With the company today, we have Nick Lissette, Company CEO, and the CFO, Karen Cargill. Before I hand it over to Nick to go through the presentation, I'll just remind you that you can submit questions through the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen, and we'll endeavour to get through those at the end of the presentation. With that, Nick, I'll hand it over to you. Thanks.
Awesome. Thank you very much, Simon. At the start of the year, Blackpearl Group's stated strategy was to accelerate revenue growth in the half year while making targeted investments that position the company on a clear path to $50 million annual recurring revenue. To achieve this, we focused on four areas. Firstly, it was accelerating our annual recurring revenue growth through increasing average revenue per customer and product diversification. Secondly, it was advancing Pearl Engine's data ingestion and processing capability because that unlocked the third area, which was launching a new AI product into the market, and the fourth area, which was acquiring a highly synergistic venture. All those four goals were delivered in the first half of FY 2025. Annual recurring revenue grew materially to $19.5 million. The Pearl Engine expanded its scale and its capability to 21 billion data points daily.
Bebop was launched into the market with great success, and B2B Rocket was successfully integrated into the portfolio. Now, when you look at our FY 2026 half-year results, these are a direct reflection of that focus, that investment, and that execution. Blackpearl Group is a data technology company. Our core asset is called the Pearl Engine. It is a private data platform powered by a proprietary augmented large language model. This platform creates and acquires software products for small to medium-sized businesses in the United States of America, and those products are designed to help customers acquire new customers and grow revenue without the traditional drag of sales and marketing spend. Our focus is on our customer success because when our customers win, we win. You can see from the numbers we are winning. The thing I'm proudest about is not just the massive growth.
It is how efficiently we go around doing it. While we sell to the U.S. market, we compete against U.S. companies, and we align our thinking strongly to the American way. One thing we do not do is blitz growth. This is not about growth at all costs. This is about smart growth. You can see that represented here in the numbers with average revenue per employee being over $250,000 and the CAC payback period always between four and five months. This is about efficiency, but it is also about laying frameworks for the future. If you just took a snapshot in time, you will see the gross profit margin, right, does not look as high as you would hope.
That is because we took the opportunity to make the capital we had at the moment to move to fixed-based pricing for our data supply, and that helps down track. It is not just about success for today. It is about putting in the framework for tomorrow. Our investment in the Pearl Engine can be quantified in three ways. Firstly, it enabled us to create and launch Bebop, a next-generation AI-powered prospecting platform that makes inside sales smarter, more surgical, and infinitely more scalable. Secondly, it enabled Pearl Diver to create and enter into its next growth horizon of Data-as-a-Service sales, sales which are not only contracted annually but have up to a 10x increase in the average revenue per Pearl Diver customer. Thirdly, it has enabled us to acquire and amplify B2B Rocket. Again, all this in the first half of FY 2026.
Now, if speed is your best competitive advantage in the modern economy, then the Pearl Engine is proving to be operating at F1 levels of performance, or for our American shareholders on the call, [NDK], I prefer F1. We've also invested in dual listing onto the ASX. Again, no small undertaking, and all the while growing ARR efficiently. As you've heard me talking before, I don't consider us a SaaS business. We're a data technology business with SaaS products. What does that look like? I'd like to draw a parallel to OpenAI. Yes, we're not in OpenAI's galaxy, and no, they're not a competitor. If you just pop to the next slide, Tori, you'll see that the shape is similar in the methodology around how we go to market. Most of you know OpenAI through its products, ChatGPT, Sora, and DALL-E.
Now, behind those sits a single core asset, a vast data and technology engine powered by AI and ingesting staggering volumes of data every day. Now, we only feel the value of that platform when we interact with it. You open ChatGPT and you ask it a question in a split second. It scans that ocean of data, finds the handful of signals that matter to you, and serves them back to you in a simple, compelling, and easy-to-act-on manner. Initial penetration of those products is via individuals, and then teams roll it out across their organizations, and this creates subscription revenue for OpenAI. The real value, the real value is what's happening beyond that. Because every time someone interacts with one of their products, their core data asset gets bigger. It is improving that asset.
That is why every time you use ChatGPT—sorry, I'm just getting a call from our CEO of one of the ventures who didn't get the memo. Noah is now officially in trouble. Documented. What have you done to me, Noah? Let me get back into this. He's trying to make sales, everyone. He's busy hustling. We've got to give him a break. The big prize with the way that OpenAI operates is when businesses interface with this technology and they see the power of it and they think, "I want this engine powering my product or my operations." That's when the major commercial deals are done, like with players like Apple for Siri or HubSpot or Microsoft Copilot and at the small end of the scale, companies like us. That motion, selling underlying intelligence and data, not just the app, is what we mean when we talk about Data-as-a-Service.
Let's take that thinking and transpose that to Blackpearl Group. Our data platform is focused on creating and turning data into dollars for customers tightly in the sales and marketing area of the American market. We are very niche. We are focused on that. We get 21 billion rows of data per day, and everything starts with the data, right? We get that data from three areas. One, we create our own data sets through our augmented large language model that goes out and reads all publicly available information that it can get access to that pertains to sales and marketing, I guess, a little bit, again, like OpenAI is doing on a large scale with their model. We then enrich that with private data that you cannot just easily access. We get that through over 300 other first and second-party providers.
Again, something not dissimilar to what every major platform or data company would be trying to do, enrich your data. The last part, and in my belief, probably the most valuable, is the information we get back from our customers. This is customer interactions and metadata. This creates a virtuous cycle because it means that every time you use one of our products, Bebop or Pearl Diver and now B2B Rocket, it gets a little bit better and a little bit smarter every time. Now, the magic happens in the middle. That is the processing. Think of it as a refinery. If you consider data the oil, then the middle part is the refinery. I tell you what, you cannot put raw data into a marketing or sales machine and expect it to do anything else that near blow up.
Our job is to look at the combinations of data and different permutations of them and then feed those refined packets to customers, high-quality fuel. We do this initially through our Software-as-a-Service apps. Like OpenAI, this is where the larger opportunities are created. We call this Data-as-a-Service. Data-as-a-Service provides data at volume, on demand. This data is used so that then businesses, specifically our customers, can embed that or integrate that into their revenue-generating operations. Typically, it is used to create packages or bundles that then they are going to go on and provide through to their clients. These deals are far greater in revenue, as mentioned before, typically 10x and sometimes beyond that over a typical Pearl Diver sale. What I probably like even more than that is the contracted and stickier.
Not just stickier because they're contracted, stickier because it's deeply embedded into those customers' operations and systems. You'll note we have put here our third horizon. We're not there yet, but we're building towards it. The third horizon builds upon these two foundations. It is called Platform-as-a-Service. Software-as-a-Service, layered on top of that, Platform-as-a-Service, sorry, Data-as-a-Service, and then Platform-as-a-Service. Platform-as-a-Service is when people are actually building and running their business and their products on top of your platform. That is where we're building to. As we've mentioned, part of our strategy this year has been around product diversification. We do this for two reasons. Firstly, as you've heard me say before, AI is lava. You just don't know where it's going to erupt up and decimate an industry or a buying segment or a whole job type.
You cannot afford to have all your eggs in one basket. Of course, this is not an easy job to do. It's a lot easier to have one product and one focus, but we're not about easy. This is not about a short-term play. This is about mid to long-term longevity in a very fast-moving and competitive market. The second reason that we aim for product diversification is the revenue growth through cross-selling and upselling. Typically, if you have a product suite, then you try and cross-sell and upsell from one product to the next. I can tell you, and anyone that has done this in the past will confirm, that is no easy process. You've got different UXs. You've got complexity in back-end billing and operations, squabbling over who owns the customer, confusion on whole different user experience from app to app.
It's a hard thing to do. That is why we cross-sell and upsell functionality through whatever app is sold to the customer first. Let me give you an example. For those of you that have used our amazing product, Bebop, you'll note that it creates a sales playbook, and part of that playbook is giving you a summary of the technology that business is using. We call that technographic data. Now, if you're inside sales, if you're a salesperson, that data is crucial. You can see if the prospect you're selling to is using a competitor. You can see if you are able to fit in with that mar-tech or tech stack that the customer has. Like your technology fit is a major barrier to sales. Very useful for salespeople.
Now, what happened is that that was created and pushed via the Pearl Engine into Bebop, and then Bebop learned from those customer interactions and then identified opportunity within Pearl Diver. It quite literally transposed that data set and put it into Pearl Diver. There you go. Pearl Diver's for marketeers. Like why is that so important? Because now marketeers can create custom audiences based on the technology of the people that they want to get in front of. They can bid over competitors. They can find people that they can integrate with. This is all around reducing cost per click. Because of that, we have seen an average revenue per customer of those using technographic data increasing for Pearl Diver. Same motion with B2B Rocket.
In fact, Noah, who was trying to call before, right, is busy implementing a new wave of B2B products with a start price point of $5,000 per month. Bear in mind, a month ago, their top tier was $917 or $920 per month. This is the power of having a central data platform and data proven in one and fed to the other. Now, as a CEO, you're always happy to show hockey stick growth. What I'm happy about us, about our growth, it's not just explosive. It's efficient. It has been a very deliberate blend of acquired and organic. Of course, we are always biased to organic, but we know that acquired revenue for the aforementioned reasons is also very important. I am exceptionally, exceptionally happy with ARR growth for this year.
Now, I'm going to hand you over to our Chief Financial Officer, Karen Cargill, who's going to run you through the numbers in a little bit more depth. Over to you, Karen.
Thanks, Nick. It really has been an incredible half year. As Nick mentioned, we are in that rare and exciting position where we are delivering explosive growth while still investing confidently in what comes next. Subscription revenue grew materially, rising 59% year on year. Now, while the half-year snapshot shows a gap between ARR and subscription revenue, that gap reflects some very positive dynamics, particularly the momentum we're seeing in B2B Rocket and in Data-as-a-Service. We acquired B2B Rocket, and while they added an initial $3.5 million in ARR, only 40 days of that is attributed to subscription revenue. With Data-as-a-Service, Pearl Diver is shifting its primary focus to annually contracted high-value Data-as-a-Service deals.
These deals have an average revenue per customer of NZD 300,000-NZD 700,000 annually and involve our data being deeply embedded into the client's revenue-generating operations. Unlike the Pearl Diver SaaS offering, these Data-as-a-Service contracts are annual and use ramp pricing, meaning the monthly amount increases gradually over the full amount to a 90-day period. This ensures clients are not overly burdened with the cost while they complete the setup, and it also helps reduce sales cycle time, which in turn helps predict our exceptional CAC payback period. There is a natural lag between ARR and subscription revenue, which is illustrated in this graph where we have included the impact of the ramp deals and B2B Rocket. You can now see that subscription revenue is more closely mirroring our ARR growth. Over to our gross margin.
As we previously mentioned to the market last year, one of our strategic initiatives was to move from variable to fixed data supply agreements to enable better gross margins in the mid to long term. We have seen an expected drop in our gross margin, and now you can see that this is already paying off. As volumes increase, the fixed annual cost is absorbed more efficiently, driving gross margin up 10% from Q4 FY 2025. We have a very efficient engine moving forward. Operating expenses have increased in line with the investment and growth initiatives we announced to the market. The key contributors to this increased cost include continued development in the Pearl Engine, the launch of Bebop, which includes product development, market testing and fit, and one-off costs pertaining to the capital raising, the ASX listing, and B2B Rocket acquisition cost.
While OpEx increased, it's also important to note that the group continues to demonstrate operating leverage as ARR grows, and we expect efficiency to improve as the deployed capital begins to scale through the business. We have a strong cash base. We raised NZD 15.1 million in September, and since the half year, we've completed another raise of NZD 11.8 million. If you take our half-year FY 2026 cash balance combined with the November capital raise, this results in a pro forma cash balance of NZD 20.7 million. The acquisition of B2B Rocket has increased our goodwill and intangible assets to $22 million. Our liabilities have also increased due to B2B Rocket's contingent payouts, which are based on ARR targeted earnings. Together with the November capital raise, we enter into the second half of the year with a strong balance sheet to support scaling across ventures.
Now I'll hand back to you, Nick.
Thank you very much, Karen. I mentioned before that, you know, the Q3 seasonal dynamics are always challenging for us with major US retail events and public holidays. I know that the oldest do not care about that, and we still have to hit some growth numbers. That is why, you know, it is so important that we move to having our venture-led structure, which is now in place to support future growth. Each venture has its own sales, marketing, CX, and product development, right? The four functions that are critical to be perfectly aligned for go-to-market and customer attention. Probably most importantly, a dedicated CEO driving the success for their particular venture. Finance, HR, security, IT services, platform, data, they will remain at group level to ensure compliance, efficiency, and the compounding effect of the Pearl Engine.
Now, coming from a team sports background, my focus has always been on the team winning, what it says on the scoreboard at the end of the day and not necessarily who scores the points. It could be argued that I was a lock and blindside flanker, so I did not get to score much. Ultimately, it is about winning, and this is how we look at our ARR growth. As a group, we upweight and downweight resourcing on a quarterly basis per venture based on its performance, efficiency of growth, the growth opportunity within that venture, and the market conditions. Of course, this creates some competitive tension, which is healthy amongst the ventures. If we use our resourcing correctly, it is the best way of creating quality revenue.
Now, ultimately, we've worked very hard to put ourselves into a position where we're not just relying on one industry or one buying persona, because this isn't about optimizing short-term growth, but ensuring long-term resilience. In closing, I'm incredibly excited about our growth opportunity. We have a juicy Data-as-a-Service pipeline for Pearl Diver. We have an explosive next-generation AI-powered prospecting tool within Bebop. We have the best-in-market agentic AI outreach platform with B2B Rocket that is now implementing a step change in its average revenue per user, powered by the Pearl Engine data. Any of those ventures by themselves have the ability of getting to $50 million ARR. We also have an amazing asset with the Pearl Engine, and now we have the capital. Capital.
I was going to finish there and hand over, but I kind of want to finish on not being able to pronounce the word capital. I wanted to say, with all those things in hand, for us, there are no excuses. It's time to buckle up. We've got to hit the boosters and head for the stars. Simon, I see there's one question, but back over to you.
Perfect. Thanks for that, Nick. Just a reminder, if you did want to ask a question, the Q&A button is at the bottom of your screen. First question, can you just provide some commentary on the flattening in the ARR of Pearl Diver and the outcome of which businesses are expected to drive the majority of ARR growth in the short term, i.e., B2B Rocket, Bebop, or Pearl Diver?
Great question.
As I mentioned in the previous slide around the venture-based model, we moved previously to this capital around, we've been moving resourcing around because we had very fine out resourcing. What you see with the flattening of that Pearl Diver revenue was really because we took a huge amount of marketing and the sales team and management really off Pearl Diver, which we know is just a consistent winner. We wanted to invest that into Bebop in the short term to see whether Bebop was a going concern. Like, is this just the best technology we've ever seen that no one wants to buy, or do people actually want to buy it? You could see with that very explosive growth that came from just a 45-day period that we could see that Bebop was and indeed had a great product market opportunity.
Off the back of that, then we went and raised capital. The reason why we did it that way is because when we go and raise capital and we look at shareholders, we want to know that we're going to be able to get a return on investment in that. We wanted to basically de-risk that with testing out with Bebop. Now, post these rounds, as Karen mentioned, we've been well capitalized, and now we've moved to a venture-based structure where each of those ventures has its own dedicated marketing, sales, CX, div, and critically, a CEO running that ship and driving revenue hard. What I think you'll see is some lumpiness taken out on that. Again, we will upweight and downweight resourcing based off market factors and the relative successes of those ventures. This is a nice position to be in.
You asked me to predict where I think things may be looking, you know, in composition of revenue growth wise. Every one of them is sitting on very exciting opportunities. It is really around timing and execution. I see a tremendous pipeline of Data-as-a-Service customers which are getting actively worked on contracts out at the moment, out with them. Those contract values are significant, right? You know, like NZD 500,000 New Zealand annual recurring revenue. That can move the needle really rapidly. On the other side of things, you have Bebop, which is looking more down like partner channels, which is like smaller value deals, but at massive volume. It just really depends on what one bites and when. That is sort of like, you know, one of the best things.
Ultimately, as I sort of mentioned earlier, the most important thing for us is quality revenue as efficiently as possible, right? That is the key. You want to move around accordingly. Hope that answered that question. I can move on to Ken's if there are any more, Simon.
I'll grab that one. Just a question. A lot of end users are not necessarily data analysts or technically sophisticated. Is Blackpearl Group looking to integrate a model context protocol or MCP to provide natural language search?
Yeah, I love that question, Ken. Our customers are small to medium-sized businesses in the United States of America. Frankly, they do not know data from a donut, most of them, and they do not want to. They are not interested in data. They are interested in people, and specifically people that are looking to buy their goods and services today.
Our job is to make it so easy to use our application that you do not need to know anything about data. The best example of that is Bebop. Like Bebop, if you go and want to find 300 businesses in market for your goods and services and get detailed playbooks on how to actually interact, close with them, objection handling, you literally ask, same as ChatGPT, find me 300 customers, the marketing agencies that want to buy product X, and you will get it, just like ChatGPT. Yeah, you are right. That is the secret. No one wants to. These businesses cannot invest in data scientists, engineers. They do not have the money, the time, or inclination. That is our job.
Nick, just a question. Can you talk more on the Data-as-a-Service pipeline?
Oh, I do not know. Is Karen going to throw anything at me in here?
Yeah, it's like, it's just one office over, right? I know we have over $8 million in annual recurring revenue sitting in our HubSpot pipeline for that, which has basically been generated over the last 90 days as this motion has kicked into gear. For me, that is, you know, comparative to what I usually see in our pipeline and also the quality and the process that's gone through there, for me, that is very encouraging. I know that when you're dealing with these larger deals, timing, you know, becomes a factor, slightly longer sales cycles. Yeah, I think I see this as a huge opportunity. The initial play, the initial way we've started this has actually been quite niche. It's to marketing agencies. They have a real dire need. I mean, it is very, very tough industry for marketing agencies at the moment.
As we all know, the first thing to get cut in tough times is the marketing budget. They have to look at alternative ways of revenue generation and adding value to their clients without the traditional drag of marketing spend. That is what we do best. That is where we started with that. I think that there are other industries that are going to have real opportunity with that. The other important part to note is it just does not pertain to Pearl Diver data, but also opportunities with Bebop data. In fact, you will see some small Data-as-a-Service revenue in that lag chart that Karen had up earlier that pertains to Bebop. There are opportunities there. This is all from the Pearl Engine. Customers discover the opportunity through the various products.
Thanks, Nick.
Can you just talk to us how long the recurring revenue contracts you are signing are?
They're annually, and then they like, so they've got an annual commitment that roll on, automatically roll from there. That is, in fact, Pearl Diver's Data-as-a-Service agreement. I believe also what the higher value B2B Rocket contracts are now doing as well. One of the great things B2B Rocket did, one of the things I, and why they grew so, so well being bootstrapped. I mean, they went to $3.5 million with basically no money because they would get annual contracts upfront, but lower ticket amounts. Obviously now they're moving to a higher ticket amount. I mean, it's $5,000 per month U.S., so it's not an insignificant amount of money. Obviously, it's probably not so realistic. Those value deals are money upfront, but they are contracted annually as well.
This is something just around the reason why I also just overspeak on this, even though it's like, shut up, Nick, and get on to the next question. The reason why we put the contracts in is not because we do not back our service, and it is not because we want to keep customers in that are unhappy. It is because I want commitment from those customers to set these systems up properly so they get the benefit. I mean, what we have seen time and time again with our products is that sometimes they fail because the customers have not put in the time and energy to get it there. The contract actually is like a mental, a deeper mental commitment. You are in. Because of that, then they use the products, you know, more effectively. They get more benefits, and everyone wins.
Yeah, I don't like contracting for contract's sake. I like it to ensure it drives benefit for both parties.
Thanks, Nick. Just final question and porch is that you've only just completed B2B Rocket, but are there any other bolt-ons in sight and Karen's smiling with great pleasure?
Like, you know, like there is amazing opportunity in the market at the moment. Access to capital for many businesses, as most of you will know on this call, has never been, has never been tighter. I mean, in the U.S., it's particularly challenging. Equally so, you have businesses that, you know, so you have these businesses that have got, you know, got some meaningful revenue, might have some good technology. They have no way of growing. They're stagnant, they're dead in the water. We know that that is death. That is death in the modern economy.
You can't afford to be stagnant. Speed moving forward is your only way of survival. What's happened is that we've been in a very fortunate position to start having an inbound influx of opportunities. I mean, there's been four this week, I think, Karen. I'm sort of looking over at her through there. I should look on the Zoom. There's been four over this week alone, but obviously, you know, we're always evaluating them. I just want to be clear around our decision-making process on them. Like, I'm not interested in the annual recurring revenue that comes from them. That's a very nice byproduct. I'm interested in whether we can take that product and actually get a one-on-one makes three effect. We get that because our Pearl Engine data set would actually light that product up.
A great example, this is why we did B2B Rocket. Like, they're a great company, but they're running on basically low-grade diesel, if you wanted to use the fuel analogy. I knew that our data was going to be able to help increase the average revenue per customer and reduce, you know, and get customer retention higher. That is what excited me and the team about that purchase. That is a big key factor for it. The second one is, is it a place in the market which we have identified challenges with our clients? Like B2B Rocket, again, is a great example. We could see lots of small businesses that wanted to use our data set to reach out to or get their business in front of potential prospects, but they did not have enough budget to really drive meaningful marketing campaigns.
That is where B2B Rocket's agentic agents, you know, really shine. You know, the funny thing is, our CTO, Sam, and myself, probably two weeks after Pearl Diver was launched, we wrote up on the whiteboard that we needed to have that function, and we just never got to it. You know, obviously, we prioritized other things, and revenue growth should hopefully prove we prioritized correctly. You know, that is, we saw a need. That is the second reason. The third reason is price. The fourth reason is integration. Like the venture-based model makes it now a lot simpler to integrate a business into our group. Nonetheless, they distract. You know, one of the things I was proudest about last quarter is we grew 39%.
You know, a fair amount of that was still organic growth, despite the fact we were going through an acquisition, despite the fact we were getting ready to list on the ASX and doing a capital round. You know, I mean, that is a tremendous amount of work for a small company. You do not want things to distract you from your core organic revenue. If those four things line up, absolutely.
Thanks for that, Nick. I think we might wrap up the Q&A there in terms of the interest of time, but I might just hand it back to you for a quick, quick remark in terms of closing.
I blew my big closing remark earlier, Simon, you know, like because I stumbled on the word capital. I mean, really, that is it.
I would say that we have worked very hard to get ourselves into the position that we are now. All that does is gives you an opportunity to work harder and do better things. That is that. We now have an opportunity as next week we list onto the ASX with capital behind us and three powerful products in market and a data engine which is getting better by the second. It is beholden on us to capitalize on that and grow aggressively and grow quickly. That is why there is no time for rest. Christmas is canceled. We're pushing hard. That is what it's about. It is not why we talk about, you know, aiming for the stars and landing on the moon. There is no moon. We head for the stars, and that's what we're heading for.
This is why I always finish off with Ada stra.
Like it. Thanks very much, Nick. Thanks, Karen, and thanks all for attending. Thank you.