic opportunities and provide the flexibility to respond to the dynamic economic and geopolitical environment. To summarize our growth strategy and value creation plan, our ambition is to double revenue and triple operating profit over the medium term from our FY24 baseline through the compounding effect of 10% organic revenue growth, improving margins to 20% and beyond, converting these profits into cash with 100% cash conversion through the cycle, and a self-funded acquisition spend of GBP 30 million-GBP 50 million per year. That concludes the presentation. Thank you for joining us.