Warm welcome to LeadDesk's earnings call for 2021. I think we have everybody on the call now, so we can begin. Big thanks for joining in our success and great to have you all on the call. I will be presenting on the call and together with our CFO. If you have any questions and answers, then there's a time reserved at the end of the presentation when you can then get your questions answered. If you have any questions, please post them in the chat. The presentation is gonna be focusing on four things. Firstly, I'm gonna be giving a short introduction to LeadDesk, what the company is, what it does, and where we are.
Secondly, we are going to look at the material events of last year, and then focusing on the key figures. Lastly, we'll be looking at this year and how 2022 is looking for LeadDesk. On the call, we have myself, Olli Nokso-Koivisto. I'm the Group CEO for LeadDesk, and together presenting, I have also our Interim CFO, Paul Stenbäck, who will be presenting the key figures later on in the presentation. Paul.
Yes. Hello, everyone, also from my side. Name's Paul Stenbäck, the Interim CFO of the company. My background is firstly with M&A consulting at Ernst & Young, and after that I've done work as CFO for a few tech growth companies, including being the first CFO of LeadDesk back in the day. The company is familiar. The reason why I'm here remotely and not next to Olli is that I caught a bit of a flu earlier in the week, so it's better that I remain remote today. Back to you, Olli.
Thanks, Paul. Firstly, on LeadDesk, my favorite topic. Nowadays, the Nordic market is a very important market for us and we can see ourselves as a leader in the whole of the Nordic markets. On top of that, the whole European markets have become home territory for us and we excel across the European landscape. This is a very important factor also when considering the strategy of the company and the expansion of the business. We are proud to say that we are one of the leaders also in the European CCaaS space, meaning the Contact Center as a Service space, focusing on the customer support and sales-based contact centers of Europe.
Our purpose and why we are so enthusiastic to come to work every day is that we believe that by providing intelligent solutions for contact center agents across Europe, for all those customer service and sales agents across Europe, we can really provide for happy customer experiences, together with our customers. With our software, they can really take their customer experiences to another level. They can service their customers better, more enthusiastically. They can be there together with their customers. Our target is to lead the whole European CCaaS market, and we now set the target last year for ourselves to reach EUR 100 million in revenues to show for that. There are not many European players on the market, and we believe by reaching this target, we can be the clear number one.
Looking at the software in itself, we focus on the first line of the customer experience. Our customers typically have large scale operations in customer service and sales, and they have high volume first line for both customer service and sales. We really excel in providing in that space. That's the space we are really focusing on the first line of both sales and customer service. For the most, for the people who've seen this slide before, you might recognize the gradient towards the CRM and support software.
We've actually added this to showcase the commitment we have towards providing really integrated solutions together with the CRM solutions as well as the support ticketing software, so that the escalation paths from the first line then towards the more complex business processes handled on the back-end can be managed as fluently as possible. This is super important for us going forward.
If we look at the space more directly, why we are where we are and why the position is so crucial, and the software stack we provide is so crucial for our customers, is that when you are talking about high volumes of customer communication, it's super important to service the customers, the end customers, the consumers, and the B2B customers at the right time when they need help, when they need contact them and connect them with the right person to solve their issues. Bring the right issue, right solution into the space with AI solutions and create knowledge management and management solutions, as well as then service the customers in the right channel.
The last part here is becoming more and more important as more modern, communication methods are being implemented across enterprises as well as SMEs. Looking at our solution, we are moving to becoming the center of all the customer communication at our customers. We are the hub where the customer communication gathers, where it is then distributed and handled and sent onwards. This is provided by our CPaaS platform on the right-hand side here, marked by the conversations part, where we take all those customer conversations, put them into one harmonized system, so they can be managed and handled efficiently. The second part of the value is providing world-class user interfaces for the contact center agents to service both omnichannel customer service cases, sales, mobile for the remote workforce, and talk for those crucial ecosystem integrations.
In this mix this year, we've also brought in now GetJenny, our intelligent chatbot that we came to us through an acquisition in the summer. Also, looking then at the next step, for those cases that cannot be handled in the first line, then we have a great set of integrations to back-end systems to help out in solving all those, cases that are super important for our customers. Supporting this, we also have workforce engagement solutions for real-time reporting management for those team leaders in the contact center wanting to get the best out of every agent and working together with them in order to succeed, as well as then other engagement solutions where our customers can be more engaged with their employees. As we all know, the landscape is changing. Employees are a scarce resource.
They are things to be valued instead of used. As such, we provide the best tools to really value and bring the best out of your employees. That's about the solution. If we look at the company where we have grown, originally from Finland, we have now expanded to be a European company with offices and market established in the Central Europe, with major part of the growth also coming from outside of the domestic market. Here you can see that we are servicing our customers all the way from north of Norway, all the way down to south of Spain. Really being a European company, and we have now both the infrastructure as well as the customer base to support this.
To service customers now and in the future, we have to, of course, also act globally at the same time. Our software is on a global level, and we can compete against the best in class in our industry, and we also have the infrastructure in order to support global customers across continents. This is of course highlighted by some of the wins we have got, that we have also had releases on, throughout the year. At the same time, we have the company infrastructure, the business infrastructure set up in Europe with the tight focus now, to really bring in that growth. But at the same time, we are a global software, and our software can provide for the global markets. That's LeadDesk in brief. Now looking at then the material events in 2021.
We look at what we promised to achieve in 2021. We promised strong organic growth, which we delivered, especially looking at our ARR numbers, which include the enterprise deals that we closed in the late part of the year. We are in a very good position to deliver organic growth also then on the revenue side in the future. Here, I just want to distinguish that when we are talking about ARR, we're talking Silicon Valley language, meaning that that's the booked revenue. It's not our licensed revenue or recurring revenue times twelve. It's the booked revenue, which is forward booking. I see that even though we had a rough third quarter with some setbacks, even though those we managed a good year. Looking at our offering, we've extended our offering.
You've seen the previous slides evolve throughout the reports that we've given. We are really focusing on, at the same time, extending the product offering and getting that into the market, as well as then, of course, through the acquisitions, adding great parts to our solution, which would take too much time to develop ourselves. We also promised to focus on integration. Looking at our integrations, I calculated that we have five acquisitions in the past, and four of them I would consider big successes. We've then the one highlighted in the report, Loxysoft Sweden, having troubles then last year, especially in the second half. Even for the Loxysoft Sweden, we have managed to secure now the revenue, and it's been on a slight increase at the end of the year.
We are still focusing, of course, on non-organic growth, which we delivered on, in the summer with the GetJenny integration. Going into the figures, I'll leave it over to Paul.
Thank you, Olli. I will review a few of the key financials of the company. As Olli mentioned, we are a European company and becoming even more so, which is also shown in the numbers. Our international share of revenue increased from 49% to 61% in fiscal year 2021, which is the right track that we want to go towards. Those of you who have seen this slide before notice that France is of a different color than before. We have a fair number of customers and growing revenue in the country already. We're in the process of setting up a local team and subsidiary in Paris. So far, the customers have been serviced from the Dutch office. Next slide, please.
This is really the most important graph of them all. It's simple, but it tells a great story. 2021 was a good year in terms of revenue growth. We grew with a total of 78%, ending up at roughly EUR 24.6 million in revenue. The two main drivers of the growth was the Loxysoft acquisition, which included the entities, one in Norway and one in Sweden, was closed in January 2021. We've seen a good amount of organic growth within both our SME and enterprise-level customers throughout Europe. Next. Thank you. A few more KPIs.
Our EUR 24.6 million revenue is split across 1,500 customers. Which means we're not very dependent on any single customer. Our employee headcount increased significantly from just over 100 last or 2020, and now close to 200, coming from both the acquisitions that we've done, but also from a stellar recruitment performance throughout 2021. Our ARR grew actually even faster than revenue with 86% ending up in roughly EUR 22 million. As Olli mentioned, it gives a good base for our revenue growth going into 2022. Finally, EBITDA, the most important profitability measure is solidly profitable also in 2021.
We added a cohort analysis graph to this year's annual report as it gives a few good insights into where we are with the business and to what happened in 2021 and also what's coming up for 2022. What this graph shows is basically the recurring revenue development over time. That's the x-axis. The time is x-axis and revenue is y-axis. These different colors represent the year when the customers became LeadDesk customers. For example, the lowermost part is customers that became LeadDesk customers in 2016 or earlier. Then going upwards, it's 2017, 2018 and so on and so forth.
Three takeaways that I would like you to take out of this. First of all, the old customer cohorts looking at 2016 to 2019 are very stable and generate revenue over time and have even been increasing over time, which indicates good revenue retention. This is really the beauty of the SaaS model that once you acquire a customer and keep them happy as we've so far succeeded in LeadDesk, they generate revenue for a long period of time. The second takeaway is the 2020 year, which is the second highest color on the graph, which behaves slightly differently compared to the other cohorts.
We had a really good year in 2020. Organic growth was strong, and one of the drivers there was the remote work trend caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many customers, for example, changed their field sales into telesales during that year because of the circumstances. However, what we then saw in 2021 and in particular in the third quarter, we saw that some of these customers have now returned to a more normal operational model, which means that they've reduced their usage of LeadDesk during the second half of the year. However, now in early 2022 numbers indicate that the decline has now turned and is stable again.
Finally, the third takeaway is the uppermost part of the graph which shows new sales in 2021, which has been strong. And in terms of new sales, it's one of our best years. And we expect that to continue in 2022 as well. The last slide, please. This one. Yes. Thank you. A few more. We've talked about a few of these topics already, but I'm gonna choose a few more KPIs to comment on. Revenue grew really well.
Comparable revenue when we adjust for a change in accounting, in revenue recognition principles and for our acquisitions, the revenue growth was roughly 15%. Our EBITDA, as mentioned, remained on a good level. If you wonder why the EBIT, so the next profitability measure on the P&L is worse than the previous year. The main reason behind that is that it is impacted by goodwill amortization from our acquisitions and particularly from the Loxysoft acquisition. That makes the comparability between those two not very good.
Finally, as shown by the equity net gearing KPIs on this chart, our balance sheet remains strong, despite the significant M&A transactions and loan financing that we've taken to fund those. We are in a good position to go into 2022. That's all from financial point of view for the moment. Back to you, Olli.
Thanks, Paul, and thanks for the very good presentation on the numbers. Looking then at 2022, moving forward from last year, if we look at the strategy we have for 2022, we are maintaining our strong organic growth and we are investing in growth. As said previously on the call, we are setting up the French office in Paris, and then we'll have local setup also in France. We will be extending our offering and taking already developed products into the market through the year. As well as then we are working on our M&A pipeline and really striving for good deals on that front.
Here, we've indicated that as the valuations of the private market are still pretty high considering the weather outside, we expect that this is hindering a little bit on the process, but we are hard at work there and see good process opportunities on that front as well. Lastly, as I talked earlier when presenting the company, we are looking at the ecosystems and partners. On the partner side, for example, the deal together with CrossPoint is a significant move from our part, as they are our first major channel partner. As well as then looking at the ecosystems, looking at the major global ecosystems and our positioning within that space. Our growth in 2022 will be on four fronts.
Firstly, strong organic growth, extending our offering and taking our products into the markets, looking at the opportunities on the non-organic growth side. Lastly, looking at the ecosystems, global ecosystems and our partners and channels. Through this, we see that the outlook for 2022, we expect that the company will grow 13%-23% annual growth in 2022, and we expect positive profitability as measured in EBITDA and operating cash flows. This outlook does not consider impact of significant acquisitions on the revenue or the profitability. Here, on top of this, we have now communicated that we will be reporting and giving a business update. We will be giving a business update for the first quarter so that you get info more frequently than before.
We've also said that we are looking into now reporting in IFRS for this year, so meaning the annual accounts published early next year. We have a strong independent board with strong expertise both from the private equity markets and from the B2B markets, marketing as well as auditing. We have a super strong board composed of independent board members with the independence that the company needs to succeed in the future as well. Looking at the investment story, we are continuing on a strong international growth. We are focusing on strong international growth, which we also support through M&A. We've remained stably growing and profitable, and we can really provide for a scalable and efficient solution. One proof of this is our new enterprise customers.
We also remain innovative and pioneering, and you can expect for our product offering to evolve also in the future. There's a strong investment that we really bring good shareholder value now and in the future. That's it for the presentation, but I'll thank you for my part at this point, and happy to take any questions you might have. Please post them on the chat, or if you want, you can also open the mic. Jaakko, go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon. It's Jaakko here from SEB, and thanks for having the questions. Regarding the ARR in the end of the year, just to confirm, where all the major deals that you've announced during the past six or seven months now, were all those deals included in the year-end ARR, also including the Sparbanken deal?
Sparbanken deal, which was announced in January, right?
Yeah.
Yes. Paul?
Yes. Sparbanken then was not included as it was signed and announced in January. It will show up on this side of the year. All the others were included. However, there are still significant upsell opportunities on those deals. We are obviously hoping that we can increase the amount of ARR that we get from those large clients.
Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Still continuing on the sales cohorts that you provided, and by the way, thanks, that's very helpful information for us. Regarding the COVID impact and the 2020 cohort, could you confirm that that's the negative impact is mainly and only because of the reduced use of the services and not because of ending customer relationships?
They are both there, but it's mainly due to reduced usage, as there have been also quite a few bankruptcies, for example, happening. From the management side, there has not been like any significant like change of systems to some competing system, for example, if that is the essence of the question maybe.
Right.
Yeah. Mainly due to reducing usage, some bankruptcies, also related somewhat to COVID.
Okay. Thank you. One on the Loxysoft Sweden, which obviously saw some challenges during 2021. But could you give some color on the development in Loxysoft Norway? Have they been growing during 2021 still and how the growth compares to the group average growth, organic growth if I may?
Yes. Loxysoft Norway has been a success, and it has been growing last year. It did not fully offset the decline in the Swedish side, but it has been growing. It's basically pretty much a separate business in that it was actually from Loxysoft group through an acquisition in their past. It's focusing mainly on the large end of customers and the enterprise customers. For example, the deal that you mentioned on the banking side in Norway, that is pretty much due to that acquisition. As well as then we announced a Finnish energy company as well.
I believe that we would not have won that deal without the acquisition and especially the Norwegian business. There's been good upside from the Norwegian Loxysoft deal.
Okay. Great. Thanks. A follow-up on the international share of revenue, which I calculate was just 53% in the second half. This is quite a notable decline from first half when you had, if I recall correctly, 69%. Is the rather steep decline in the share of international revenue mainly because of the Loxysoft Sweden, or have your Finnish operations just been performing so well?
also we calculate all GetJenny revenue as Finnish revenue at the moment.
Okay. Good. Good one. Yeah.
Paul, if you want to extend.
I was about to say the same thing. Yes. The driver of if you compare H1 to H2 is GetJenny. Because that impacts most of second half, but none of the first half.
Well, thanks. That explains. Thank you. That's all from my part now.
Thanks. Thanks, Jaakko. Any other questions? If no other questions, I would like to warmly thank you all for joining in this call and in our success. I hope to see you then in a few months again. Thanks everybody, and have a great relaxing weekend.