Welcome to our H1 2025 results presentation. Today I'm going to begin with a brief executive summary, and then I'm going to hand over to Simon, our Commercial Finance Director, to take you through the financial highlights. After that, it will come back to me, and I'll be walking you through the progress that we've made in our business across the half. If you want to move to the next slide. Perfect, thank you. In H1, we continued to deliver against our strategy, transforming Aptitude fr om an on-premise to an AI SaaS business model. The structural changes that we've made as part of that over the past 18 months are now showing up in our numbers, customer satisfaction, and also business progress. As an example of business progress, Fynapse continues to gain momentum, contributing more significantly to pipeline and market traction.
As an example, we added four new Fynapse clients in the half, bringing the total to nine, alongside several other new logo wins and expansion deals across our existing client base. In addition to that, our partner model is also starting to scale, streamlined to focus on a small number of key partners, which is also helping us reach tier two and three opportunities. While macroeconomic headwinds, deal timing shifts, and adverse foreign exchange movements have created downward pressure on revenue, we remain on track to meet full-year profit expectations. I'm now going to hand over to Simon to take you through the financials for the half year.
Yeah, thank you, Alex. If we go to the next slide, thank you. Starting with one of the key metrics for Aptitude, annual recurring revenue, which at 30th of June, 2025, grew 3% year- on- year to GBP 49.8 million. This growth was underpinned by success within our AI autonomous finance offering, consisting of Aptitude Accounting Hub and Fynapse , which grew by 13% in the 12-month period. Combined with this, the existing client base performed well with upsells in H1 2025, such as HCSC, complementing the H2 2024 sales at the likes of Macquarie and Chubb, to drive a net retention rate for the 12 months to 30th of June, 2025, of 101%. This comes despite a continued elevated level of churn, which we do expect to reduce in future periods.
We continue to benefit from a strong balance sheet with cash as at 30th of June, 2025, of GBP 23.7 million and net cash of GBP 17.1 million. This enables us to continue to provide shareholders with returns through consistent dividends, as well as the share buyback program, with shares to the value of GBP 6.3 million having been purchased up to 30th of June, 2025. We'll go to the next slide, please. This slide looks at the profit and loss account, where total revenues were 7% lower half on half at GBP 32.8 million, with the majority of this reduction being within non-recurring implementation revenues as we move further toward a partner-first implementation model. As a result of this, we continue to see improvements within our revenue mix, with 82% of revenues in H1 2025 being recurring. This is compared to 78% in H1 2024, thus providing us with increased revenue visibility.
This improved revenue mix, in combination with cost reductions generated as part of the business model transformation, has resulted in an improvement in profitability year- on- year, with adjusted operating profit of GBP 4.9 million in H1 2025. This represents a margin of 15%, an improvement of 3 percentage points year- on- year, with our focus being on continued improvement to increase this into the 20s over the medium term. Looking ahead for the 2025 full-year numbers, we are seeing some downward pressure on revenue due to adverse foreign exchange movements combined with macroeconomic related deal deferrals. Despite these factors, as Alex set out at the start of the presentation, we remain on track to achieve profit expectations as we benefit from our improved revenue mix and the tight control of the cost base demonstrated by the business model transformation, as previously mentioned.
I'll now hand back to Alex to talk through the progress made across the half.
Thank you, Simon. As Simon has presented, the improvements in our financial performance are being driven by three key factors. That's the structural change across the business, the accelerating growth of our AI-led autonomous finance offering, and also combined with improved client satisfaction. Now I want to take a few minutes to walk you through each, starting with the business transition. If we can move to the business transition slide. Perfect. And then just one more. Perfect. That's great. I guess since we last spoke, we have made Aptitude, and obviously myself and the team have made real progress in our business transition. I think it's important to take a step back to provide a bit of context. In March 2024, we kicked off a fundamental transformation of Aptitude, and we ultimately set out to move from a compliance-heavy, services-led software vendor to an AI SaaS cloud partner-first platform business.
At the heart of that shift is Fynapse , which is both our growth engine and also the strategic foundation for our future product portfolio. By March 2025, we were around halfway through that transition, and today we've made significant progress and expect to be materially complete by the end of the year. Over the past few months since March, we've been very busy with a focus on two major areas. The first has been embedding the new product operating model across the full portfolio. As I explained in March, we began with Fynapse in eSuite in November, and now the rest have now followed. The second, we have been in the process of redesigning our services organization around a fully partner-led model, again moving away from direct services to partners. There is still also important work to do to complete the transition across the remainder of the year.
As a couple of examples, this week we optimized our cloud operations team. In Q3 and Q4, we'll be rolling out the new services model to support and enable our partners more effectively. We're also continuing to tighten our go-to-market execution, especially in marketing and also partner enablement. I think it's really important to say that these are not just structural fixes; they're delivering real results. If we take Fynapse as an example, we optimized the product and engineering team in November and yet accelerated delivery. Features that used to take 12 - 18 months are now shipping in just 6 - 12 weeks. We expect to see similar results across the rest of the product portfolio following the broader rollout of the new operating model. Please don't underestimate the amount of change, amount of cultural change, effort, and work that has gone into transforming our business.
Importantly, we are going to be ending up at the end of this financial year with a much better business than when we entered this transitional phase. Now what I want to do is talk a little bit more about our AI autonomous offering, which is Fynapse . If you want to move to the next slide, perfect. I know that I've spoken about what Fynapse is multiple times, but I think it's really important to come back to it. The work that we've done through the 2024 relaunch, combined with all the work that we've done with the customers and partners since the relaunch of Fynapse in 2024, I believe has brought Fynapse to life in a very real and tangible way. Fynapse is the AI-native nervous system of the enterprise. It basically connects fragmented data systems, applies real-time finance logic, and supports intelligent workflows.
What that does essentially is enable finance and operations to move faster with confidence. It's also important to highlight that it doesn't replace an ERP, a data lake, or a CRM. It works alongside them. Fynapse ingests data from those types of systems, enriches it with real-time subledger logic, automation, and embedded AI, and then that unlocks tangible business outcomes. As examples, it supports a continuous close and real-time reporting. That's important because it helps finance and operations shift from being reactive to real-time. It also supports automated reconciliations, and that helps in turn to reduce manual effort. It also supports predictive insights such as surfacing live margin cash and customer health data. Importantly, it supports improved collaboration across an organization because basically what it does is it links finance with sales and operations on one real-time source of performance truth.
Now to the AI question, because it is an important one, the rise of AI doesn't reduce the need for Fynapse . It makes Fynapse essential. AI needs structured finance, quality data, embedded rules, and clear lineage to be effective. That's exactly what Fynapse provides. In highly regulated industries, that foundation is critical. Fynapse is built with compliance, control, and auditability at its core, shaped by years of experience with global banks, insurers, and also telcos. It is not something easy that others can replicate. Fynapse is not disrupted by AI. It enables it, helping to power the next generation of intelligence finance. Where does Fynapse play and why do we win? If you want to move to the next slide. Perfect. What makes this opportunity so compelling is its broad relevance across all industries and regions.
Every organization is under pressure to modernize finance, to move faster, and to sweat or realize the asset that is AI's potential. Aptitude has a strong track record of supporting complex regulated industries, from global banks to telcos and to tech giants, which gives us a unique edge in environments where control and scale matter. With 74% of finance leaders planning to adopt AI and low-code tools, according to a piece of Deloitte research, over the next two years, Fynapse is built for this moment. It is designed for sectors that we already know deeply, but importantly, its composable AI-native architecture also opens doors into new regulated markets like healthcare, energy, and pharma. That is also where partners play a key role because partners will help to expand our reach into those net new sectors. Fynapse is the AI-native finance-grade layer that traditional ERPs cannot deliver.
We are already proving it. PayByPhone achieved finance transformation in just six weeks, not years. T-Mobile is processing currently 150 million journal lines in an hour, and at the beginning of next year, we will be processing 400 million journal lines in a three-hour window, enabling real-time visibility at scale. Chubb is rolling out Fynapse as its global subledger, which will provide a key foundation for its finance modernization program to support automation and control across the enterprise. What sets us apart? We do not compete with the ERP. We complement it. We do not ask clients to rip and replace. We help them modernize what they have. We do that at speed, in weeks, months, not years, with simplicity and at scale. Our partner-first strategy is a force multiplier, enabling resale, delivery, and scaled go-to-market execution globally.
That combination, which is a differentiated platform, a global need, and a growing ecosystem of partners, is what gives us a right to win and a scalable path to growth. Now what I want to do is talk through some of the Fynapse momentum and partner acceleration. If you can move to the next slide, that'd be great. Thank you. Fynapse continues to gain traction despite macroeconomic pressure and deal timing shift. In H1, we secured GBP 7.4 million in total contract value across four Fynapse wins, including a healthcare insurer, HCSC, another KPMG managed services deal, Humm, which is an Australian payments provider, and a global parking payments organization, which is obviously PayByPhone. These bring the total number of Fynapse clients to nine since its relaunch in 2024.
It's also important to add that with these new clients, we also create opportunities with Fynapse to expand over time, selling additional modules and unlocking more value as their use of the platform grows. Momentum is also building in the partner channel. As we talked through in March of this year, we moved to a 100% partner-led model. That means exiting direct services and fully aligning to a scalable, high-margin SaaS organization. That pivot is still early, but it's already showing results. As examples, 70% of our H2 and 2026 pipeline is partner-involved, and partner-sourced annual recurring revenue has grown from 10% in 2023 to 30% in the full year of 2024. We're on track to hit our target of 45% in 2025, with a longer-term goal of 80% of annual recurring revenue sourced by partners by 2027.
We're also seeing increased investment from our partners like KPMG, who view finance transformation as a priority across their client base. I would say that's combined then with growing engagement from Microsoft, Deloitte, EY, Avanade, and HSO as some examples, all of whom are enabling their teams to sell, to deliver, and build Fynapse -specific capability across and within their organizations. Now let's talk about our wider product portfolio and existing client base. If we move to the next slide, that'd be great. Thank you. What continues to underpin Aptitude Software Group plc's strength is our ability, and also I think our ability to scale Fynapse , is the combination of our established product portfolio and also our strong base of over 100 high-value clients. In H1, we saw momentum across both existing clients and net new wins.
From an expansion, uplift, and renewal perspective, we secured a Fynapse win at HCSC, which is a longstanding Aptitude client. We also experienced some expansions across eSuite and AREV with RMG and Axon as examples. We also had key renewals delivered at HSBC, CAA, Specsavers, and Intuit as examples. In addition to that, we closed net new wins across our portfolio. We had a revenue management win with Packsize, a partner-led eSuite deal, and a new KPMG managed services deal combined with Assure to support the delivery and enablement and implementation readiness to support future clients being onboarded to the managed service. Churn across legacy products remains within expected levels and was offset by improvements in how we manage and support our clients. We expect to see churn reduce from 2026 onwards.
To give some examples of the improvements across the organization that are fed into improving customer satisfaction, if we take account management as the example, we have made meaningful changes to the way that we engage with our existing customers. As an example, we have seven new account managers hired to increase coverage. We have structured account planning to proactively identify expansion opportunities. We also have stronger integration between account management and the wider organizational functions. It's also important to highlight that it's not just the changes to the account management team that are helping to positively impact customer satisfaction. They also reflect a wider shift in how we support and engage clients across Aptitude. Every function from product and engineering to professional services and marketing is being reshaped to improve the overall client experience and long-term value delivery.
Looking ahead, Fynapse remains central to our long-term retention and expansion strategy. We're enabling this through using Fynapse to modernize and consolidate existing products. We're offering modular upgrades for phased adoption. We're also executing our Aptitude Accounting Hub (AAH) migration plan, where we have a target to migrate one-third of the AAH base by the end of 2027, supported by a structured transition plan to Fynapse . To date, three clients have successfully migrated, with 12 more targeted across 2025, 2026, and also 2027. As this strategy matures, we expect continued improvement in net retention, driven by better product cohesion and a stronger client experience, leading to improved upsell and cross-sell activity. To close, H1, if we move to the next slide, that'd be great. Thank you. In H1 2025, that has been a period of focused execution.
We've made strong progress across our business transition, with improving margins, growing recurring revenue, and tighter cost control. Fynapse is scaling, our partner-led model is gaining traction, and profitability is improving despite macroeconomic pressure. We are building a modern AI SaaS-first business with the operational discipline and foundations to scale. Thank you very much for your time today. I think just to close, obviously, thank you very much for joining our presentation today. We believe that we've made solid progress in the first half, strategically, but also operationally. Fynapse is gaining traction. Our partner-led model is scaling. Obviously, as you've heard today, the transformation is well underway and will be near completion by the end of this year. Therefore, we are entering the second half with focus and confidence. Thank you very much for your time today.