Hello and welcome to this full year 2023 presentation and Q&A with Konsolidator. With us today we have the CEO and CFO. First there will be a presentation and afterwards a Q&A where the management team will answer questions submitted via Stokk.io. There have already been pre-submitted questions on Stokk.io and the Q&A is still open so that you can submit questions live as well. I will now hand over the mic to Konsolidator to start the presentation. Your line is now open.
Thank you. My name is Claus and I'm the CEO of Konsolidator and I will start this presentation. We have done this before so I believe many of you have seen this presentation before and we are following the same structure that first we will give an overview of what Konsolidator is if there are any newcomers to this presentation and then we will move into the more traditional first a little bit about our growth strategy and then into the 2023 financial numbers which will be taken care of by Jack. So welcome to everyone and again as normal we will expect this presentation to last for around 15-20 minutes before we enter into questions. So first a little bit about Konsolidator. We are a SaaS tool and our vision has always been to be the preferred financial consolidation tool in the world.
So, we are not only focusing on Denmark but is trying to sell our software all over the world, and our mission is to make the CFOs better. We truly believe that the CFO functions the finance managers in the groups that we are running after they will actually become better in their job if they're using our software. So that is our mission. As you can see, we were founded in 2014, so we actually have 10 years of anniversary this year, and as of today we have 268 customers in 22 countries. Yes, and this is what we do. I will not spend a lot of time on this slide, but what I normally say is that what our software is doing is actually fairly complex.
What we do is that we are adding all subsidiaries up to a set of group accounts, and the good thing about our software is that it can handle all these complexities that are in this process of making a financial consolidation. But first, when you have built it as we have in our software, then it's the same method all over the world. So our software is by then truly scalable as we can sell it to all the countries in the world. So complex but the same all over the world. So that's what we will say about the Konsolidator and the software, and now we will move a little bit more into, I think, what it's all about. That's about our growth strategy. We have as of today two funnels how we plan, execute, and predict our growth.
Here are the two ways of growth, and if you start with the one to the left, that is what we call direct sales. That is where we somehow either outbound or inbound are getting meetings with potential customers, conduct the sales meetings, and then hopefully sign a new customers. That is the reason why we're calling that direct because we are conducting all the sales meeting with potential customers and sign. That is how we have run our business, you can say, since we started, and that's where we have the majority of our customers from. As we have only offices in Copenhagen, we are mainly focusing on the Nordics but do have, as I show on the slide before, customers in 22 countries. We can again sell all over the world, but our main focus is on the Nordics.
In there, there's a new point, the next one called ONC that stands for onboarding and consultancy, and we have seen over the past six-12 months an increasing interest from our customers to use our knowledge not only in onboarding but also in utilizing our expertise within the consolidation and, in that regard, also reporting. So we have seen an increased interest in building data warehouses where Konsolidator is delivering the consolidated numbers and then attach that to the ERP system and then produce a data warehouse where we, for example, can make some Power BI reports on top of that.
And of course both because it creates some revenue to us but also because we will know our customers better and there will be a higher amount of stickiness in our product if customers are using this functionality and therefore is something that we are actually going into with more power than we've done before where we for example have hired a new person who will start here 1st of March who has expertise in this field. So we also do see some growth in this area. And then the last one on a direct sale that's upsells and churn together net retention and churn has been a problem for us for the past two years both for internal and external circumstances. So that's of course something that we are working very hard on to reduce our churn but also to increase the upsell potential.
We might get a little bit more into that as well, but our plan and strategy and ambition is always that our Net Retention is higher than 100, meaning that we will always sell more to our existing customer than what we lose. That unfortunately has not been the case in 2023, but we are believing we can get that again in 2024. So all that is what we're covering under direct sales. That is how we have been building the company so far, and that will also continue in the future. But as you can see under annual growth, the potential for growing direct is not that high. It's only 10%-15% because it requires people in our organization, and as we have to and will grow profitable, it's not easy to grow very fast in this channel.
But as you can see further down, we expect in this channel to be profitable as from this year as the ARR expected to be between DKK 21 million and DKK 23 million and the cost below that. So that's a direct sales part. That's also what we internally sometimes call bread and butter because this is where we've had our business for almost 10 years now. But over to the right, that is where you see the potential for where we believe that we can grow very fast and high and the D365 partners, that is Business Central Microsoft Business Central partners, where we hired a person last year in August which I've told about before and we are growing the partner ecosystem and are signing new partners every quarter and expect that there will be a high growth in that in the future.
Besides that, we are also looking into how we can enter new markets. Not only the Nordics, are there other markets out there which could be interesting for us that we are exploring, and we are also seeing whether we can take our product into new segments. Audit, for example, was a new segment which we found a couple of years ago, and maybe there could be other segments out there in the market that could be interesting for us, and there we are also looking at some areas. And then the last one, that's M&A. There could be some products out there which resonate well with Konsolidator and could be taken in as complementary to our current offering. So that we are also looking into. So many interesting areas entering 2024 for high growth.
Yes, and now we will enter into the financial and I will give over the word to Jack.
Well, thank you, Claus. You could say now you see a lot of numbers which Claus has put on for each quarter. I will get a little bit into that but before is we could say our year has been kind of divided into two. The first half we saw our sales conversion drop because of some unplanned changes in our sales department. We did have the meetings but unfortunately the sales conversion was the normal sales conversion as we had before.
A good thing in the first half we had a capital increase in the first half which has been financing some of the operations and so the second half then we had hired new which Claus just mentioned briefly new sales representatives and they have been trained in Konsolidator and we saw our conversion rates go back to the previous levels even up to 24.5% in Q4 which is really good. We saw new opportunities which we also talked about in our annual report. So we ended 2023 on a positive note. Financially 2023 has not been satisfying even though our revenue and EBIT were within our guidance. However the guidance we changed back in August we have succeeded in cutting our costs and now we see the full year effects in our EBIT. Unfortunately our ARR has not been. It's just below our guidance.
Now on the slide here you see each quarter presented and also Q4 2022 where you can see that the revenue is still increasing. The EBIT has fallen. So yeah just to move on Claus please. Here again a lot of numbers to your right where we have the full year, the year- to- date numbers for 2023 and 2022. The annual numbers did see an increase in revenue primarily in subscription because our onboarding consultancy decreased which is still because of less people consultants. And as Claus told you also we have hired one which starts on March 1st and we also have one started on February 1st. So we definitely expect an increase in our onboarding and consultancy.
The EBIT has improved even though it's still a minus but it's improved and that is primarily due to the cost savings where we've gone from average employee from 32 to 24 in 2023. We have a positive equity of DKK 1.3 million and our cash is DKK 1.8 million and we have a credit facility of DKK 2 million. Going to our SaaS metrics you can see at the bottom here we have for each quarter the SaaS metrics which we presented during the year and also year- to- date for 2023 and year- to- date on 2022. These have not been satisfying. We are not satisfied with them. Our ARR is DKK 19.4 million just a little below our expectations for 2023. We also saw a high churn which in Q4 and was also one of the reasons that we did change our guidance back in August.
We see it coming from smaller customers, and what we've done is that we've taken one from our sales department getting in closer contact even closer contact as before with our customers seeing what it is. We believe it's we need to focus on even more on the time to value for our customers in order to get the full benefits of Konsolidator as fast as possible. So yeah, if you go to the next slide, which is the outlook for 2024, we maintain the guidance that we changed a little bit back in August. So we still believe that we will ARR at the end of the year will be between DKK 24 million and DKK 28 million, and those will as Claus mentioned earlier come from some of the new growth opportunities that we see in the market.
So yeah an EBIT between DKK 0 and DKK -5 million and a revenue from DKK 23-DKK 27 million. That was a little bit about the numbers. Going to the next slide is actually our Q&A session.
Perfect. Thank you for that both Jack and Claus. Then let's move directly into the Q&A with the first question here submitted by an investor. End of 2022 you had 259 customers. This year you had a net increase of three customers. What is the expected net growth in terms of customers next year and quarter- by- quarter?
Yes, I can answer that question. Firstly, of course, the net increase of three customers last year was not at all satisfactory. We got around 40 new customers and then we lost 37, so that's the reason why there was only a net increase of 3. So that was not satisfactory. So we hope and believe that we will get more than 40 customers in 2024, but we actually do not forecast on customers and number of customers, and we are slowly moving away from, you can say, counting customers because I mean we can see both with the new initiatives we have and also in general the spread in the ARR per customer is getting wider and wider. So it's actually not the same whether you get one customer for DKK 20,000 in ARR or one customer for DKK 150,000 in ARR per year. It's a big difference.
So for us counting customers is getting less and less relevant also because another reason is also in the audit segment. For example when we have PwC Denmark as a customer that only count as one customer but they consolidate all their customers which we of course also have in our database. So yeah so you can say the KPI of counting customers is kind of getting diluted. The last example is I think we have more than 6,500 CVR numbers because some customers have 10 companies others have three and some have 100. So therefore yeah the number of customers yeah getting a little bit more and more diluted. So we don't forecast on number of customers but on ARR. So therefore I cannot really answer how many customers we expect to get in 2024 and it doesn't really matter to us. It's the ARR that matters.
The next question here is what was the geographical split of the new customers in Q4? In which markets do you see your biggest upside going forward?
Yeah, it's getting a little bit back to what I just said, but I mean Nordics is and was the strongest market, Denmark and Sweden. I believe we have around 80% of our customers in Denmark and Sweden, and we also, I mean, we are in general very strong in Denmark and Sweden, so we do expect that Denmark and Sweden will also be the strongest areas in 2024. But of course we are trying through the partner channel, through other ways of seeing whether we can enter in new markets. That's the reason why under the strategy slide you saw there's something new market because we need to find a way to sell in other markets.
Our product, as I also said in the beginning, fits all markets, but for natural reason we are strong in Denmark and Sweden, but we need to find a way how we can sell our product easier and faster in other markets so we are not so we will not be that dependent of Denmark and Sweden because of course Denmark and Sweden markets are limited. So yeah so we are looking for new markets, but in 2024 the Nordics will still be the strongest as we see it.
Is there a need to raise more capital via the stock market and thereby dilute current shareholders?
It's a very good question, and for a company like ours, I mean, we are always both looking at the company's interest and also the shareholders' interest when we are discussing to raise capital. We are always open. You also saw on the slide there was some M&A, so whenever we believe that it's in the best interest both for the company and the shareholders, we will raise capital. So I cannot say neither that we will or that we won't. We will always take it if there is a good opportunity out there and we believe it's in both the company and in the shareholders' interest of raising money. So yeah, so that's how we see it, and that's our strategy in terms of raising capital.
How can revenue be less than ARR?
I will answer this question. Revenue is for a period in time, meaning that for 2023 that is the revenue we realized in the whole 2023. The ARR annual recurring revenue is a number calculated on an exact date, and ours ARR was DKK 19.4 at December 31st 2023. This means that, and that is the revenue 12 months forward. This means if we sign a contract on December 30th of DKK 100,000 that DKK 100,000 will not be part of our revenue. So yeah.
Perfect. The next question. Churn has been a focus area for some time but in Q4 you still see an increase in churn to now 10.9%. Can you be specific in what kind of efforts you are doing to get churn down and why we should expect this to fall in 2024?
That is also a great question. I touched upon it a little bit in my presentation. What we've seen in Q4 is primarily from smaller customers churning and we believe it's the time to value specifically because it's been hard. Financially it's been hard for smaller companies so they look at their cost. But we still believe it makes sense to have Konsolidator. So what we've done is we've want to get proactively more in touch with our customers. So one of our salesperson has moved into the customer success to assist us here in order to get in touch with the customers, try to find ways to make sure that they are using Konsolidator, looking a lot more into how are they using Konsolidator, is that the most optimal way, can we improve that way for them so they can see the benefits.
And also the whole onboarding part, how can we get them the onboarding as fast as possible in order for them to see the value as fast as possible. So yeah.
The next question here. From 2021 to 2023 accumulated EBIT loss is at above -DKK 56 million with an revenue increase of a bit over DKK 6 million. A lot of capital has been spent in this period. What are the three main things you have learned in this period that makes you wiser and more efficient in the next three years?
Yeah, thank you. The DKK 6 million, starting with that, that is definitely not satisfactory also for the money spent. There cannot be two arguments for that. That's for sure. But of course the DKK 6 million in new in increased revenue, that's ARR revenue mainly. So of course there is a customer lifetime value for that which is a bit higher than 6. You actually count the DKK 6 million as DKK 60 million worth if you have a churn of around 10. So of course the DKK 6 million cannot be isolated alone to the 56. The DKK 56 million in EBIT has been the investment and you only got DKK 6 million increased revenue for that period which is below satisfaction but still the value of those 6 is higher than the DKK 6 million because of the customer lifetime value which you always need to look at when you look at the SaaS companies.
However, what we have learned and we have learned a lot, obviously, one thing is that's also represented in, you can say, in the strategy slide: one thing is that when you reach a certain level which we have, then it's not possible to grow high on direct sales alone. That is too costly. So we need to find other ways of growing fast. Partner strategy has always been something that we have looked at and discussed and tried. It's not easy. We can see now that the trend of converting on-premise ERP system to cloud ERP system especially Navision from Microsoft to Business Central is something that resonated very well with our product and customer type. So we can see that we have some, what is it called, tailwind. Is that what it's called in English on this market.
We do see a much higher interest from Business Central partners to put Konsolidator on top of Business Central implementation. That is something we have learned. We need to crack that channel strategy and we believe that we are going very well in that direction. Now partners are contacting us also for other ERP systems. That is definitely a challenge that we believe is something that we can benefit from in the future. Then also these other things like the segments that we are talking about where we have seen audit as a segment where others can use our product same product but maybe wrapped in a little bit differently. We are also investigating whether we can see Konsolidator used in other fields than what it was originally expected. Same engine, same software, same way of doing it but can be used in different ways.
There we also have some areas. And then, as we also talked about both, I mean, can you see complementary product out there, for example, budget and planning, for example, some Power BI solution, for example, some data warehouse solution, something where either a transaction or close a partnership could be relevant. So all this together, we need to find channels where we can grow on what we call on the back of someone else's shoulder in order to grow high. So that is what we have learned. Direct sale alone is not a solution for high growth for us. I would not say anymore, as you also saw, we can still grow 10%-15% on that channel alone, which is also 10%-15%, but in order to get up around the 50%, which is our target, then we need other ways.
We are exploring that and we have actually explored that very deeply and closely since last summer. Sorry for that little long answers but there was a lot of things to it.
That was perfect. What are your plans to accelerate growth and product development? Is your focus more local or global?
I think you can actually both answer that, but I can start. I mean, in general, when we come with a new functionality, product development for example, I think we will release—or not, I think we will release—something what is called Advanced Intercompany Elimination here in Q1 or in Q2. And that product functionality can be used all over the world. So I mean, again, our product is global. So whenever we do something, it's always for a global focus to be utilized all over the world. So that is always the case. And we do believe that this product development, for example, this Advanced Intercompany Elimination, can take our product up to a higher level.
I mean, then we can reach out to larger customers that pays more, so both our total addressable market will increase because we can go up in the market and we can also charge a bit more for it. So it actually go many of the new functionalities that we have on our roadmap is something which can both expand total addressable market but also can increase the prices and then yeah make more money both because of the market size and because of the prices. That's our strategy.
How are you working with innovation to add products that are complementary to the consolidation process and can increase your TAM?
Okay, maybe I answered a little bit of that already, but I think actually what we talked about, this data warehouse which we also talked about, we can see that Konsolidator is a standalone consolidation tool. You add numbers from your ERP system into Konsolidator and then we do the consolidation and then traditionally then you pull out the numbers from Konsolidator to make your report. We have seen this increasing interest that customers want to have one data warehouse with ERP numbers and Konsolidator numbers and then extract both the analysis and the report from that data warehouse. There are some opportunities there either that should we do a little bit more on consultancy, could we make some reporting based on ARR, could we also add budget and planning into that universe which is also a natural part of the finance function.
So, either through, you can say, acquisition, partnerships, building it yourself, to see how we can again expand TAM and increase what we call ARPU, average rate per unit. I mean, what's the average price a customer is paying. So, increase ARPU, expand TAM.
I can also add that another thing would be we have a product committee looking at things to do, but the whole ESG agenda—they also need to consolidate their numbers for all the listed companies need this year or the next year to—I think it's next year—to consolidate their ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) data. And that would Konsolidator be great to do doing the whole consolidation process for that. So obviously that is also something that we are looking into and trying to develop.
Then we have the final question here. Some SaaS companies in Denmark has been upgrading guidance lately spending less than first anticipated and seeing a bit of recovery in the market. How are you seeing the market for your product? Is it recovering or still challenging?
Yeah, 2023 was challenging, and I think 2023 was challenging for us for both internal and external reasons. The internal reason we can solve ourselves, right? I mean, we had a bit of a high staff turnover, and there was a capital raise as Jack said in the beginning. So we believe that all the internal reasons for a difficult 2023 has been solved and was actually solved as from August September. So with that regard we are much more optimistic about 2024. For external reasons that's of course a bit more difficult to predict, but we all know that it seems like the interest rates will fall and that definitely has an indirect impact on us. When other companies are challenging then either they look of can they save some money could they replace Konsolidator going back to Excel spreadsheet or do some go bankrupt and stuff like that.
The external factors is of course a little bit more unpredictable, but as I know you all follow it that it seems like 2024 is going to be a little bit less challenging than 2023 and 2022. So yeah, we are definitely more optimistic today than we was a year ago.
That actually finalizes the Q&A. Before we end I will hand over the word for you for any final remarks.
To me, I mean, thank you again for listening. We are so happy that so many signs up for this event. I mean, a lot of we are optimists as we also say in the headline for the announcement. We are really optimistic about 2024. We think there are so many great opportunities out there that we hope that we can get something out of those. So stay tuned.
Yeah, thank you.