Welcome to the IRIS Business Services Q2 FY23 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that the conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Siddesh Chawan from E&Y. Thank you. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Lisa. Good evening to all the participants on this call. Before we proceed to the call, let me remind you that discussion may contain forward-looking statements that may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. It must be viewed in conjunction with our business risk that could cause future result, performance or achievements to differ significantly from what may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Please note that we have mailed the results and the same are available on the company's website. In case if you have not received the same, you can write to us and we will be happy to send the same over to you.
To take us through the results and answer your questions today, we have the top management of IRIS Business Services Limited represented by S. Swaminathan, CEO and Founder, K. Balachandran, Founder and CFO, and Deepta Rangarajan, Co-Founder and COO. We will start the call with a brief overview of the quarter gone past and then conduct a Q&A session. With that said, I will now hand over the call to Mr. Swaminathan. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you, Siddesh. Thanks everybody for coming on the call. I'm sorry. I have a bit of a cough, so please bear with me if I cough a little. Fortunately, it's not COVID. I mean, if it's COVID, I don't think it'll be transmitted on this phone line anyway. I think we've not had a very bad. We've been quite happy with the way the half year has actually gone. It's par for the course if you look at it that way. I think the numbers have shown us a bit of improvements. I think between Q1 and Q2 there's not been that great improvement of Q2 as we thought it could be. That's part of the seasonality of revenues or court filings.
As you know, we really don't have any control over when the filings happen and so on, so forth. But I think there'll be some significant improvements to the number of customers in for litigation management.
Sir, your audio is breaking up.
My audio is breaking up. I think I'm quivering with nervousness with whatever. No. Basically, if you can't hear me, please call me again. We launched. I think there's been a significant number of additions to the customers in the last six months or so. I think the first metric we actually see is looking at our business from a half year, half year. Quarter on quarter may not be the best way to do it. Half year, half year is likely better, you know, or even better. There have been no significant gains on the filing platform side. I think customers are still waiting to evaluate if the regulators have finally come back to office and have started, you know, issuing tenders and so on and so forth, floating tenders.
I think, as I said. The process of screening vendors has just started as far as many RFPs are concerned by many regulators. It's really a matter of your guess is as good as mine as to when it will happen and how it will happen. If it all comes together, I think it's good for us. But I hope it doesn't all come together, it happens gradually so we get the bandwidth between the two. I think the highlight in the last six months that I wanted to mention, which is there in the press release as well, is the acquisition. I think, while we are losing people at both the senior level and junior level, the senior level loss is really the one that bothers us greatly.
Because, you know, unlike a beauty shop, unlike a service company, you know, you can't really replace in terms of skill. There's a lot of knowledge that goes into it. We've lost a number of people at the senior level and on the people with experience of more than five years, and they've all gone to excellent paying jobs elsewhere. I think the challenge that's in front of us, if you look at it this way, is how to fill up that gap. How to fill up the gap with a lot of people leaving us. That's certainly the thing that keeps me awake at night. The other good news is we've hired a person called P.J.X. Thomas, who used to be with us many years ago. Thomas is a star act.
He's joined as CTO, and I think he's coming on board will hopefully infuse a lot of new energy into the company on the technology side. Will also help us recruit significantly better people than we've ever had. I think there are some significant positives on account of Thomas joining us. That's a very, very big decision for us. I mean, Thomas spent as much time interrogating us as we would him. Basically much of the time actually went in his interrogating us to see what sort of a plan we had and whether he really had a role to play. Because after his initial stint in IRIS, he actually worked with 30 companies and coming to IRIS is it's a complete cultural shift for him in some ways.
We're grateful to Thomas for joining us, and I think Thomas is on the call and he will talk about what he's done and take some questions. We're also very happy to welcome Thomas to the board of the company. I think Thomas coming on board the company is a significant addition in terms of the technology side. We're again coming to shareholders in shortly seeking your approval for Thomas joining the board. It'll greatly strengthen the company's management. It'll also greatly strengthen the company's technological approach. You know, will keep us on top of the new thing happening and so on and so forth. I think so the two big highlights is how we're doing with acquisition and the fact that Thomas has come on board.
I think these are two things that I certainly want to highlight. The third thing that I want to highlight is finally I think we've been recognized. I think the fact that we've been given this FinTech award, for which we got an award from Nirmala Sitharaman is a very, very big thing. It's one thing for customers to know about us. It's yet another thing for juries with eminent people to know about us and give us awards. I think this year, you know, it's really been flowing. I think we got this award in the month of September, declaring us to be their best FinTech. Following that, we got an award declaring us to be India's Best Tax Tech. That's an award that came from TIOL, Tax India Online, which is a highly respected tax publication company.
The jury consists of about four Supreme Court judges. It has retired CBDT officers and IAS officers from the Finance Ministry who retired. I think getting an award from such eminent people is huge. The third thing that actually happened is also getting an award from Dainik Jagran, basically declaring us to be the best technology company in the year 27. I think each of these awards attracts a different audience and gives us visibility in front of different kinds of people. I think between these three, it bodes us to do much, much more. I hope that on account of that, we will be able to scale much bigger heights going forward. We are still waiting for regulators to start scaling up their plans in terms of the new mandates.
However, the good news is that following the CAG's recommendation asking that the Government of India start moving towards data standards, states like Tamil Nadu have actually issued documents saying that we need to move towards data standards. The Tamil Nadu document talks about at least JSON being used, if not XBRL. The document mentions data standards by name, and I think this is a very, very positive sign. I think we've also found that when one state starts the whole process, other states will also follow suit. You know, I keep repeating this all the time, assuming that you know the work that we do is long gestation when it comes to regulators. Once the regulators actually come in and start implementing the platforms, that's when the regulated entities come and buy our other solutions. It takes a little time.
I'm happy that it's going in the right direction. On the course of the call, I'm told there's no facility to make a presentation as such. It's only, you know, it's only a very key function. I think I'll hand over the call to Balu. Balu, you wanna take over from here?
Sure. Everyone can hear me?
Yes, we can. I can.
Okay, great. So thank you very much, Swami. I'll make it very short, but good to meet with all of the investors after a gap of 6 months. I hope all of you would have seen our investor presentation that we uploaded on the exchange website a few hours ago. I will quickly run through the highlights of financial performance for the first half of the current financial year. I'll talk more from the merits of these six-month numbers than the quarterly numbers. In our kind of business, which we have been saying, you know, again and again, it's more appropriate to look at a you know, longer timeframe.
Now coming to the numbers firstly, you will see that we grew at a good clip in the first half of the year, with top line moving up by about 37%, while overall expenses increased by about 22%. Which you know led to a sharp EBITDA growth of about 74%, with the EBITDA touching around INR 4.4 crore for the first six months. If you look at expenses more closely, you will see that employee expenses moved up against the corresponding H1 period by about 17%. While we saw a reasonably good jump in other expenses, mostly due to an increase in partner costs. The partners help us in execution. Travel costs, because we started traveling much more compared to the previous year.
Finally, hosting charges, because our applications on the cloud is getting more and more used, and the charges are going up as well. This has to be seen against our rather subdued numbers in the corresponding half period a year ago. Because those were again COVID years and we were very conservative in terms of spending. Let me now come to segment revenues. You would see the Collect segment revenues grew in single digits this year as well. While the Create segment did quite well and continued its robust growth by clocking as much as 46% growth. The profitability also of the Create segment is you know much better compared to other segments. That's because we are slowly getting the economics of scale.
More and more people are using the platform and therefore, you know, our, you know, our margins are improving as well. At the same time we are spending on sales and marketing, product enhancements. Having said that, you know, the profitability is quite decent. The average annual recurring revenue is now at about INR 50 crores. While the share of recurring revenue is quite flat at 79%. This particular of point we mentioned in the press as well.
That as and when we get lumpy orders on the Collect segment, this particular metric would go down a little bit as well. So, That's pretty much the story from an overview point of view in terms of numbers. I would say that the trend is pretty good. The growth numbers and trajectory is something we can manage well. It's a matter of executing, getting, and riding with the demand conditions, which are expected to improve. So, that's from my side at this point of time. Thank you. Deepta, are you there?
Yes, I'm here.
Can you please, bring your perspective back into it?
Sure. I mean, nothing. Thank you so much, Swami. Nothing dramatic to add except that, we've you know it's been a good first half, a long way for us to go, of course. Both in terms of the performance if you compare with the corresponding half of last year, as well as in terms of the growth in our customer base, the awards we have received. Overall, it's been a satisfying first half. We of course recognize and we keep stating that we you know there is much that we need to achieve, pleased with taking a pause for a moment and you know pleased with the performance.
Thank you. Over to you, Swami.
Hello. Gautam there?
Yeah. Yes, Swami, I'm there.
Gautam, can you talk about the legal software?
At IRIS GST, we have launched a product called IRIS Litigation Management System. It's an application which actually helps large corporates to manage their entire GST litigation lifecycle, starting from the time an audit is initiated to various stages. It's a very custom-built application because GST itself is new and you know, it basically helps especially large companies which have got large number of GST clients to centrally manage all the litigations. With five years of GST now, the compliance pieces is sorted out. People have all well-established processes in place. The next big jump or the shift that's been seen is in the space of litigation.
That's where we feel this solution is going to play a big role. It's been really appreciated well. We have got started getting some confirmations on orders. The next phase after this would be, you know, adding some additional intelligence and, you know, tagging it to various case laws and various repositories, auto-drafting replies and all. There is also a requirement that this can be extended to include direct tax litigation, which we are actually considering.
Gautam, can you also throw some perspective on what's happening with the IRP license that you got? We talked about it last time, but what has been happening?
We are one of the four license holders for IRP, which is an invoice registry portal. We along with NIC, the four private players along with NIC, would be allowed to or are authorized to generate an E-invoice. The current mandate for E-invoice is INR 10 crore and above turnover taxpayers who have a turnover of more than INR 10 crore. This mandate is gonna come down to INR 5 crore from first of January, and from first of April the threshold is expected to be lowered to INR 1 crore. A significant number of new taxpayers are going to come under the e-invoicing mandate, and that's why government is looking at additional private players to build capacity as well as build resiliency.
As private IRPs, we will be also allowed to provide value-added services on top of it, which can be charged. Right now, the integration with GSTN is completed. We are in the UAT phase. Stress testing, load testing is happening. We expect the private IRPs to go live sometime in the first week of December.
It's gotten delayed significantly. Could you please tell why?
There are multiple stakeholders and multiple requirements. NIC, the existing process had to be merged with the new process. NIC had to do the de-duplication setup. While the private IRPs were ready, GSTN had to build some new systems and applications, some new APIs to test, ensure that the complete reconciliation and the de-dupe system is able to handle this kind of a load. There were multiple, I would say, stakeholders and multiple participants. The whole integration testing, you know, has taken time.
Moderator, I believe my colleague, Thomas, has joined. He's there as a participant and not management. Can you please upgrade him so Thomas can talk?
Sure, sir. Give me a minute.
Can you share him? His name is Thomas.
Yes, sir. His line is unmuted.
Are you unmuted? Have you unmuted him?
Yes, I have unmuted his line, sir.
Okay, lovely. Thomas, are you there?
Yes, I'm here.
Thomas, welcome aboard. Can you share with the audience your first impressions as to where we stand as a technology company?
Well, actually, yes, Swami. Actually, like, you know, as on the technology point of view, actually, like, you know, the company is a lot matured. Actually, like, you know, like, you know, the maturity level is pretty high. What I've seen is the level of maturity where each of the teams actually resolve their own problem rather than, like, you know, escalating them. We have seen in many other companies. This is a great maturity level to be in and which actually I would like to continue and increase it and, like, you know, move forward. It's that level of maturity or that level of independence with the technology is not commonly seen. That is one.
Second is the kind of technology platforms which you use, which actually we have to make sure, like, you know, we push forward, which is actually we use the latest set of tools and the latest set of technology platforms like Angular and/or Java, like, you know, like how it's actually released things, like, you know, a high-end platform or whatever is required, like, you know, the level of Python which we use for automating things and, like, you know, doing things. We think that's also the key to the technology and mix it in the right proportion. I would say more appropriate technology platforms everywhere. Pretty good.
All right, sir. Thomas, can you please share with us your background? Because most of the people here don't know your background. I do value your feedback, but can you please share with us your background, your career?
Okay. Yeah, my career is, this is my second link with actually IRIS. Actually, I was there when IRIS initially started, so that is how I know all of them and all of them know me. That is one. Having said so actually, like, you know, from IRIS have moved to the e-commerce world. Like, we founded a company called Cleartrip, which is now with Flipkart. Basically, with Flipkart. cleartrip.com, which is actually in the travel space. In the travel space, I moved to brands. The e-commerce, the initial e-commerce, the learning of the e-commerce in the brands actually was done along with my team there. Like, we started with few of the high-end brands and grocery, which is actually like, you know.
They have in the brands, you know, there is now we have more than 15 odd monobrand high-end websites, plus a multi-brand website, which is out there. Exactly, I've been in that e-commerce space. From the e-commerce space, we've done a lot of automation, including the entire automation of ERP plus the sites in the Hamleys U.K. Then now back with IRIS with the technology focus.
One thing that appealed to us when we got Thomas on board is that he's not just a technology person, he also very strong commercial orientation, which I think will stand the company in good stead going forward. He's not only a technology person, he understands business, and I think that came through in some of the business that he ran earlier. Balu, you wanna talk about Thomas a little?
Yeah, sure. It's wonderful to have Thomas back. He brings in tremendous technology understanding strengths, ability to choose the right technology. Not only that, you know, we feel having him also will inspire our team members to, you know, to surpass what they're currently doing and to make sure that we build strength to, you know, to innovate on what we already have. You know, I think a combination of bringing solidity to the technology stack that IRIS has and bringing, of course, with a commercial angle as well. Because even as you build products, you need to do it with a commercial focus, commercial, you know, acumen, which I think, you know, Thomas is bringing in abundance.
Deepta, you have any views on Thomas with the position that you actually wooed him and got him back?
Maturity and he is experienced and the commercial acumen in mind. Already, you know, kind of, some of the early things that I think Thomas himself, you know, mentioned, the teams work tremendously independently, which is great. The other thing that Thomas is also beginning to bring in is a level of synergy, you know, which actually will ensure.
Sorry to interrupt. Ma'am, your audio is breaking up.
Very sorry. Okay. I think one thing that Thomas is trying. Am I clear? Am I audible now?
Yes, please proceed.
Oh, okay. Okay. I think one of the things that Thomas has seen is nicely complementing the independence, you know, the independence and the fruitful style of each of our business units with cross-pollination across the different business units and teams. I think that those are definitely gonna yield, you know, excellent results. I think the other is that, you know, that level or the layer of kind of maturity and processes and those additional things that are required for scale. Because the businesses that Thomas has been involved with outside of IRIS have all scaled from small to very, very large. As we are on the journey, I think that also, you know, I think the large machines are already beginning to see early signs.
Very excited. You know, I think with time, all of this will start unfolding. We are already seeing it internally, but as you plant seeds, it takes a little time for it to like blossom and bloom. I think you know, we start seeing that more tangibly in the months to come. Thank you.
Thank you, Deepta. Thomas, one question that I keep getting asked all the time is that most of the companies in India are IT services companies, which basically do provide time and material kind of work, body shopping and so on, so forth, lots of projects of different kinds. Are we in the wrong place? We are in a niche area. How should a company in a niche area be looked at? The technology bets that we are making, are they right or wrong? How would we ever get to know? When it comes to IRIS, what message do you wanna convey to people on these questions? Thomas?
Sorry to interrupt, but the line from Mr. Thomas has got disconnected.
Right. We'll get Thomas back. I'm through. [Now it's Sudita through.] We'll throw the floor open to questions now.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone wishing to ask a question may please press star and one on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants, I request that you use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is on the line of Rohith Potti from Marshmallow Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on a very good set of numbers and on getting Mr. Thomas on board. He sounds like an excellent addition to the team. My first question is on the rights issue, sir. We've talked about attrition being a pain point for us, and I believe that the rights issue was to address the funding shortfall that we have to retain employees and to invest in growth in terms of marketing, ex-marketing personnel, et cetera. What's happening with the rights issue end?
I couldn't hear most of that. Sorry.
Am I audible now?
Now you are. Because you faded away the second half. You said what about the rights issue? You talked about raising money to, of course, deal with attrition, and then after that I completely lost you. I think attrition of your voice.
No, I just was curious to know the updates on the rights issue because I believe one primary reason for that was to manage attrition and to drive growth.
I think the rights issue, you know, for us, it was really a bad joke in some ways, because the last call that we had, if you remember what I mentioned, is that many shareholders basically say that if the promoters don't subscribe to the rights issue, it's a very, very bad news. I don't have the money. Rahul doesn't have the money. Deepta does not have the money. The promoters cannot subscribe the rights issue. We have assiduously built a company which has a certain level of integrity, which I think is second to none. We have built a company where people do not have to worry about us being on the wrong side of the investors. We are here for the shareholders. At the same time, I'm also mindful of the perception that stems on account of things like this.
The very same people who initially said, "It's okay for you to not invest in the rights issue," later turned around to me and they said, "If you don't invest in the rights issue, then it's going to be a very bad signal, especially with the lack of, you know, thunderous growth in the company," and so on and so forth. I said, "Yeah, I mean, that's the way it is." We already have permission from one stock exchange. The other stock exchange we're waiting for. They're also asking the same question about whether the rights issue. Why the promoters are not subscribing, we're giving them answers. Technically we are still waiting for the rule, that's the technical answer.
The truthful answer is, well, I think if market perception is going to be very negative because the promoters won't subscribe, even after my beginning, I had not been over the last five years, we have no money to subscribe. I'm finally getting a salary after so many years. I think, and we don't take any salary anywhere else. I don't know what else to do. The truthful answer is, I think we are not in a quandary. We are in a quandary bordering on saying, "Well, we will not subscribe.
Okay. Understood.
Really we are in a quandary. We are in a quandary. I'm very careful about what I say. We are still in a quandary. I said bordering on, tilting towards.
Yeah, fair enough, sir. Thank you for the candid answer and, I mean, I've been with you guys since day one, and I'm very happy with how, I mean, how you conduct yourself and, how you communicate with everybody in the world. It's uncommon to see the candor and transparency that we see at IRIS. My next question is generally on growth, sir. If you could speak about, I mean, we've seen decent growth in Create. Collect has been stagnant, given what you said about the regulators not opening up. I remember in the AGM, we first context. We spoke in the AGM about four tenders, probably opening up by December.
What is the update here? Because Collect, it's been quite a while, and when do you think in high probability will you see something moving here?
Your guess is as good as mine. Yes, we mentioned that there are tenders issued on, there are clarifications going back and forth and so on and so forth. The good news is we've not lost anything. The bad news is we've not won anything. I think it's, I mean, to use an example, I think, I don't know whether it corresponds completely, but it comes to a consensus in transcript. The point is, we don't know, and I definitely do not want to hazard a guess as to when it will happen. Will it happen tomorrow? Highly unlikely. Is the probability it will happen by December fairly high? Yes. We should also know that many of the Christian countries go into limbo and go into vacation mode from, say, fifteenth December.
If at all something has to happen, it has to happen before that. Otherwise, it'll happen only after about 7th or 8th of January. We are optimistic. We reasonably confident. We have a good value proposition to share with people. I think our proposal has not been rejected at this point. To that extent, we are happy. When will it happen? I really have no idea, Rohith.
Is it difficult to give an outright timeline? Will the outcome, whatever it be visible to us in this financial year, or will it move to the next financial year, or is that also a little too difficult to say right now?
Now instead of the iFile project, the Collect project is such that we initially sell the product to the customer. We sell iFile to the customer and book the revenues based on the accounting standards, accounting norm. To the extent that we're able to sell iFile to the customers, we will book those revenues if we make a sale. If we don't make a sale, well, we don't know. To answer your question about timeframe, see there are countries which work on a January, December budget cycle. Governments, I'm saying, because all regulators are all government bodies, as you know. There are governments that work on a April-March cycle, and there are governments that work on a July-June cycle. I don't know the specific cycles for the four projects that you're seeing right now.
I don't know the answer to this question. Having said that, typically the projects that are more people working in January, December cycle than the other cycles. What impact will it have on decision-making? Typically the budget gets flown over to the next year, carry over to next year and so on, so forth. Do we have an answer? No, we don't have an answer. Do we have some guesses as to what happened? Yes, we all. As I said, I'm not at liberty to share those guesses on the forum or even a private forum. We shared internally within the company, this is chasing case two. I mean, there are people who are constantly calling those.
We recently hired a very senior colleague called Rajesh Srinivasan, who basically has been hired to chase up these potential IFI implementations. Balu, you wanna talk about Rajesh Srinivasan for a second before I get on further? Please. What is Rajesh's role?
Yeah. Rajesh primarily is looking at business development in the Collect segment. He brings in lots of experience in, you know, selling BFSI solutions, especially special three kind of software solutions to Middle East, Africa and India. He was with CA before then after that he was with a firm which specialize in this kind of software. He does have the right connections and he's, you know, and we feel right now the regulators have woken up. They're looking at how to look at the next round of tech refresh in their platforms. He's just getting oriented. He's already started talking to a few, you know, potential clients as well.
One more thing, Rohith, I must tell you, is the next XBRL Asia conference is being held in Bombay. About 20 countries from around the world are participating. SEBI is participating, RBI is participating, certain agencies of the government are participating, and I think that will shine a significant amount of light on XBRL implementations in India, and I think that can really augur well for us. Again, Balu will talk about the XBRL Asia conference. Balu also serves on the board of XBRL India. Maybe, Balu can talk about the impact XBRL will actually have in India.
Yeah. XBRL is a, you know, it's a program which has been running for last five, six years. Of course, because of COVID, there has been a hiatus. It is where, across Asia, regulators come and share their experience in working with information standard and looking at how to take it forward and, you know, what more can be done, going forward. Here, you know, this time Institute of Chartered Accountants is hosting it, and this is a prelude to the World Congress of Accountants, which is again in September, I think, on, you know, just after the close of Xert. We see many Asian countries participating. Some of them are our clients as well. They're also coming. We also are representing some of our, you know, experiences, solutions, et cetera.
This is a two-day conference. We see that again giving some impetus to, you know, the regulated talk in terms of what to do next. We want to be there in that audience, and we want to be talking to them, and we are there.
Rohith, I'm sorry if you didn't get the answer that you were looking for, but that's the best we can do.
No, this is very, very helpful, sir. Thank you so much for sharing [XBRL.]
One small thing, Rohith, which might interest you is at the XBRL Conference, SEBI is presenting data on ESG filings from about 200 companies. SEBI is actually ratcheting up, from our understanding, XBRL implementation in India next year. We'll actually see some major stuff happening from there going forward.
Great, sir. I mean, thank you for answering in full measure. It's much appreciated. Could you speak about the Create segment? Because I think, for the last many calls, we were very excited about the growth in the segment driven by ESMA and U.S. filings. What will drive growth here in the next couple of years?
Good question. For customers on ESMA in the last 1 year, which I think is quite satisfactory. We also have I think about 100 and something customers in South Africa for CIPC filings. So, I think the next mandate has not come yet. Maybe, Deepta, you can take the question on Create.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes, we can. Deepta, the mic, if you keep moving back and forth, we don't. Speak into the mic, we'll hear you.
Okay. Am I audible now?
Yes, you are. Let me fade away. Maybe move back, please.
Yeah, good question, Rohith. I think as we mentioned on one of the calls some time back, normally when there are mandates, we get like a tailwind of growth. When we don't have mandates or in the phase where mandates are still not rolled out or announced, then we are in the replacement market, right? What we're kind of doing is going after existing customers and who already are using other solutions, perhaps not as efficient, perhaps more pricey, and then you know, looking to see whether we can switch them over to us.
That is kind of the strategy. You may also remember that we talked about our disclosure management solution the last time around, and that is mandate non-specific. I mean, it is not linked with any mandate as yet. We had kind of talked about rolling out the disclosure management solution. Now we have a couple of early customers. As we already mentioned, and as you know, what typically happens is when we roll something completely new out, there is a curve. The early customers take it, adopt it, we get rapid feedback, agile build and roll out basically. We already have a pipeline building in that kind of area.
Now, when that you know, in new markets where we have gone with CARBON, we've seen it almost takes a year to stabilize once we roll across. Once that starts, we think there's an opportunity in cases not necessarily related to that sudden tailwind of mandates. I mean, there are both. You know, there is a replacement market that is waiting for new mandates that are.
I'm sorry to interrupt, ma'am. Your voice is breaking up.
I'm sorry. I haven't moved. I haven't moved an inch, actually. I'm not sure how much.
Right now it's better.
Okay. Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay. I think there are basically three things there. You know, there is when we don't have new mandates, so when we don't have tailwind of mandates, there is a replacement market, you know, that we can go after. The second is the adjacencies, like the disclosure management, you know, which we have launched. Like I said, normally these things take a while. As we have seen from chasing after new opportunities, it almost takes us a year to stabilize an offering. The early customers really give us a lot of ramp-up. In markets like the disclosure management, we already have a larger client base. Once we nail it, then we can kind of start looking to ramp up irrespective of mandate.
That, you know, and that's what we will do. Of course, I think we also mentioned the newer mandates that are on the horizon, like ESG, like ACFR, like SOC Phase II, as and when they get announced. Those are the kinds of things that will give us the growth going forward. I'm not sure if that was audible. Yeah.
Yeah, you were audible. I mean, it was clear. It was clear. I'm curious now. A follow-up to the answer that you gave. Two, three questions. Number one, so like you are trying to bring customers in the replacement market, I'm guessing that the competition will be trying to win customers from our customer base. So are we seeing any attrition there? How are we positioned there? Number one. Second, there was talk. When you mentioned the disclosure management platform and we have initial customers, et cetera. So what is the pricing there? And what can be the potential market size? And what is the go-to-market strategy there? That's the second question that I had.
Similarly, on the litigation management system as part of the GST segment as well, what is the pricing there and how is the traction and what is the go-to-market strategy there? That we'll be keen to know.
Pricing in DM, we will not talk about for obvious reasons. As far as the question about attrition and who we are losing our customers, if you look at the last six months or so, we've not lost a single customer. We added 44 customers. That probably answers the question that you asked. It doesn't mean that we don't have sleepless nights worrying about losing customers. On the litigation management side, if Gautam wants to share any pricing information, he's welcome to. On the disclosure management, we don't share because of intellectual implications. Litigation management, we are the only company in the country right now offering a solution like this from what I know. Gautam, you want to take the question?
Yeah. We have actually a differential pricing model. The pricing for banks is the highest because, you know, because of the need and we see that their ability to pay for this kind of solution is also there. Followed by the BFSI, basically the insurance companies. We are finding the pricing for the corporates is the lowest tier. Within the corporates, the pricing is dependent on the number of GSTINs and average number of cases that they have actually received in the last two years and going forward, what it's going to be. That's there.
In terms of traction and go to market, our first initial approach in the last three months has been doing a direct reach out to all our customers and all our direct clients as well as our prospects. This product has been built along with a partner firm called DAA. They are the actual domain experts. They are the ones who have been actually giving the inputs for the solution. DAA customers and IRIS customers have been reached out to and all the prospects.
Now that we have kind of started talking about it, there is news in the market. We are also looking at, you know, going to the market through various other partner firms, other CA firms outside of Big Four, who have their own set of customers. One interesting possibility, in fact, we've got an inquiry from a couple of. Am I still on? Can you hear me? Hello?
Yes.
Yeah. I lost the last bit. Gautam, you talked about an interesting customer continuity.
No, interesting proposition from partners who are actually looking at. You know, who have asked if we can white label the solution with their branding and with their logo, which we want to operate as a platform. Because litigation, you know, these CA firms offer advisory services and litigation services, you know, on a case-to-case basis. For them, it gives an opportunity to actually also sell a platform which they have access to with a model that, you know, they do managed services on top of the platform, or the client actually uses the platform directly. For them, they would like to position it as a tech platform along with litigation services.
That's the second, you know, go-to-market, which now we have started talking to a couple of these CA firms.
Gautam, competitors to this product? Gautam? Can you just go to Gautam?
Yeah. EY has a product, but it's more of a generic product. EY, the Big Four have built something over the last couple of years. The feedback that we have been getting so far is that, because we've built this product completely keeping in mind the GST regulation and the GST flow, it's, you know, the other products don't come as close to this. We have gone far more deeper into it. On the other hand, the other Big Four offer a more generic GST litigation product along with it, the direct tax litigation also. Companies are interested in taking a solution which can actually take care of both direct and indirect tax.
Obviously for us, we would actually, you know, look at having the direct tax module also built sometime soon.
Rohith, to add to what Gautam has said little while ago, is that, you know, typically when the Big Four build their own products, they're able to go after the big enterprises, and they don't necessarily offer the smaller companies that one product. Secondly, the smaller chartered accountants who play a very important role, the CS play an important role. The law firm, they play an important role. They will not necessarily go after the Big Four product from what we've seen in the past. Therefore, there's a large market outside the big enterprise market that's still waiting to be served. It does not mean that we don't compete with the Big Four. We will compete with the Big Four, and we will also go after the large enterprise market. Just to say that there is a large market out there which is still unserved.
Thank you, once again to all of you for the detailed answers. I'll get back into the queue and give others opportunity. Thank you.
Thank you, Rohith.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone wishing to ask a question, please press star and one. The next question is on the line of Vikas Kasturi from Focus Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good evening, sir. So sir, about one year ago, when we were discussing the Q2 call of FY 2022, I had actually suggested that you go for a rights issue. Then subsequent to that, I had also emailed you, giving some reasons for that. I only wish, you know, we could have brought in a strategic investor or something like that, one year ago when our prices were doubles of what it is now. I mean, we could have raised a lot more money by diluting the same amount of equity. So I think we missed that opportunity, sir. That's just an observation. My question to you is, so you now have so many products, right, in the Collect, Create, and Consume segment.
Which product would you say is your Trojan horse, which will sort of get you an entry into the client organization and, after which you can then position your other products? Would it be the IRIS platform?
Excellent question, Vikas. As I said, you know, no point crying over spilled milk or lost opportunities. I remember that you mentioned it, so thank you very much. I think shareholders like you who are constantly thinking of the welfare of the company, I think add a huge amount of value to the company for which I owe you a deep debt of gratitude, so thank you very much. We lost the opportunity, but as you said, because of the nature of the market, you can never buy at the dip, at the lowest point and sell at the highest point. It doesn't really work like that, as you know. As I said, we continue to push here. If we had, I'm not sure so much about the strategic partner, at least not in India. It could be overseas.
I don't have an answer. There are discussions which keep happening from time to time, but nothing actually comes to fruition because ours is a very complicated business to understand. As far as the response about Trojan Horse, I think every one of the products has got its own dynamics, and these are different segment of the market. I think today, for example, you know, recently we launched a product which allows you to download an XBRL document into a spreadsheet. It may seem like a very small product of no consequence, but actually you'll be surprised at how many people have started using it. Getting into people's minds is literally what some of these projects do, products do.
I never thought, for example, Peridot, our application which is used to verify counterparty compliance for GST, could be such a hot product. Gautam, you wanna talk about Peridot for once? Gautam is the brain behind Peridot, and Peridot is a huge Trojan horse for us in terms of capturing significant mindshare, market share in the GST space. All compliments to Gautam for which. Gautam, I'll actually pass it over to you on the call.
Yeah. Actually, when we had launched Peridot, we had no idea that, you know, what shape it will take. We've actually let the users actually dictate, and it completely grown organically, word of mouth. We've kept it very simple. It just allows you to scan or check any GST number or any company via voice or by just typing the name. It tells you the overall status, compliance status of it. As the users have grown, we've added more features. Now we've added features like, you give consent and you have access to your own GST data, your returns and dashboards and stuff like that. At any point of time, there are more than 400,000 active install base, and we have more than 200,000 monthly active user base.
We actually look at the install base rather than looking at the downloads. These users, about 50% of the users are small merchants, SMEs, traders, small businessmen who actually want to check the genuineness of the counterparties or the people or the vendors from whom they are actually dealing with because it actually helps them manage their input tax credit. There are a lot of government officials who actually use Peridot and swear by Peridot because it helps them track and manage the SSCs in a very seamless and very easy manner. There are a lot of chartered accountants who use it for their customers.
There are lot of, you know, company employees, people working in the procurement department, people working in accounts department who are-
I'm gonna interrupt. We're getting off track here. When you talk about Trojan horse, I did not and we did not realize in this launch period as to what all this can actually do. Today, Peridot is the reason why many companies come to us to basically take data from our sales engine for promoting digital lending. Every business segment, every product in a certain way is a Trojan horse which has potentially huge multiplier effects for us. We have not been capitalized on most of them as of now. Peridot we've capitalized on, but not monetized it to the extent that we possibly should going forward. I mean, just think about it.
If you have 200,000 or if you have 400,000 installed base today, and say 200,000 very, very active users and 90,000 people are using it literally on a monthly basis. These 90,000 MSMEs who are ripe to borrow. Just do some simple calculation in terms of what will happen if they start borrowing and if we come up with a model where we're able to leverage that. The possibilities are endless when you start applying your mind to it.
Yes, sir. I agree. There are a lot of possibilities in your line of business. I really wish that, you know, because every time we start a discussion, it always ends with, you know, the company if only we had more resources. Yes, sir, I'll go on to my next question. Could you just tell us your client retention numbers in percentage terms? I know you've said that it's a very high, very sticky kind of business, but would it be in the high 90s?
It's much higher. The point is, in the case of Create, for example, we lost one client who took away a significant number of customers because we went through them. We learned the lesson of therefore not of trying to ensure that we don't have customer concentration. Generally speaking, I don't think we've lost many customers. In the case of iFile, which is the Collect space, I think just one or two people, after the five-year contract was over, decided not to renew it. That was long ago. I think Thailand was one of them. I don't remember who else was there. In the case of Create, I think, and CARBON, I think it's still very early days, and I think it's too early to lose customers.
I think it's something we should see over the next two, three years usually. In the case of MCA filings, again, as I said, with the use of CARBON, we've not lost too many customers. In the case of GST, we have gained more than we have lost. One of the reasons why we lost some customers in GST is because of absolutely predatory pricing that's happened in the market, rock bottom pricing. I think the awards, like Best Tech Award, help us in terms of conveying a message to the market that we are a very serious player. Generally when they said 90%, I think that's not a very, that's on the lower side. I think our retention is much higher than that.
It happened with one aberration of one customer in the U.K. who would pass on a significant number of customers to us and has moved on with us and fully with us, and therefore we've lost some customers there.
Okay. Thank you, sir. I have one last question. Sir, earlier, I noticed about a year ago, there were a lot of online demos that Ms. Anuradha would do. I would attend those. But have those demos not been happening of late, sir?
I think somebody needs to put you on my to-do list. There are demos that happen almost every other day. You know, just to give you a sense as to how active we are in terms of demos, it's not only the Indian market, but also the overseas market. Maybe Anu, if you're on the call, please send him invitations to demos that may be of relevance to him so that he will know what's happening. Anu, are you on the call?
Yes. Yes, I'm here. Thank you.
Please ensure that people know that you're inviting people. Even if they're competitors, yeah, it doesn't matter. Just invite.
Yes, definitely. I think one of the reasons why you don't see any of those online ones as often as you do is because now post-COVID, everything has opened up. Like, you know, conferences are happening physically instead of virtually. That could be possibly one of the reasons, external ones. Internal ones, yes, we need to kind of organize more webinars and seminars, you know, on a daily basis.
Anu, since I'm also a shareholder, I'll ask you the question. I think it's not. Is it smart to basically say, "Since things have opened up, let's go to Paris and do a demo instead of doing an online demo." It's so much cheaper. As a shareholder, I'm actually worried that if that's the approach we're taking. I hope that's not what you meant.
No. We get invited to speak at many seminars as well.
Yeah. I'm just putting you on edge. Yeah.
We also kind of are going to start doing our own seminars. You know, going forward, we are also being invited by. For example, I think we are expecting one webinar to come in in December from
Sure.
That's gonna be an online one. I'm sure, you know, on our social media, you can be updated for more webinars and seminars coming up.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Anu. I hope that answered the question.
Yes, sir. Yes. Thank you, and wish you all the best, sir.
Thank you very, very much. I think shareholders like you keep us accountable and also give suggestions that are extremely valuable. We can't always act on every suggestion, as you can imagine, but we pay heed to every suggestion. We evaluate it. Some we're able to act on, some we're not able to act on. Please bear with us if not everything gets acted upon.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohith Potti from Marshmallow Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the follow-up, sir. I just wanted to hear from Balu, sir, on—I mean, given how we do not have as concrete a scenario for growth that we had in the last one and a half years from Europe and U.S. I was just curious on our cash flows and our intent for growth. With us being on a borderline pricing issue and us hiring senior resources, how are we placed on cash flows and how do we think we are geared for growth there?
Rohith, I know you don't want me to answer the question, that you want Balu to answer the question. Rightly so, because Balu is much smarter than I am. But also there's some [one-on-one] bonding going on here, who knows? The point is, let me take the question seriously. It's not that we don't have a strategy. For example, the U.S. government reporting is opening in a very big way. I think we have a very conscious strategy for U.S. government reporting. In fact, my colleague, Arnold, who heads the U.S. operations, is actually coming down to Bombay, I think this week, where we will actually be spending time talking about how to deal with this whole government reporting thing. There are specific initiatives we're actually looking at or the ESG initiative in Europe that kicks off next year.
It's not like we don't have a strategy. It's not like there is not much happening. There's a lot that's happening. Some of these things can actually happen without so much of capital as we muddle along. Having capital always helps. I think there's no question on cash flow and all that stuff. Let me also add one more thing here. You know, a lot of people talk about Infosys as a great company. What really made Infosys a phenomenal company is the day Narayana Murthy basically said, "I will not do the GE work anymore." He actually walked away from the GE project. That led to some serious problems as far as clients were concerned.
I think in our company, the fact that we hired somebody at this kind of price tells you that we are brave and that we have a very strong confidence in our future. The fact that I'm still giving you salary. My point is that for us, this could be the aha moment that takes the company to the next level of growth. Balu, over to you.
Well, you have said a lot. You have said, you know, put it very succinctly. From a numbers perspective, Rohith, I want to mention that we are operating cash flow positive. We continue to be doing that. I don't see too much of a problem in, you know, managing our cash flows. Having said that, we don't have the luxury to spend too much at this point of time. I think even that situation could recede if you are able to start getting some traction in the Collect business.
Of course, if you have capital and if you have the, you know, luxury of, you know, planning your sales and marketing spend in a much more aggressive way, you could grow at a higher rate, much higher rate than what we currently, you know, aspire to. Even at this point of time, it is not that, you know, we are not looking at different growth. We are, and we can continue to grow at this rate as well. There could be some ballast coming into our, you know, you know, ship if you are able to, you know, get some Collect customers as well.
Balu, I'm worried. Rohith just said we are all at sea and you with ship example. What Rohith said, but that apart, Rohit, let me set aside. The point is that we are not fully utilizing our ICICI Bank limits. That's also a source of great comfort. I think there's enough headroom available. Please also know that what is luxury for IRIS is usually a necessity for many other companies. We are frugal, and I think that really helps us grow the way we've grown, and I think it'll keep us growing. He said he's still throwing up cash. Please also note that given the way we are structured as a products company, I think every, even our 2%, 3%, 4% growth in revenues will actually throw up a disproportionately high amount of cash.
I'm not terribly concerned about that. As I said, your point is well taken, but there is a strategy. There are growth opportunities, and there are mandates that we're latching on to, like the U.S. Government one. Anu, since you're there, can you just share with us something about the U.S. Government opportunity? Anuradha?
Can you hear me?
Go on. Tell me about the U.S. government opportunity. State government.
The U.S., U.S. state government, they are acquiring various, you know, the local agencies, what they call as state agencies, to start reporting in XBRL. We are seeing some early momentum and, you know, adopters. For example, states like Florida, you know, Michigan, et cetera. Some early traction we are able to kind of see. I'm sure each state will kind of, you know, pass laws, release taxonomies, et cetera. You know, I mean, of course, it's too early to share any, numbers, but we're definitely seeing newer opportunities in the U.S. beyond the SEC mandate and the energy mandate.
Yes. This is helpful, and for me. I asked Balu because it was financial related question, and I thought I'll address it to him. I know the reason. My last question is on and for Mr. Thomas. Interesting that he was in IRIS early on, but later on it seemed like he spent a lot of time in B2C businesses. I thought it would be great to hear from him. He did explain his views on the tech moat that the company enjoys. But what from his vantage point does he see on the commercial side? Are we making products which are beautiful but we're not able to sell for some reason? Or what would he see, what would he want to improve in the commercial side or maybe in the next two years?
What should we as shareholders look out for on that front?
Rohit, the only thing I will not plead guilty to is that our products are beautiful. I think our UI has a problem, and I don't think our products are beautiful at all. I think we focus on functionality, so please don't accuse us of having beautiful products or beautiful-looking products. Thomas, over to you.
Yeah. Actually, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah, as Thomas said, actually one of the key things we need to actually invest some money, focus on the user experience of the products. We need to take it to the next level. The current level may not be that great in the near future markets. We need to actually improve upon that. That is actually one of the focal points. The second one being actually like, you know, slightly turn the current development process to a more product-driven process, where when we actually add functionalities, et cetera, each of the functionalities is actually debated upon the commercial aspect of it. Or like, why should we have a functionality? Even if there's a missing smaller functionality to a complex functionality, just give a little thought about the commercial angle to it and usability angle to it. It's not only purely commercial.
Sometimes the feature could be becoming much better user-friendly than the customer needs to actually navigate or use the product, which could actually have a value much higher than the commercial value also. Have a product-driven approach. That is actually the next level of maturity of the technology team taking to that kind of implementation. They already started driving on the frame and on both of it, on the user experience as well as on making it a more product-driven organization. The tech organization needs to be product-driven.
Thank you, sir. That was helpful. My last question to you, sir, is just curious to know, I mean, from your angle, among the opportunities that might have possibly been available to you, how come you chose IRIS? I mean, the pivot from a B2C to a B2B business and, I mean, Reliance is a very large organization with a lot of entities, so movement within also would have been possible. IRIS is a smaller B2B organization. I was curious to hear, and at least I've seen among my colleagues and friends that, as people become senior in organization, they try and move to more mature organizations. You've come back to effectively a startup, I would think.
Just curious to know your thought process behind the decision.
It could have some impact. It could have some impact on what my personality could be. Okay, the reason being like, no, I love being in the startup organization. If you look back even at Reliance, what I've done in Reliance is not what was existing there in Reliance. Actually, what I did was actually introducing e-commerce and leading the entire organization into the e-commerce way of doing things. Okay. Like, that has a different level of commercializing in the sense that, for example, a product could be sold in different parts of India at different prices. It's perfectly fine, but when it comes to e-commerce, it is not fine. Okay. Those kind of commercial differences actually happened and I had this actually driven into the organization.
Same day when I was actually talking to Swami and the team, et cetera. I realized that, you know, there is a lot which actually like, you know, I can do and implement there. Adding to my nature of being in a startup organization. I say I know so know exactly IRIS is a much better organization. The scope of actually the changes there and scope of things which I can execute there and actually like that was pretty interesting. Maybe I don't like a cushy job. I would like a little bit hands-on, et cetera, on my personal life.
Thank you so much, sir, and thank you so much all of you for your detailed answers and your transparency. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I now hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
I think, Deepta, why don't you have the last word on this one today. Deepta? Okay. You can't hear me. That's okay. I think it's a bit of a hyperbole to basically say that, you know what, everything is wonderful going forward. I think we still continue to be at the mercy of the decision-making time frames that regulators actually take. I think we still need to get ourselves funded properly. I think if you want to put signals as far as the company is concerned, whether it's the hiring of Thomas or whether it's the change in the composition. You know, when we were a completely iFile-driven company, you would see the lumpy revenues in the second half.
You'll see revenues in the second half and not the first half. If you see this time, Q1 was good, Q2 was not so good. Let's see what Q3 holds, I have no idea. I think we're trying to even out things over time. I think the company is in transition. I think the fact that we're getting recognized with these awards is a huge thing. I think what we are now trying to do is to ensure that we have stability of revenues and predictability of revenues from an investor and analyst point of view. That's not gonna be easy, but we're gonna try. Also we are plugging away by fixing all the gaps in the hiring. I think Thomas's efforts in bringing in good people at the senior level.
When you get someone like Thomas, what happens is he raises everybody. He raises everybody to his level quite literally. I think that's what's happening as far as the company is concerned. You can see extraordinary thinking happening. Just to give you one small story, Rohith, this will appeal to you. In the earlier company that we had, when Thomas was there, we had a guy who blew up INR 7.5 lakh one night on data downloads. Those days data downloads were very expensive. We were amazed that the guy would actually do it. Of course, he got a yoke, he got a slap on the wrist and all that stuff.
The fact that people were willing to do that because of their own knowledge was a great positive sign. I mean, it also taught us a lesson about checks and balances and all that stuff, but that's the kind of stuff that we want to encourage. We want people to innovate, we want people to discover new things. We want people to keep adding value to the company. Today, for example, the improvement in the products is led by people down the line, not by me, not by Balu, not by Deepta. I think very often we don't know all that's going on. We know most of what's going on, and because Balu knows everything that's going on from a financial point of view.
I think we're quite happy with the way things are going, and I hope that with your support, I think even better days will be ahead of us. Thank you very, very much. On that note, bye-bye.
Thank you, members of the management team. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of IRIS Business Services Limited, that concludes this conference call. We thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.