A warm welcome to everybody listening in, and welcome to today we will have a presentation of Agillic. We are joined by CEO, Emre Gürsoy, and CFO, Claus Boysen, to help us through this today's presentation. Today's event will, of course, cover your Q2 half year 2023 results. I think, no way of beating around the bush, still strong on earnings, but growth is a little bit disappointing, so I'm sure you will cover some ground on that and give us some explanation for what is happening around your business. As always, do not hesitate to ask questions in the box down below, do it during presentation or do it after. But we will run the presentation and take the main part of the questions in the end.
Do ask in Danish, do ask in English. I will try. If in Danish, I will try and translate to the best of my ability. But I think for now, I will hand the call over to you, Emre.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Michael, and good morning to everyone who has decided to join in today's session with us. My name is Emre, Emre Gürsoy. I'm the CEO of the Agillic, and I'm together with Claus, who is the CFO, and we'll take you through the presentation today. Now, before I start, I will say I wouldn't call it disappointing, I would say slower than expected, but let's get into the details of it, as we call it, because we are also very keen on explaining where we are. So first and foremost, what is Agillic? But well, what do we do? We are an omnichannel marketing automation platform.
We work within the data and content world to create customer experiences, where our clients can create improved customer experiences that will lead them towards the higher conversion, enhance customer satisfaction, customer lifetime value increase, which is basically making more out of their investments in investments. Now, if you look at the brief snapshot of our company, we have approximately 50 employees based in Copenhagen, 100% SaaS business, 120 clients, and our clients are in 10 European markets. And we are operating with a greater number of industries from retail, finance, travel, energy, which is basically the common denominator is that they're all data-rich companies. They all care about customer experience and how to utilize their databases.
Our main focus is within the areas of retail and subscription businesses in general. This is mainly driven by the fact that they are the companies with the richest data in their portfolio. If you look at the half-year results, what we have presented to the market yesterday, with a revenue of 10% increase, reaching up to DKK 32.7 million. EBITDA for the first half-year with a +1 million, and if you look at compared to the last year, which is basically last year, the same period, it was -1.7 million, which is an improvement of 2.7 million increase.
A total ARR, which is a combination of subscription and transaction ARR collectively DKK 66.4 million, which is a 3% increase in total year-over-year. Whereas the subscription part of it increased 11%, and the decline on the transactions, which we will be speaking in detail in a minute. The clients I mentioned, year-over-year, we have been growing with the 12 new clients, and it is important to mention that we have a subscription average of approximately DKK 600,000, where each client is actually representing quite a large investment on our side.
While we are increasing, as I mentioned, 11% on our subscriptions year-over-year, our customer acquisition cost has not been increasing higher than what has been around the 0.3, 0.2. That's where we are actually keeping that. It's basically our go-to- market model and the way that we are at approaching to different markets in penetrating into that. Shall we go through some of the details in the year-over-year part?
Yeah. So the total revenue, as Emre said, is DKK 32.7 million and was growing from DKK 29.6 million last first half in 2022. Our committed revenue, which is basically the amount of secured revenue for the upcoming periods, has increased from last year DKK 27.8 million to DKK 28.1 million. If we look at the EBITDA, yeah, we have improved it by DKK 2.7 million compared to last year first half-year, where we had -DKK 1.7 million, which is very much in line with the strategy and comments that we have had about our sustainable growth model. So we secure through our operational excellence that we can maintain a positive EBITDA, which is a part of our strategy.
If we look, a little bit more into the ARR highlights, the total ARR, as mentioned, is DKK 66.4 million. The change in ARR from subscription, which is driving the most of our profitability, is DKK 10.6 million, where the total ARR change is 3.4%.
10.6%.
So 10.6%, sorry. So, what you can see here is that the main impact of our growth only being 3.4% year-over-year is because transactions has reduced since year-end and during the last couple of quarters. And we will come a little bit more into the development in transactions.... So what we have seen in the past three years is that we quarter-over-quarter see a trend of an increased usage of our transactions. Meaning basically, or mainly SMS transactions, but also email transactions and other transactions. And what we saw this from Q1 to Q2 was a decline from DKK 7.3 million ARR to DKK 11.5 million.
This is mainly driven by an increase in the SMS prices, which is coming from our third-party supplier. So they're buying this out in the market, and those SMS prices has increased. Over here is that it is mainly due to the increased energy prices and inflations. And what we do is we pass these price increases on to our customers, and also meaning that these have low impact on our profitability. Because we are almost sending the same prices we are being charged for. Having an SMS price increase over the last year, several times in various markets, in various geography, but quite heavily, has an impact on how the companies are using SMS and how they want to utilize SMS transactions.
So they have been focusing on optimizing and, the usage and moving some of their communication from SMS to emails, which has a less effect, but is, way more cheaper. That's what we have seen up until Q2. Then, looking at the last couple of months, we also see a trend that this, seems to have stabilized, and therefore, we expect, with our also updated guidance, that the trend towards the end of 2023 will increase, in the same comparison as we had the past couple of years. Yes.
And maybe a question surrounding that, SMS to me, and maybe I'm old-fashioned, seems like a strong tool, you know, for reaching customers. I know that a price impact can, it can impact you in the short run, and I do understand that is not that important for you, where the transactions are happening. It might hit revenue, but not the earnings. But do you see this returning again? Or is that a permanent damage to that way of doing transactions? In my mind, if it's a powerful tool, I guess your customers will start using it again.
Yes, that will probably be, but it also depends on how the market is developing in price. So if we see a decrease in the prices of SMSs again, then I definitely think that the usage will increase. So it has just come to a level where it has a more important impact for our clients, wherefore they had to sort of focus more on it than we usually have seen small price changes have done.
Yes, perfectly.
I think it's also important to mention that, when we are looking at the transactions and the way that we are establishing our prognosis, it's usually based on trends and how we see it, and we evaluate each individual client and their development in the process. What we are experiencing in 2023 is a very different picture, as you can see on this one, too. And when we are identifying these root causes, and we also see that the companies, the clients that we have, they're also looking at their risk analysis and actually evaluating the cost structure and the current market situation, the instability around what's coming next, and the consumer's behavior. All that is collected into one. To answer your question, will SMS be replaced by any other channel with such strong performance? Probably not.
So what we'll be seeing in the future is a returning to the same channel with an investment. But we cannot see, as we at the moment, how much-
Mm.
I mean, the numbers, statistics are not helping us. So what we are looking is how to read the market as much as we can right now.
Yeah, that was why you reacted and took down your guidance, and it is primarily this reason. Of course, that's also why it's not hitting earnings. That makes sense, that it's getting more unpredictable this way.
If we move on a little bit more details as highlights, the number of clients has been stable, increasing over the last four years, and we are now 120 clients by the end of H1 2023. And our average ARR is also quite stable, around DKK 600,000 per client. And this has a meaning of also why we have changed some of the guidance and see some of the development in 2023. Because DKK 600,000 is an investment for many companies in the areas that we work with. And an investment at that size has we have seen that this has changed into, that the decision of investing into Agillic has been pushed upwards in the organization to CFO, CEOs.
Therefore, we also have seen the slower process in our sales cycle, which has led to an extension of when we have completed these deals, so it takes longer time. The uncertainty that companies see and the budget that they are investing in, they're more cautious, and that has an impact. So our guidance change on the subscription is still a growth, and we come back to that, but we see that this has slowed down in the first, or at least in the first half of 2023. If we then look at our international expansion, we are focused on expanding international, and 67% of our client wins comes from international markets here in H1 2023, which is an increase again.
So the focus that we have had on our internationalization and how to work with our sales has developed. The volume of those deals has declined of the new deals compared to last year, but that is based on who do you reach and which markets do you reach. So still a strong international pattern, and we are looking to continue that process. Our Net Revenue Retention was at H1 96, and if you adjust for FX, then it was 98. We always see Net Revenue Retention is a combination of churn, uplift, downgrades, and price adjustments. And it's a solid, and this is what we expect to see for the rest of the year, that we are in approximately around the 100.
That is due to also how do companies expand, how do they expand their number of customers, and how much do they use, how much do we uplift them with the number of customers they have?
I think it would be fair to say that most of the companies out there are in the process of cost optimization to make sure that their performance is also delivered on their side of it. That's our clients. So what they are also looking at, what we have seen, is that they look into their databases, and they look into their commitments of the database that they wanna activate, and they can see that there are certain parts of it, it is maybe more nice to have to activate versus need to have. So what they're doing is basically looking into their database, re-looking into the commitment onto their database size, and then defining that. So what that means for us is a certain downgrade, but that is...
I'm perfectly happy with that kind of perspective because it is, they're optimizing it. We're not losing the clients. They will be coming up with as the market changes, as their investment changes. So it's a process that they're going through, which we are in the game together with them. So that's why it's a part of the exercise that we are defining here.
So if I should understand you, an existing customer can channel in a little bit more, also on your on the part of the subscription and be a little bit... Because if I look at your average selling price is around the same, so it can't be a big movement. Is that correct, or how should I understand how this is affecting you? I know it's affecting you, of course, on the transactions, but on the subscriptions as well, can they also have a smaller subscription or a more
Yes.
Focused subscription?
Yes. If they're... We, you know, we work with annual contracts, so what can happen is, as they are renewing, the time of their renewal of their contract, they might be looking into the commitment level on the number of database active recipients, as well as their number of channels that they want to activate, and they might readjust this to the new upcoming year. So this can happen. That's where the subscription fees can go up and down on annual basis per client.
Yeah. Okay. That sounds, yes, perfect. Makes sense.
If we look at the customer acquisition cost, it's 0.3 million, or 300,000 Danish kroner at the first half year of 2023. Similar to our last couple of half years, but also at a very low level. As we have previously mentioned in our presentation, this is not a goal in itself, that it should be at this level. It depends on conditions, how we're at, because we still want to make sure that we are profitable. We still want to sell through our partners, which is helping us in our customer acquisition cost, keeping it down. This actually shows that with the growth, we can maintain that we do our marketing, that we do our sales focus and keep our profitability.
This has an effect, of course, per month to recover, which has increased to eight months on a half year basis, but we normally measure yearly, but it has still a solid number.
Yeah, and if you look at the general SaaS companies benchmarks, we are still performing quite well. We're happy with these results. But again, it's all about investing for growth rather than saving money. So that's where we are focused on that one.
And the big question that comes up here is that if you are looking into a very difficult market, it might not make sense. Is that some of the decisions, you know, if they are very prolonged, it will not help to push too much on... Is that a part of your decision process to keep, as you said, months to recover? CAC is extremely low, and if you look at your model, you could actually argue for a higher one. I think it's 22 in the businesses in general.
You know, you could still argue that it's a good model to go up on that one, but, is it a decision by you that it, that right now it would not help to push extra on?
I will say... Let me share my perspective first. First of all, I mean, we don't look into, we don't define the months to recover CAC as an objective. It's the consequences of our decisions, strategic decisions ending up over here. So, from a greater perspective, our focus is growth. So it is basically from our marketing activities, the number of sales team members that we are putting out to, the way that we are treating our partner pipeline, which is basically the new partners that we would like to identify, we'd like to convince, we'd like to onboard and engage in the new markets that we're operating, are all part of this exercise. As long as our strategy is on this perspective, the months to recover CAC is actually a result of that rather than the aim itself.
... Perfect.
A little bit on our cash position. We are at half year at DKK 80.3 million, an increase from DKK 7.4 million at year-end 2022. Based on that we are keeping our investment level in our software, which is very much similar to the previous years. We have, of course, received the investment from Viking Venture here in the first half year, which has the DKK 20.5 million positive impact on our cash flow from finances. Our cash flow from operations is -3.1 million DKK. We are still have a strategic goal and expect to have a cash flow positive from operations at year-end.
Looking from the outside, is actually cash flow where we are seeing your commitments. It looks like you are not churning down on the cash outlay for developing your system. You know, where one could say, if you are a little bit under pressure growth-wise, you might turn down a little bit on that, but it doesn't seem like you are turning down on developing your product. Is that correct, that we can see here through the cash flow?
That is correct, and that is also our expectations as we have from our guidance and our strategy for the rest of 2023, that we will maintain this level.
Yeah.
This is very important to mention that, I mean, we are operating, you know, the competitive edge that we are, we define, and the way that we create value for our clients is highly driven from our technologies, competencies, capabilities, features. That part of the development will never stop for us. We will be highly interested on growing because that is a growth driver in itself. I don't see the investment on the technology as a cost. It's a growth driver for us because that's creating competitive edge for us in the market.
Perfect.
If we look at our updated guidance that we came out with yesterday on the 23rd, we now guide a revenue of DKK 67-70 million, and this is mainly impacted by the decrease in ARR from transactions, which we have talked about. We however maintain our EBITDA guidance of DKK 1-4 million, which is on level or above last year's EBITDA. Even though that our total ARR is now at a new level of DKK 70-75 million, which is a combination of both the ARR from transactions, but also a changed guidance on our growth on ARR subscription. I'll come a little bit back to those guidance and in more details on the next slide.
We still have the same strategic financial goals, like double-digit % growth on ARR subscription, positive EBITDA, positive cash flow from operation, and we aim towards a positive cash-adjusted EBITDA by 2024. So what has impacted our guidance? We have already talked a little bit about it. So the reduction in ARR from transaction is led by the SMS prices, and we see the stabilizing trend here into Q3. And that's what we are expecting for the rest of 2023. We do have a sustainable EBITDA that can maintain and as a consequence of our focus on operational excellence, even though we have a downgrade in our AR from transactions and ARR in subscriptions. This has both on our operational excellence, but also because we have increased our profits on the sales.
The growth in ARR from subscription is mainly impacted by the market conditions. We see that we have increased our ARR from subscription by 10.6% year-over-year, but this is also a consequence of more cautious and slower decision-making among our prospects. We do expect at this time that this will continue into the second half of 2023, and therefore, we have reduced our growth rate expectation to plus 5% to plus 11% for the year. These slower decision-making and cautiousness, it's something that we see develop over time. It's not a one-day happening that will be there. So, it's difficult to predict how long time it will take.
But for now, we, due to the uncertainties about all our geopolitical uncertainties, high inflation rates, currency exchange rates, and so forth, we, we do expect that it will maintain for a bit of a while, and therefore, we have adjusted our guidance. Should also be aware that our guidance is mainly impacted by the Q4. So Q4 has always been the highest sort of new sales quarter, which is the last quarter of this year. And we want to explain to the market here with our adjusted guidance that we, we anticipate based on the historical flow of longer decision-makings and, and cautiousness, that we also will see that into the rest of 2023. So that's the reason behind our guidance adjustment.
Perfect.
Yeah.
No, just go ahead.
Yeah. So what is sustainable growth and operational excellence here in Agillic? We have increased our revenue per employee by 51% over three years. That's a strong number. It's both showing that we are focused on our cost, we are focused on how we operate, how we have our procedures, what we are selling, and make sure that we are not dependent on raising further cash, for instance, but can be self-sufficient. So on the other hand, we're also 100% focused on a sustainable cash and capital efficient growth, which is basically that even if we see volatile market conditions, as we have seen, and thereby downgraded some of our growth expectations for the year, we can still show a solid EBITDA margin, and grow that.
Absolutely. I think it will be important to mention that, EBITDA only is not our target. I mean, being positive EBITDA and growing that. On the other side, growth is not only our target, it's the balance, and it's both are equally important for us. The reason is, as we go through our growth and the model that we have created right now, it actually gives us the ability to scale and repeat our model into multiple markets, into multiple prospect conversations. Meaning that as we increase our growth, our bottom impact will be quite substantial.
So just to ramp up the overall approach that we have from strategy down to the go-to-market, down to the financial performance, we are actually driving our exercise with a very much of a co-focus of a Reboot 2.1 strategy that we have established a couple of years ago. It's our go-to-market strategy, which is growth and EBITDA, but doing this in a partner-driven exercise. The financial strategy and the objectives that Claus has just mentioned, that it has been enriched with an additional one this year for the next year's focus of positive cash-adjusted EBITDA by 2024, which is us becoming a fully sustainable, healthy company and growing our business ourselves.
And when we look at the number of clients that we have been extending throughout the year with the retaining our average ARR, this gives us a very strong position in the market space, so that we are still very competitive. And if you look at the ecosystem that we are operating, where we go out with our partners, we do co-marketing, co-solution, and co-selling. It you know, it expands both our sides of businesses, but in the meantime, it gives us a very high turnover creation for our partners as much as for us. I mean, in this year alone, in the first half year, we have gained new partners in the new geographies, such as in Germany and in Norway.
And these partnerships that we are right now flourishing to get that engagement up and running will have a major impact for us. Besides, we also have new technology partners that has joined, which are operating in the multiple markets. That also strengthens our position within the ecosystem that we are approaching. And our key priorities are still the same, you know, growing the market, expanding to the new markets that we have defined as Germany and Norway. Looking into verticals such as subscription and retail as our key focuses, as we go with our partners, and making sure that we can live up to our product development to keep our competitive edge and deliver on our guides. So it's the big picture is totally built upon sustainable, scalable, and intentional growth strategy. So that's all from us.
Perfect. Let's go a little bit up in the helicopter. I would say that.
Yes.
I like your comeback on when I say disappointing. I'm an analyst. If you've got a downgrade, it's always disappointing. I know it's tough, and it's the same message we are getting from all the SaaS companies, so sorry for that. But going up to the helicopter, this prolonged decision process, what is it? Is it budget restraints or uncertainty by the customer? What do you think we'll need to kind of move out there for customers again starting to feel comfortable investing in marketing? I know you are not. I don't ask you to be a macro expert and telling me when it turns-
Right.
But, what should we be looking for? Is it the end consumer out there and the nervousness, or, or is it companies not being able to keep their budgets on this level? Looking at the world is not going under, but it's tough, but it's not going under.
I mean, if I may give one twist first, and I'll create this as a directly connecting to the CEOs that I'm speaking to and their feedback that I'm receiving. So first and foremost, this is a domino effect. This is not Agillic in the sense of the prospects only, but it is a an environment what is happening. So if I speak to the prospects that we are talking to, and if I speak to their CEOs, and I usually come into the picture with: "We come with a business case, we are adding business value to your bottom line, and we are coming with a solution that will actually replace your existing one with a better one in a more cost-effective approach and a business utility approach. So what makes...
What is the obstacle between here and that we are up and running?" The response that I usually get is that we have some other urgent matters to address before we can engage with this very interesting initiative. So I tell them, "So you are telling me that you don't want money in your bottom line? Because we actually prove that with our business case." And their response is: "I need to address some other burning issues before I can get to that." And these burning issues, it's things that they haven't done in the last two or three years. Most of the companies have been focusing on growth, growth, the operational excellence in their own side, making sure that they have costs under control, operational excellence is under control on their side. It actually is the reason why things are taking longer.
But also, the decisions have been pushed up, and those who are taking these decisions now on the C level were not involved in the past to such decisions. So they also have to understand what is it that we're investing our money on? What is the expected outcome from it? How are we going to run this? Who's responsible for this one? So all this exercise is the reason of it's taking time. No one is questioning, is this will this add more value to my business? Yes. That's a clear yes, and that's where we're coming from, that this is a right path.
By all this, I need to ask. I also got a question from the outside on an email, you know. Can you confirm there's no structural changes in the marketing automation business? There's no such as a changed competitive situation out there that this is. So it is in your viewpoint, you know, solely this prolonged decision process that we are seeing.
My clear answer is no. There is no structural change. On the other side, there are a lot of conversations going on, how the automation should be involved to many companies that are not maybe started the journey on their side. And if you look at from the geographic perspective, the maturity of that, it's very different. So I would definitely say this has nothing to do with the technology or market information or the ecosystem around that one. It is all about the circumstances that are driving the companies to address some other issues at the moment.
And then there's a question: Have you seen any market changes across your different customers and verticals? And I and you were very much before COVID-19 hinged on the consumer side, the retail side, the travel business. And I know you have put that. You have you have made you less less dependent on those, but are they actually performing? Are they now performing well and the others are a little bit hesitant? So are you seeing anything, you know, on the customer side where you are growing and where it's easier maybe to make a quote or something like that?
I think it will be really hard to say, as we did it back in 2020 COVID times, that these industries are absolutely under huge pressure. At the moment, it is hard to say that specifically, but for sure, the consumer behavior and thereby the verticals that we are working with, they are under different effects. The desire of spending money, in general from the consumer side is lesser than last year, which means that overall, the companies are actually... They need to work harder to get their, money as they used to do it. So altogether, and again, it's not only the vertical, it's about the maturity of the companies and where they are in their way of, prioritizing.
On top of this, there's a tremendous number of consolidations going on right now on both within the companies as well as the company ownership structure, which also delays a lot of things, because as they are approaching to that one, there are a whole other discussions are to be addressed.
Then there's a question: Have you seen any extraordinary high churn? Is it extraordinary in your books, or is it them customers putting a little bit in on what they wanna target?
Not at the moment.
No, we haven't seen that. So it's mainly optimizations and the choice that is affecting our NRR, as well as a bit as we discussed earlier, the exchange rate to the Nordic market, both Sweden and Norway, which is also pushing us like anyone else, that this is a disadvantage for our competitive edge, you can say, on the pricing segment.
Then there's a little bit, you're still expecting to see some transactions, expectation rising in into your second half, at least, that is in your guidance. Is that based on quoting activity or something you are seeing going more through your probability adjusted? Or is it a feel that seasonality gives us expectation for that to happen? Or is it a feel, or is it where you see in your systems on how projects are developing and going in higher in the decision process and maybe quoting activities?
So which part is it that gives you, I would not say optimism, but still expecting to grow into the second half on the subscriptions and then on the transactions, there's also a question here: What are your expectations? Will you still see some seasonality push into that? So two parts, first on the subscription and then secondly on the transactions.
So if we start with the... Let me start the other way around, because you started with transactions. So yes-
Yeah.
We will expect an increase in trends because some of our transactions is related to industries that are related to Black Friday, Christmas trades, and things like that. So that's why we have seen the same trend year-over-year, that it increases towards Q4. And that's still going to be the same, but not in the same high level as we see it now as last year, but still a positive trend as from where we are coming from on the thirtieth of June. So that is the supporting argument for us expectation, expecting an increased volume, and increased ARR transactions towards end 2023. The season-
The subscription. I'm sorry, I asked two questions in one.
And then the subscription side, we still see that we still expect to see the same level. We still look, of course, at our pipeline and so forth, but decisions on around these investments are more likely to take place towards year-end, when budgets are: Are we going to reach it? Can we make our profit line? And so forth. So those decisions, we're still expecting that this will be the trend for towards the year-end.
That's the normal trend, is that correct? I think we have went through all the questions. I have one in overall. You kept your guidance for 2024, also on being cash EBITDA, reaching this milestones where you are truly self-sustained. How much does that depend on the growth story, or how much does that depend on what you can control internally? And the confidence also to double, to grow double digits next year, is it a confidence that something that the macro environment must be better, or, I know nobody can guess that, or is it the feeling that you actually have enough internal power to execute on in still a difficult market environment?
First of all, it's not a guidance, it's a strategy.
Strategy, sorry. Yeah.
We have not guided for 2024. But what... Yes, we cannot control macroeconomics. That's one thing. But what we can see is that there is a need for our software. And the more that this is ongoing, the more companies are getting more acquainted to the situation, which means that they do not have the number of burning platforms, as Emre mentioned before. So that's the part of the stability. And then, as Emre also mentioned, we can show that they can make a profit out of this investment, which means that it's a good investment, and it will take part of our more long-term strategies. So we do see and expect that this will be a double-digit growth. That's our strategy.
Our EBITDA cash is based also on our investments and our cash flow from operations. So, our EBITDA less investments. Our investment level is still something that we expect will maintain at the same level as what we are looking into. This is also based on that we're expecting to do good on our profitability. It's a combination both of a continuous growth, but also on being profitable.
Perfect. Now, I think I have cleared all the questions I got from the outside and my own table and ask here this. So I will let you go, and both to you, Emre, and Claus, and to the audience, may everybody have a nice weekend. Thank you very much.
Thank you.