Welcome to this Lemonsoft Strategy Update webcast presentation. Today, we'll first recap our achievements during the recent four-year strategic period from 2021 to 2025. After that, I will present our updated strategy for the next three-year period from 2026 to 2028. First, a short recap on where we are at or where we've been in the past four years. Basically, during the strategic period, we've transformed from a private ERP company to a publicly listed multi-product B2B software company. Our net sales have more than doubled from EUR 13.6 million in 2020, before the beginning of the strategic period, to nearly EUR 30 million during the last 12-month period. Adjusted EBIT has grown from EUR 4.4 million to EUR 6.9 million during the last 12-month period. We've completed acquisitions of a total of 10 software products, with roughly EUR 12 million in revenue at the time of the acquisitions.
From a technological point of view, we've made a complete transformation journey in our ERP, moving from a desktop-focused ERP solution hosted in our own data center to a web-based ERP in Azure Cloud Infrastructure. Also, our other products within the group are all run fully in cloud infra. From a product portfolio overview, we've expanded from core ERP products to a multi-product B2B software portfolio. Our organization, as well, has transformed from one main team focused on one main product to an integrated team with shared admin and business development functions, with capabilities for further growth. We are not still happy with where we've been in the past two years with our organic growth. We have very high ambition levels for growth, both organically and inorganically, with acquisitions. We will definitely be growing aggressively in the years to come.
We see, actually, very good growth opportunities, both in Finland and nearby markets. Let's jump into our strategy for 2026 and 2028. We'll first take a look at how we see the future of ERP. ERP is the segment where we are and where we play. That's our environment. We'll take a look at what we will be focusing on in the years to come. We've divided these into four distinct areas, looking at the customer segments, the product categories that we play in, the organization that we want to achieve these goals with, and finally, the value-driven M&A that supports our growth and profit targets. We'll also take a look at why customers really choose us and where we need to be excellent to achieve these targets. Finally, we'll take a look at our brief financial targets for the period.
Looking at the market from afar, we think that ERP is the most crucial target area for Lemonsoft. Lemonsoft has, during the past 20 years, grown into a leading player in vertical ERP software in Finland. Vertically focused software solutions are increasingly competitive, even in the AI era. The vertical and local compliance structures provide a competitive advantage for players like us. Secondly, we also see that the ERP is used by different types of users, different types of customers in different environments. Some use ERP in office desk work, some use it on production floor level, as well as in field services, mobile work. For all of these, we need to provide different types of UI solutions. Finally, AI is moving from LLM model enhancement to industry process workflow automation. This is something we want to be active in.
We will focus on developing processes to eliminate manual work, remove process errors, and enable smart analysis of large data sets. Independent AI agents make this transformation possible as well. This is how we see the ERP developing. Next, I will go through how we aim to answer these questions. What we'll be focusing on is basically described in this slide. We are active; basically, Lemonsoft's vision is to be the leading ERP software provider solution for SMEs in chosen customer verticals in Finland. This has been our vision for a long time and continues to serve as such. We focus on four distinct areas. We want to be the market leader in the selected focus segments that we play. For us, that means that we want to be the number one player in manufacturing and wholesale in Finland.
Secondly, we want to be creating category-defining solutions for those areas that we play. That means that we want to have category leadership in each key product area. We have, for example, work-time management. We want to have a deep solution that wins in that area. We have a maintenance management solution where we want to be the leading player. We have logistic cost optimization areas that we want to be the leading provider in. Thirdly, we want to have an organization that is as excellent as possible to support in the first two areas. We will focus resources. We will recruit talent to these priority areas. We will prioritize everything from a manufacturing and wholesale point of view. We will create a model from an HR management perspective that supports these targets.
We will also develop an organization, and we are quite far in that, developing an organization that has a clear two-step model for portfolio management and sharing best practices with the acquired products as well. Finally, we will be investing in value-driven M&A. We will be investing in targets, especially in our key product segments and customer segments that support where we play. We want to acquire products. We want to acquire talent. We want to make efficient capital allocation decisions, both in M&A and other areas, operations, as well as dividend distribution and acquiring our own shares. All of these serve as functions for our strong profit growth in the strategic period. I will go through all of these segments in detail and describe how we want to win in each area.
First of all, looking at the customer segments that we play in, our key focus area is in manufacturing and wholesale. We are active in multiple industries, but the most important industries are manufacturing and wholesale, which bring roughly 60% of our total revenue. Our wide and deep offering serves these sectors perfectly. We will prioritize strongly our investments into these core industries, for example, through sales and marketing investments, product development, talent recruitments, and key acquisitions, which are all directed towards this target. The extended industries are sectors that are close to our core industries, but either their needs or our offering to them are not as deep, as wide as in our core industries. We basically extend our core industry solutions into these industries and additionally serve these customers with deep point solutions, typically which we have acquired.
We will also make selective investments into extended industries and consider some smaller add-on acquisitions to these sectors. Finally, we have a wide administrative solution offering, which we utilize to serve core and extended industries. Roughly 30% of our revenue comes from other than core or extended industry customers, though almost all of our customers use the general admin solution. Additionally, we do have a customer segment focused on easy-to-buy, easy-to-use self-service products that are focused towards micro companies. These solutions are typically invoicing and work-time management solutions. We have roughly 8,000 micro companies. These companies bring roughly 5% of our revenue in total. Looking at the same from a product point of view, we have in our core industries, our main product is Lemonsoft, which we then complement with several deep point solutions which support that offering.
The other solutions that are focused only towards extended industries are construction software solutions, bringing roughly 10% of our revenue. In the general SME customer segment, our key solutions are focused on financial management and work-time and salary management. Looking at the same from a product point of view, from a product and infrastructure point of view, we have a strong technological base. We have a hybrid infrastructure where we strongly emphasize cloud solutions. Basically, all products currently run in the cloud. As we see ERP systems increasingly used in different environments, we want to serve our products with different types of UI. In addition to web-based solutions, we provide mobile and desktop solutions. Going forward, AI will be more and more important as developing LLM-based solutions develop. We want to bring that as another UI set, for example, through speak-directed solutions.
AI as a whole, we want to develop the efficiency within our own operations. We want to develop innovative solutions for our customers. We want to improve our customer centricity and increase clients' use or enhance the clients' use of our software. All of this base supports the product portfolio on top of that, which starts on a general level from CRM, financial management, HR, work-time tracking solutions for general SME companies and micro companies, which then support also extended industries and core industries, which focus more on production planning, supply chain optimization, smart warehouse solutions, asset management solutions, project management, and resource management. Looking at why customers really choose us, we have defined three different areas where we want to be best at to win in the Finnish segments that we've chosen.
First is what I just described from a deep and wide solution perspective. The client needs to be able to have the whole set of solutions that we want to serve them, but also they need to be able to purchase only one, two, three different products in different areas that support them best. Secondly, we want to provide really high value for money. This changes a bit depending on what type of product we are serving. If we provide an ERP solution which has a really wide set of software solutions on top of that, the value for money may be the value may be very high, and then the total price may be a bit higher. The total cost of ownership is still really much lower than the actual value received by the client.
On the other hand, if you provide a self-service solution, we might be competing more with price, where we want to provide the easiest solution with the lowest price to the customer. Finally, we will serve high-quality services for the customers, and we want to have the most satisfied customers in the chosen segments. We'll improve our basic customer service operations. We will provide the required services on top of that so that customers know how to use the solutions best. These three areas will define the ERP that shapes basically the industries that we are in. We want to be the one player that defines what the ERP looks like in these segments, in these areas. How our organization supports that? We've been developing our management team in the past 12 months towards a wide, deep expertise in this field.
I act as the CEO, Kari Joki-Hollanti, the founder of the company, will continue to act as Chief Development Officer, focusing on long-term development projects. Mari Erkkilä has been acting as the CFO for 10 years, and Janne Tammi has acted as the CTO for a year now. We've now added to our management team Chief Sales Officer, Jarno Lehikoinen, who will jump into the helm of sales and marketing functions in a few weeks' time, and Kari Yli-Hakuni, who is focusing on product management. We also have a very strong board of directors, which has been in place for three years now with the current setup: Christoffer Häggblom, the chairman; Kari Joki-Hollanti; Michael Richter; Saila Miettinen-Lähde; and Ilkka Hiidenheimo as board members.
Finally, we have very simple, clear financial targets where we focus on increasing our adjusted EBIT on an average annual basis for the three-year period from 2026 to 2028. We will basically achieve these profit growth targets through increasing market share in our core industries, as well as putting in place a tighter cost control. Depending on the market situation, we will balance these targets, the growth investments, and the tighter cost control, depending on what the market looks like. In all market situations, cost control is a very critical factor in achieving our consistent profit growth targets. On top of that, we do acquisitions, and we will be investing in further products in Finnish and nearby markets. That basically outlines our targets and strategy for the next three-year period. I will move on to the moderator, and let's see if we have questions to be answered.
Yes, we have some.
The first question goes: Is average adjusted EBIT growth of 25% during 2025 to 2028 calculated so that 2025 EBIT is the base level?
Yes, definitely. Basically, we are looking at three-year annual average growth from 2025 revenue figures to the 2028 revenue, our adjusted EBIT. The next question goes: What's the impact of M&A on your financial targets? We will be focusing on achieving roughly 10%-15% M&A growth to the adjusted EBIT profit growth. That's not the clear target, but that's a rough guideline on where we focus on.
What kind of return on invested capital you are targeting when doing M&A?
We typically try to achieve roughly 15%-25% return on invested capital. Typically, if we do more cash cow-based investments, we might have a bit of a different return on invested capital requirement.
Typically, we want to be on the higher end of the 15%-25% return.
Do you have any internal targets for free cash flow conversion from adjusted EBIT?
We've historically been somewhere around almost at 100%. We've been at some points during the last strategic period around 75%-85%, but we aim to get that quite close to 100%. We do not have at the moment a clear target for that, but around there.
What are the key risks that you would not be able to achieve your financial target?
The two most important things are basically achieving our sales objectives and achieving the organic growth target. The second point is to achieve the M&A acquisition targets. Those two provide the biggest numbers.
Of course, there's another threat: customer churn, which, of course, if we wouldn't be able to keep the customer base that we now have, that would be a huge risk. That's also, of course, something that we've always put a lot of emphasis on. Basically, achieving a good market position and growing that with our sales activities is the most important target.
Consolidation in Nordic ERP software markets has increased in recent years. Why do target companies want to join the Lemonsoft family?
Good question. If you look at the options of smaller software companies and the founders, they typically have a few options. If they want to grow fast, they would go for additional financing, maybe from a venture capital company or angel investors or something like that. If they want to sell the whole business, they have private equity investors, they have some strategic buyers.
Looking at the core markets that we are active in, if you look at industrial manufacturing, wholesale-focused players that are not growing, let's say, 100% a year, but somewhere around 10%-30% a year, and want to accelerate that growth while maintaining some type of independence and getting support from admin functions, information security functions, and so on, we can provide a perfect home for that type of businesses.
Has the increased M&A competition affected valuation levels of target companies?
I think I've answered this question in the past four years with pretty much the same words. We have quite a structured view on how we value companies, and that has quite little to do with the current market feelings or situation. Basically, we target the same type of companies with the same type of valuation targets.
From the founder or seller point of view, at some point, there has been, of course, somewhat inflated expectations. From our point of view, the situation has remained pretty much the same. There are a few competitors that pay quite high prices for different reasons, but we want to be quite disciplined.
Any plans for international expansion during the strategy period?
Yeah, as you noted, probably from the presentation, we do not have a clear international expansion target. We are constantly, and during the previous strategy period, we also evaluated a lot of opportunities in the nearby markets, and we will continue to do that. We have not set a definite target on how much we want to expand internationally.
Any updates on capital allocation priorities?
The first priority is, of course, finding operative and inorganic investment targets for our capital. That is the main objective.
Basically, from the point of view of investing large amounts of capital, the main priority is acquisitions. Secondly, if we do not see good enough targets at a specific point in time, we will then use other options on our playbook, which basically are dividends and share buybacks.
Are you seeing any signs of improvement in your markets?
The markets have been for, let's say, 12 months' time, they have been looking like they have been showing short or, let's say, small improvement from a negative to neutral and then towards a positive outcome. Changing from the neutral situation to the positive one has been slower than we have expected. During the fall of 2025, we have seen some fluctuating development. We see some signs of improvement. We have not seen the full results yet, but we see positive signals from the market and our customers.
Many of our customers have, let's say, a 6-12 months positive outline. Some signs, yeah.
Could you give some examples of your AI tools/solutions in development?
Depending on if you look at internal or external solutions, we've been testing and implementing a lot of tools to our internal use, especially our product development uses several different AI tools. We also are developing our own proprietary AI solutions, one of which, for example, we've implemented into Lemonsoft's ERP product solution that basically you can, from a chat point of view, you can discuss with the ERP. We've learned or coached the ERP with our whole guidelines to how to use the ERP, and then you can actually create specific functions directly by chatting with the ERP. That's one solution.
For a longer time period, in some products, we've had customer service tools, basically AI answering customer questions, and then our customer service functions supporting and reviewing the questions and answers and making sure the quality is high. Those are some of the easiest ones. We are developing more production-focused solutions that would streamline the use of customers. We will come back to those later.
You refer to selective acquisitions as one of your key parts of strategy. In the last strategy period, you made several acquisitions every year. Is this selective acquisition strategy similar or more cautious than the previous phase?
That's a good question. By selective acquisitions, we mean that we are focusing on basically two parts. In the core segments, we try to acquire businesses that fit perfectly well into the product portfolio, but especially into the end customer profile.
Companies that serve the same market than our manufacturing and wholesale strategy. Secondly, we do selective acquisitions in extended industries and the general SME market. Those products are typically either fairly small and have a very high market share in a specific niche product or customer area, or they might be expanding our customer base in an existing area. That basically means somewhat similar strategy as before for the acquisitions. The difference would be that we focus more on the core industries.
What is the status of professional services automation and accounting firms' verticals? These verticals used to consume part of total sales in 2020. Can you clarify how these have developed financially, and what are the plans for these verticals looking forward?
Yeah, professional services automation customer segment provides something like 10%-20% of our revenue.
It's fairly big in terms of customer number and revenue figures. On the other hand, the products that we serve them with are typically the same type of general products that we can serve other industries as well. That's why we don't define that as a specific segment. On the other hand, accounting firms are basically a go-to-market strategy for smaller companies as well as some medium-sized companies. That's basically just a channel for us. That's still a very important aspect for us, and we'll continue to serve accounting firms well and try to also enhance our partnerships with those companies.
Do you believe your wide and deep industry solutions are more competitive than your generalist solution? If so, why?
Definitely.
The deepest solutions that we have and the best-fit solution to manufacturing and wholesale companies are the type of solutions that basically, if we compare to our competitors' product offering, we can provide as deep or deeper solution than they can, and we can, on top of that, provide a much wider solution offering. We feel that that's something that our competitors have or are also struggling to create such a wide solution. The generalist solutions are basically mainly a tool to support the core industry offering. As such, if we compete in financial management or some wider HR management type of segment, we will not most probably be the best or the most desired solution in those product areas. In specific areas such as work time management, we are very strong, and we have a very good competitive edge.
That has a lot to do with the local compliance requirements. From an overall point of view, the deep industry solutions are more competitive.
Could you open up your M&A integration model a little bit more?
Yeah, we have two different models. We have actually combined, let's say, half of the acquired products into Lemonsoft Oyj mother company. We then integrated the whole organization into Lemonsoft. We then run that function from a product manager point of view. The product manager basically defines the direction of the business and defines the needs for talent recruitment and so on. We have another type of, since we have this two-step model, we have another type of model as well where we have a specific business director or CEO running the business that's semi-independent.
We have six of these businesses, one of which is majority owned by us, and all of the others are 100% owned by us. Those businesses, we serve the general administrative functions, financial management, HR, information security, legal aspects, and so on. We provide from a group level. The sales functions and product development functions are within the subsidiary company. Typically, we can run with the semi-independent model for, let's say, two to three years or even longer, depending on the founder transition period. If the founders of the business would like to exit at some point fully, we have a succession planning point of view as well, where we then either move or keep the business semi-independent and arrange a new business director to run the business. We've done that in a few businesses.
We will merge the business into Lemonsoft and run it from a Lemonsoft product manager point of view. We will be focusing on expanding or developing this model further. We are looking to add a Chief Operating Officer in charge of all the subsidiaries as well as the efficiency of all operations in Lemonsoft. That person would be in charge of developing this model further.
Considering the 25% EBIT growth target, could you elaborate on the mix between organic sales growth, M&A, and margin expansion you aim for?
Let me describe it this way. If we are looking at a 25% EBIT growth target, that means that we will need to grow our top line at least 15%-20% to be able to achieve that target.
That 15%-20% growth would need to come, let's say, 5%-15% that fluctuates a bit, but let's say roughly 10% from organic sales growth and our existing customer base. On top of that, 5%-10% M&A. That is a rough guideline where we could aim at. Of course, growing top line more than we are growing our cost base.
While you say that you are focusing on the current selected verticals, is it correct that you do not rule out expansion to new verticals altogether?
The main view is that we will prioritize the manufacturing and wholesale core industries. We will consider expanding extended industries that we mentioned in our strategy where we can do add-on acquisitions. It is highly unlikely that we would be making larger acquisitions in other verticals.
Of course, we still maintain a possibility that if a strategic acquisition that would be quite transformative comes on the table, we, of course, consider that as well. That would be more transformative to the current strategy. We will basically focus on doing small to medium to large acquisitions in our core segments or smaller add-on acquisitions in extended or general segments or then acquire, let's say, a deep point solution in extended industries that typically is below EUR 2 million in revenue.
Who are your key competitors in your core industries?
The most relevant players are typically Monitor ERP in Sweden, Oscar Software in Finland, Odoo from a global open-source platform point of view. Maybe those three. Of course, Microsoft and the larger players in larger customer discussions come on the table as well. Typically, customers look at 5-10 different ERP solutions.
Typically, the larger customers, let's say from EUR 10 million-EUR 100 million in revenue, typically look at a large set of ERP solutions and then end up. Typically, we are in the top two, three players. We just need to be the best.
The last question. Would you expect to already match the 25% EBIT growth pace already in 2026?
We definitely aim for that target. On the other hand, we are looking at it on an average annual basis. We might be, in some years, doing bigger acquisitions, for example, and in some years, smaller ones or no acquisitions for one year. That fluctuates. Of course, that is the target in 2026 as well.
Those were all the questions. Back to you.
Thank you. Thank you. That is for our strategy update in brief.
will be updating the development and outlining in more detail in our quarterly reports how we develop that strategy. Thanks a lot, everybody. Let's meet again in February in our annual statement report. Thank you.