Welcome to Carasent Q4 report for 2024. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing *5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Daniel Öhman and Svein-Martin Bjørnstad. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to Carasent's presentation of the fourth quarter. My name is Daniel Öhman, I'm the CEO of Carasent, and with me I Svein-Martin Bjørnstad, our CFO. I will start by giving a company update before I hand over Svein-Martin. Looking at the fourth quarter, I'm really proud how we managed to hit basically everything we set out to do during 2024. We had our financial performance in line with targets. We did the release into the Stockholm Stock Exchange, and more importantly, we did the acquisition of Data-Al, giving us a strong foundation in Germany.
Talking about the acquisition of Data Al, we had gotten to know them quite well, or very well actually, during the quite a long acquisition process where you really want to, we really want to see all parts of the business, and we want to get to know the management team before we actually pull the triggers. We have been able to move quite quickly after acquisition. The Webdoc X team is now part of Data Al, and we have a joint roadmap, including we went across down the different softwares from Data Al, and they will be fully replaced by Webdoc X. I feel really happy about last year. I'm proud of the organization and what we have accomplished. Looking a little bit more forward, we have good progress in our large development projects.
I think most of you know about surgery, so that's Webdoc getting a Surgery Module, which is important for all or many large clinics in Sweden, which will use it. We have really good discussions with our larger customers on moving to Webdoc for clinics that today do not use Webdoc, and moving also to then the Surgery Module. I feel really comfortable about where we are with surgery. It takes maybe a little bit longer than I expected because they want to have some further functionality in place before actually doing the switch. We are in a good position in very close discussion with those potential customers, and we have a lot of interest from other customers also. I think that will really help us during the autumn, especially. NLL is the new medicine module for Sweden.
It's a legal requirement that all medical record systems need to implement, but it's really good for Webdoc because after that's done, you will be able to see medication from all different systems in all systems. If you use Webdoc, you will be able to see what's done in the public and so on. That's a really good one. Volvat, which is so important for the methodic and the rollout there, is going well. During the autumn, we'll start implementing Methodic and replacing all those present HR systems in Volvat. For you who are new, Volvat is a Capio Norway where we're replacing all the older existing HRs with Methodic during the autumn, and it's to be finalized in January next year. We're building a couple of patient platforms for online visits and so on, which is going well.
Webdoc X really has to pace up now, working towards the German market. From a development perspective, we're doing better and better and getting more efficient every day, I would say. During the fourth quarter, we had a couple of bankrupt systems and also a larger customer losing their contract with Stockholm. That would put some pressure and would give us a bit of high churn during the end of Q1 this year and the beginning of Q2 this year. In total, that's a loss of around NOK 2 million-NOK 3 million ARR that will be, that the hit will take place in the end of Q1. We feel that this is a one-off effect. The bankruptcies are the largest part, are two tech companies which have been quite large. One is bankrupt and the other one is in reconstruction.
It is most likely that they will not be able to continue. I think it's the time now when many of those startups who have received quite a lot of funding but haven't been able to turn around their business, that the funding is drying up. We don't have any other of those ki%nd of risks as we see it in the customer portfolio for Webdoc. We have many of the online doctors, but they are now mostly making profits and they have quite good valuations, so we're not too worried about those. These are two smaller online doctors that will close down most likely. That means that the ARR for a group is likely to go from 2%-3% during Q2, we believe. I really feel that it's a one-time effect. Growth, we have signed on to implement the ARR amount to NOK 17 million.
This is mostly Volvat. It's MedRave for VGR and Acutis for Fremliks Armeen in Norway. Those customers will mostly be implemented during the autumn. That is when we really will see those signed, not implemented ARR moving to real turnover. In the quarter, we have 15% organic recurring revenue growth and 17% contract ARR growth. It feels really good that we're now at the break-even level. That is just a step on the way. We have strong improvements in our EBITDA, as you will see on the next slide. Here you can see we're growing with NOK 14 million in the quarter. In the 2023 numbers, we have NOK 2 million of Confere in those numbers, which we have sold.
In the 2024 numbers, it's important to note that we have NOK 8 million of Data Al revenue in those numbers, where NOK 2 million or 25% of Data Al's revenues are consulting revenue. In total, NOK 14 million growth. What's really positive is that NOK 13 million of that goes all the way down to our EBITDA, as EBITDA minus Capex level. I feel really good about our control of costs and that we have the growth really, really going down to the EBITDA C level. Looking at our targets for 2024 and our performance, we're basically in line of all those targets that we set. As you can see, quite a large improvement over 2023. Especially looking at the third row, EBITDA minus Capex. That's what we internally see as the only profitability level we look at company-wide, so to speak.
The reason being that EBITDA is, we feel a measure that's not really reflecting reality as almost every all development we do is to win new customers, also the ones we cannot capitalize. We feel that EBITDA minus Capex is a good level to look at. Looking ahead, the really key to delivering this growth this year is that we have Surgery coming online in time and that we have Volvat coming online in time and so on. It is really important that we deliver development on time or we have some extra time in the roadmap, but more or less on time will be a key for getting this growth to really reach the targets we have for 2025.
As I mentioned, we have big interest in what we're building, so we feel we're doing the right things and it's just important to get it out on time. The other really important part to achieve those goals is the efficient use of resources. As I mentioned before, it's about every day, every week, and every month becoming a couple of percentage points more efficient. We do that all the time. Some examples that we've been working with in the last couple of months is replacing roles. If we have roles that are not really creating the maximum amount of value, we will remove those roles and add other roles. Even if costs are more or less flat, we are doing quite a lot of changes in the organization in order to really maximize our output.
There are a couple of roles that have been removed last month and a couple of new roles have been created. Also, the use of AI is quite important for a software company to really be efficient in development. We see that we're getting more and more efficient using these tools. When it comes to Webdoc X, as I wrote in the quarter report, we did a little bit of change in the roadmap now together with the Data-Al team. In Data-Al, we have two products, Data Cure, which is a quite new product for therapists that's growing quite rapidly, and it's Data Al, which is the older product, which is for doctors and has really a lot of functionality.
What we decided is to first replace Data Cure and then move on and replace also Data Al in a couple of years' time. Data Cure is the aim to replace this year. That means that we can close down one of the two platforms in Data Al much sooner than we had expected. It also means that the certification we're aiming to do now, more or less now, will be moved to the autumn in order to first fully replace the Data Cure functionality and then close down that software. I think that's a really good change, but it changes a bit in our roadmap. The first German pilots are live and they are happy, but they are just using Webdoc X on the side. It's not full pilots as we're not certified. With those words, I will hand over to Svein- Martin.
Thank you, Daniel. Starting off on some of the financial highlights for the quarter, our ARR base grew quite significantly in Q4. That is partly driven by this acquisition of Data-Al, which added about a bit more than SEK 30 million in ARR. Also, our signed contract base takes us up to SEK 304 million in contracted ARR, which grew 17% organically. Reported recurring revenue growth grew 15%. Our other metrics as well developed as we had planned in the quarter. If we take a more detailed look into the P&L, there are three main points I would like to highlight here. Firstly, you see that in the quarter, our gross profit increased by 26% and the gross margin increased from 81% to 84%. This is because we have reduced hosting costs in Norway through negotiations with suppliers. We have also sold Confere.
This increase in margin is sustainable and you see the same trend for the full year. Secondly, we had big one-off costs in the quarter, NOK 20 million of cost. This was related to the relisting and the acquisition of Data-Al. You also see that we had big costs for the full year of NOK 30 million. This has been a special year with this bid process with EG, the relisting and Data-Al. This cost has now been taken and we do not expect any more costs from these processes going forward. Another key point to highlight is if we look at the personnel expense, it increased from NOK 32 million to NOK 39 million. However, if we also include the capitalized development cost, we get the cash cost for our employee base. If we add these together, it is basically flat year over year.
That is very encouraging for us given that we have added cost from Data Al about NOK 2 million. We have, of course, wage increases, etc. This means that we have been very successful in reducing costs in other places. We continue to work on that through reducing roles and also through changing, for example, consultants to employees. You see the effects of this on the margins. We grew our revenues by SEK 15 million. The EBITDA basically increased by 14, or 13, so basically all our revenues trickle down to the earnings. With a 22% revenue growth, we get the margin improvement of 18%.
If we are able to continue being as strict on the cost side going forward, we can continue to see that this scalability has a very powerful effect. If we look at the development on EBITDA minus Capex, excluding Germany, you see that the trend is positive. We have a good improvement year over year. It is trending a bit down since Q3. The reason for that is that we have this holiday effect in Q3 that we mentioned on the personnel cost side. That is typically the strongest quarter on the margins. If we look at the ARR growth, we continue to have a robust underlying organic growth, primarily driven by the net retention rates. The churn is low at 2%. As Daniel mentioned, it might increase to 3% given this churn in Webdoc, but still the recurring revenue base is very much stable.
The signed contracts take us up to 17% growth. We have Data Al as well that takes us up to NOK 304 million. On the cash flow side, we also see good improvements. We have this high one-off cost, as you see on the report, the EBITDA is negative, but we have strong working capital effects in Q4, partly driven by the customer receivables, but also some of the effect is related to invoices for the relisting that were not paid at year end. That will have a negative effect again in Q1. In general, you see on the full year figures that our working capital profile is very much supportive to our cash flow, given that we invoice customers upfront and then we pay afterwards.
You see that we have, even though we have this big one-off cost of SEK 30 million for the full year, we are still very close to being break-even on the free cash flow side. That illustrates the power in our working capital profile. Finally, on the financial targets, we are now reporting in SEK after our relisting. We have just provided this slide to convert the target we provided in NOK in October to SEK at the currency rate at the date of publication of the targets. With that, we can open up for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Fredrik Nilsson from Redeye. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Daniel and Svein- Martin.
Morning. The next question comes from Fredrik Nilsson .
With a question regarding.
Please go ahead.
Region Stockholm will decide on a new system for the public care in next week. How might that impact your addressable market in the region for the long term?
We're really positive today as today most private providers in Stockholm use the public system just because of historical reasons. When Stockholm privatized, the region offered them to use the public system, which is called TakeCare, which is called Ombuds GM, CompGroup. They most just chose that system. There were no others to choose from. Webdoc wasn't there at that point in time. Today, most customers we are winning are winning in Stockholm. What's really good is that all those private providers now have to change systems. Usually the challenge for us is not to convince customers that Webdoc is better than what they use today. It is that it's also worth all the effort in changing systems. Here in Stockholm, now in Stockholm, everyone will have to change systems. We think that would really support us going forward.
What's also really good, or yeah, it is that CompuGroup has almost stopped developing TakeCare because that system will die and everyone knows that. That also means that system is lagging more and more compared to Webdoc. That will really help us too. What's also good is in the last couple of months, Region Stockholm has been more and more clear that you're not allowed to have large amounts of private pay or insurance payments in their system. That will also help us. In total, I'm really positive to this. Finally, why I'm positive is that TakeCare is a system which is not really good for hospital, but it's quite okay for primary care and specialist care. It was built for that from the start. The rumor is that they would choose Cambio, and that's what they wanted to choose.
We know the system well, and it's good for the hospital, but it's really not what the small private clinic wants to work with. It's also much more expensive. In total, I'm really optimistic about this change. It will take a couple of years.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Nice. Just to follow up on that, because I know in other regions using Cambio, the private clinics might be locked into that, but I assume you see no risk of that here then.
You can never say there's no risk, but at the moment, Region Stockholm is pushing private providers out of their system. I think that's the way we're going. In Stockholm, you have a lot of private pay, insurance patient, and the region is actually not allowed to provide systems for that. That's what they're now acting on. I think that's quite good. Today, Stockholm is not pushing anyone into the system. The other regions, nobody has really challenged that. We'll see what's happened there. We have some good discussions with a couple of clinics that are in the Cambio region. After the new, I don't know how many of you follow that, but Cambio has been pushed out in a couple of more regions.
Private providers who used to be in the old public system there are now in Cambio, and they're really unhappy because it's really, really slow, the system. We have a process there together with, or hopefully together with the region to move them to Webdoc. We'll see if that happens. If that's the case, it would open up a lot more markets. We'll see. That's early days, but we see no reason why we wouldn't be able to. Also, Cambio is built with a lot of APIs, so it's very possible to also connect systems. You don't really have any downside of working in different systems. Also, Cambio is always saying that they are for a very open environment. We'll see what happens over time, but at the moment, that's the case at least.
No, I feel very positive about Stockholm, and it's a large market, and that's where we're now gaining a lot of customers.
Great. That's clear. Last question from me. I mean, looking into this year, I assume your recruitment plans are very modest considering your guidance. What about beyond this year? What should we expect for the next few years in terms of recruitment?
I mean, we're keeping costs flat. As I mentioned before, we feel that we have a really good development capacity and that does not need to increase. What we do is prioritize between different projects. We are most likely the systems investing most in their systems. We feel that it's a good idea to do that. What happens then is that as we always invest a little bit more in our systems than what others do, we get better and better compared to other systems, creating more and more incentives to change systems. I feel happy that we are doing that, but we do not need to increase the level of investment in the system. We're also becoming more and more efficient in our development. I mentioned AI before. We're also doing a lot of new structures when it comes to our development departments.
We're getting better and better. I'm feeling hopeful that from our development, which is our largest part of cost, we can keep it quite stable. We're also working with quite a lot of other issues. Even though we have much more customers, we do not have more support, business support questions coming to our support. That's also a place where we can get more and more efficient and also use different tools to automate more answers. We feel that we can control costs quite well and keep them quite stable even as we continue to grow in coming years.
Great. That's all from me. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Frederic.
The next question comes from Elvin Rolder from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Daniel and Svein-Martin. I think several of my questions were actually answered by you during the presentation, so thank you for that. I have just one additional question because my line was a bit bad for some time. It is about Data-Al in Germany. You mentioned that you have decided to replace the other products as well to simplify and streamline. Can you just say that again for me because I think I missed that during the presentation, what that means and what you would replace with and so forth?
Yeah. Data Al has two products. It is a product that is called Data Al, so it makes it a bit confusing. The product called Data Al is for doctors. It has been built since the early 1990s or the end of the 1980s. I do not remember exactly at the moment. It has really a lot of functionality. That is a product we have said it will take a couple of years for Webdoc to replace because the doctors using the least amount of functionality, we can take quite soon. The ones using the full functionality of Data Al will take a couple of years to replace. That is fine. At the same time, we will start selling to also other customers that have the same use needs. Data Al also has a new product called Data Cure, which is a web-based, cloud-based system.
It has just like 70 or 60 customers. It was launched one and a half years ago, but it is not built as robust and as scalable as Webdoc X. Initially, our plan was just to replace Data Al and let Data Cure live in the therapist part. It is better to get rid of two platforms and just have one left. In the long run, that is much more efficient. That is why we have chosen to replace Data Cure first. There is almost no functionality that we need to develop that is not used by the doctors anyway. It will set us in a much better position going forward and also lower our costs. We can put all our efforts into Webdoc X. We will only have one product to sell to customers, one product to support, and so on.
It is a bit of a change, but it is not a dramatic change. Did that answer your question?
Thank you. Yeah, yeah, of course. Thank you. That was very clear. Just a follow-up on that, because I guess you can remove a bit of personnel from that's been working maybe on Data Cure and cover that with Webdoc X personnel. What would you expect the net effect be on costs from this when we say this is fully when you've completed the actual move and focused on Webdoc X, so to say? What can one expect in savings from this if there are any? Do you need to fill it up with additional Webdoc X workers or something like that?
That would be a question. Yeah, there will be a couple of roles possibly, but we'll have to discuss that in public when we get to that point. I wouldn't characterize it as any major changes. I mean, for the overall group, we're all the time trying to become more efficient in different parts. Then we're also adding roles. We believe in always trying to be as efficient as we can. For example, we're adding roles within marketing. We're adding roles in compliance, which are two very important parts. Compliance is also important when it comes to sales. All our customers want to feel really comfortable that their data is stored really securely, that no one else can take that data or access that data.
They also want to feel comfortable that they themselves always can access that data because otherwise they can hardly work without our systems being up and running. They have to almost stop down all of their own processes if we are down. Compliance is an important part. For example, we're doing ISO 27001 now. That will be finalized during Q2. I would not do any large calculations on it, but of course, it will help us be cost-efficient going forward. Sorry for the long reply.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. Just one follow-up on the bankruptcies and the churn that we will see here in H1. You mentioned 2 million-3 million in ARR churn. Is that going to get a full effect in Q1, or will it be like the full implications on revenue will be from Q1, sorry, Q2 and onwards? There will be some effect in Q1. How should one think about how that churn will transpire through the P&L, so to say?
It will take effect at the end of Q1. It's our best estimate now, so in March. So one month effect in Q1 and then full effect from Q2 onwards.
Okay. Great. Thank you so much. That was all from me. I'll get back in line and see if there are any other questions.
Thank you, Elvin.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad.
We do not have any more people dialing in, so I think we can go to the chat where we have a few questions as well. First one is from Emilia at DNB. What do you expect in revenue contribution from Germany in 2025, upside to the guidance if the migration process goes faster than you anticipate? And can you say something about when we should expect sales to come in from that region on Webdoc X? In terms of revenue contribution from Germany, we do not expect to have any material contribution from the Webdoc X product. When we updated the guidance in connection with the Data-Al acquisition, we increased the guidance NOK 40 million. Somewhere slightly above that will likely be the impact.
I think on revenues from Webdoc X, there's not much upside in 2025 on the figures on the revenue side to the guidance, given that even if we start to sign customers, we won't have much revenue impact during this year, basically. We expect more material contribution to come in 2026-2027 from Webdoc X, I would say. Next one, same from Emilia. How much of the churn was driven by bankruptcies in Q4? Should we expect to see some effects from this also going to 2025? I think we addressed this already, but these additional bankruptcies that we mentioned for Webdoc did not take effect in Q4, so it will take effect, like I mentioned, in Q1.
Next one from Rasmus Persson. Good morning and congratulations on the year and the quarter. Thank you, Rasmus. First one, a large cash pile remains following the acquisition.
It would be nice to get an update on the plans going forward. Are you expecting additional acquisitions?
Yeah. That is a persuasion discussion we have with the board. As we see it, we will start having a strong cash flow from the business going forward so that can be used in different manners, of course. We do not plan to sit with a lot of cash on the balance sheet, but also we see a lot of interesting opportunities. That is a prioritization discussion we will have with the board, and then we will come back to the market with how we view it. We feel strongly that it is important not to stress any acquisitions. That is something you always have to do with good control and really think through things. Yeah, it is first now we are in that position that we really see this positive cash flow coming in and that will grow over time.
That is something we know we need to address also to the market now. We will come back to that in the coming months, I would say.
Next one, regarding Stockholm, are customers hesitant and waiting for the new tender for main system?
No, I wouldn't say so. The change in systems will take place if they manage to keep timelines for the first time ever by the end of this decade. It is quite some time to go before they actually have to change systems. I don't think they'll wait for tenders. Webdoc is still quite unknown in Stockholm. We're working on that. We have had a lot of events in Stockholm during the autumn. We're doing a lot of marketing towards private clinics in Stockholm in different ways. I think it's about that and also about most of our sales today being people using our system and talking to others, private clinics, and they say, "Oh, okay, that's a good system." Then I will look at it. Most of it is word by mouth. Word of mouth is probably the way to say it.
That is, of course, weaker in Stockholm than in Gothenburg, as we have much fewer installations in Stockholm. There are no installations at all, but users in Stockholm. That is also an important part, but we are trying to really split it up with marketing and a lot of events. The large private providers who are really very much better connected into the different systems and know what the different systems are, that is where we have most of the discussions at the moment because, yeah, they have large IT departments. They know different systems. They know they want to use Webdoc. That is easier for us to move with them and then have the smaller ones moving to Webdoc later on. I do not think they have to attend. It is not a big part.
What would really drive Webdoc growth in Stockholm is just more people getting to know the system.
Next one is on the bankruptcies. I think we addressed that already. One from Richard here on the ARR growth was a bit slower in Q4. Could you elaborate? Seems churn is stable, but net upsell is down. It's true that it's slightly a couple of percent down from Q3, but I would say in general, around 15% is where we have been trending this year. That is basically our run rate as well going into next year. We need these large contracts that we have signed that are not yet being reported in revenues, and we need to implement those to drive up the percentage points, basically.
We could also mention that those large contracts are taking quite a lot of effort from the organization. It's a lot of close work together with customers. It also a little bit hampers our possibilities to take on other new contracts at the moment. When you have signed the small contracts, it's no problem at all. We can assign them as we go and implement them as we go. All processes are there. It's really easy to do. Most of our growth is small contracts. Large contracts take a lot of effort from the organization to really discuss all the requirements that the customers have, go through it, show how we actually fulfill them. It's long, quite tedious processes. Our capacity to run those processes at the moment is a bit tampered because we have these larger ones.
As we mentioned before, also it's important to run them anyway on the side so that once we have implemented these, we have the next large contracts to implement. I think we'll get there, but at the moment, it's quite a lot of work with the existing large contracts.
Next one is from Niklas. Two questions. First, on the cash position, I think you addressed that already. Second one, it's related to the historical tax losses. What happens to the historical tax loss after relisting? Will you be able to use this onwards to avoid having to pay full taxes? This is related to the NOK 295 million tax loss we have in Norway. That was, of course, an important part of the relisting process, how we should manage that and the structure we made in the end for the relisting made that available for the future as well. In Norway, we have a very high degree of tax loss for a long time. We also have some in Sweden.
We could also mention there is that when possible, we're trying to create values in Norway in order to be able to use these losses going forward. For example, the development of our new AI tools for customers is taking place in Norway so that we can use those losses. When possible, we do development in Norway in order to be able to use these losses going forward. I think that's all the questions we had. Thank you all for your attention this morning. Yes, let us know if you have any questions. We're available. Have a good day. Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Carasent's presentation of the fourth quarter. My name is Daniel Öhman. I'm the CEO of Carasent, and with me are Svein-Martin Bjørnstad, our CFO. I will start by giving a company update before I hand over to Svein-Martin.
Looking at the fourth quarter, I'm really proud of how we managed to hit basically everything we set out to do during 2024. We had our financial performance in line with targets. We did the release into the Stockholm Stock Exchange, and more importantly, we did the acquisition of Data-Al, giving us a strong foundation in Germany. Talking about the acquisition of Data-Al, we had gotten to know them quite well, or very well actually, during the quite a long acquisition process where you really want to, we really wanted to see all parts of the business, and we wanted to get to know the management team before we actually pulled the triggers. We've been able to move quite quickly after acquisition.
The Webdoc X team is now part of Data Al, and we have a joint roadmap, including, went across down the different softwares, from Data Al, and they will be fully replaced by Webdoc X. I feel really happy about last year. I'm proud of the organization and what we have accomplished. Looking a little bit more forward, we have good progress in our large development projects. I think most of you know about surgery. That's Webdoc getting a surgery module, which is important for all, or many large, clinics in Sweden, which will use it. We have really good discussions with our larger customers on moving to Webdoc for clinics that today don't use Webdoc and moving also to then the surgery module. I feel really comfortable about where we are with surgery.
It takes maybe a little bit longer than I expected because they want to have some further functionality in place before actually doing the switch. We are in a good position, in very close discussion with those potential customers, and we have a lot of interest from other customers also. I think that will really help us during the autumn, especially. NLL is the new medicine module for Sweden. It is a legal requirement that all medical record systems need to implement, but it is really good for Webdoc because after that is done, you will be able to see medication from all different systems in all systems. If you use Webdoc, you will be able to see what is done in the public and so on. That is a really good one. Volvat, which is so important for the Methodic and the rollout there, is going well.
During the autumn, we'll start implementing Methodic and replacing all those present HR systems in Volvat. For you who are new, Volvat is a Capio Norway where we're replacing all the older existing HRs with Methodic during the autumn, and it's to be finalized in January next year. We're building a couple of patient platforms for online visits and so on, which is going well. Webdoc X really has the pace up now, working towards the German market. From a development perspective, we're doing better and better and getting more efficient every day, I would say. During the fourth quarter, we had a couple of bankrupt systems, and also a larger customer losing their contract with Stockholm.
That would put some pressure and would give us a bit of higher churn during the end of Q1 this year and the beginning of Q2 this year. In total, that is a loss of around NOK 2 million-NOK 3 million ARR that will be, that the hit will take place in the end of Q1. We feel that this is a one-off effect. The bankruptcies are, the largest part are two tech companies, which have been quite large. One is bankrupt and the other one is in reconstruction. It is most likely that they will not be able to continue. I think it is the time now when many of those startups who have received quite a lot of funding but have not been able to turn around their business, that the funding is drying up.
We don't have any other of those kind of risks as we see it in the customer portfolio for Webdoc. We have many of the online doctors, but they are now mostly making profits and they have quite good valuations. So we're not too worried about those, but these are two smaller online doctors that will close down most likely. That means that the ARR for a group is likely to go from 2% to 3% during Q2, we believe. We really feel that it's a one-time effect. Growth, we have signed to implement, the ARR amount to SEK 17 million. This is mostly Volvat. It's MedRave for VGR and Acute is for Fremdlys Armeen in Norway. Those customers will mostly be implemented during the autumn. That's when we really will see those signed, not in the ARR moving to real turnover.
In the quarter, we have 15% organic recurring revenue growth and 17% contract ARR growth. It feels really good that we now have the break-even level, and that's just a step on the way. We have strong improvements in our EBITDA, as you will see on the next slide. Here you can see we're growing with NOK 14 million in the quarter. In the 2023 numbers, we have NOK 2 million of Confere in those numbers, which we have sold. In the 2024 numbers, it's important to note that we have NOK 8 million of Data Al revenue in those numbers, where NOK 2 million or 25% of Data Al's revenues are consulting revenue. In total, NOK 14 million growth. What's really positive is that NOK 13 million of that goes all the way down to our EBITDA, as EBITDA minus CapEx level.
I feel really good about our control of costs and that we have the growth really, really going down to the EBITDA C level. Looking at our targets for 2024 and our performance, we're basically in line with all those targets that we set. It is, as you can see, quite a large improvement over 2023. Especially when looking at the third row, EBITDA minus Capex. That is what we internally see as the only profitability level we look at company-wide, so to speak. The reason being that EBITDA is, we feel, a measure that's not really reflecting reality, as almost all development we do is to win new customers, also the ones we cannot capitalize. We feel that EBITDA minus Capex is a good level to look at.
Looking ahead, the really key to delivering this growth this year is that we have surgery coming online in time and that we have Volvat coming online in time and so on. It is really important that we deliver development on time, or yeah, we have some extra time in the roadmap, but more or less on time will be a key for getting this growth to really reach the targets we have for 2025. As I mentioned, we have big interest in what we're building. We feel we're doing the right things, and it's just important to get it out on time. The other really important part to achieve those goals is the efficient use of resources. As I mentioned before, it's about every day, every week, and every month becoming a couple of percentage points more efficient.
We do that all the time. Some examples that we've been working with in the last couple of months is replacing roles. If we have roles that are not really creating the maximum amount of value, we will remove those roles and add other roles. Even if costs are more or less flat, we are doing quite a lot of changes in the organization in order to really maximize our output. There are a couple of roles that have been removed the last month, and a couple of new roles have been created. Also, the use of AI is quite important for a software company to really be efficient in development. We see that we're getting more and more efficient using these tools.
When it comes to Webdoc X, as I wrote in the quarter report, we did a little bit change in the roadmap now together with the Data-Al team. In Data-Al, we have two products, Data Cure, which is a quite new product for therapists that's growing quite rapidly, and Data Al, which is their older product, which is for doctors and has really a lot of functionality. What we decided is to first replace Data Cure and then move on and replace also Data Al in a couple of years' time. Data Cure is the aim to replace this year. That means that we can close down one of the two platforms in Data-Al much sooner than we'd expected.
But it also means that the certification we're aiming to do now, more or less now, will be moved to the autumn in order to first fully replace the Data Cure functionality and then close down that software. I think that's a really good change, but it changes a bit in our roadmap. The first German pilots are live and they are happy, but they are just using Webdoc X on the side. It's not full pilots as we're not certified. With those words, I will hand over to Svein-Martin.
Thank you, Daniel. Starting off, on some of the financial highlights for the quarter, our ARR base grew quite significantly in Q4. That is partly driven by this acquisition of Data Al, which added about a bit more than SEK 30 million in ARR.
Also, our signed contract base takes us up to NOK 304 million in contracted ARR, which grew 17% organically. The reported recurring revenue growth grew 15%. Our other metrics as well developed as we had planned in the quarter. If we take a more detailed look into the P&L, there are three main points I would like to highlight here. Firstly, you see that in the quarter, our gross profit increased by 26% and the gross margin increased from 81% to 84%. This is because we have reduced hosting costs in Norway through negotiations with suppliers. We have also sold Confere, so this increase in margin is sustainable. You see the same trend for the full year. Secondly, we had big one-off costs in the quarter, NOK 20 million of cost.
This was related to the relisting and the acquisition of Data Al. You also see that we had big costs for the full year of NOK 30 million. This has been a special year with this bid process with EG, the relisting, and Data Al. This cost has now been taken, and we do not expect any more costs from these processes going forward. Another key point to highlight is if we look at the personnel expense, it increased from NOK 32 million to NOK 39 million. However, if we also include the capitalized development cost, we get the cash cost for our employee base. You see if we add these together, it is basically flat year over year. That is very encouraging for us, given that we have added cost from Data Al, about NOK 2 million. Also, we have, of course, wage increases, et cetera.
This means that we have been very successful in reducing costs in other places. We continue to work on that through reducing roles and also through changing, for example, consultants to employees. You see the effects of this on the margins. We grew our revenues by SEK 15 million, and the EBITDA basically increased by 14, so basically all our, or 13, all our earnings trickles down to the, or all our revenues trickles down to the earnings. With a 22% revenue growth, we get the margin improvement of 18%. If we are able to continue being as strict on the cost side going forward, we can continue to see that this scalability has a very powerful effect. If we look at the development on EBITDA minus Capex, excluding Germany, you see that the trend is positive.
We have a good improvement year over year. It's trending a bit down since Q3. The reason for that is that we have this holiday effect in Q3 that we mentioned on the personnel cost side. That is typically the strongest quarter on the margins. If we look at the ARR growth, we continue to have a robust underlying organic growth, primarily driven by the net retention rates. The churn is low at 2%. As Daniel mentioned, it might increase to 3% given this churn in Webdoc, but still the recurring revenue base is very much stable. The signed contracts take us up to 17% growth. We have Data Al as well that takes us up to NOK 304 million. On the cash flow side, we also see good improvements.
We have this high one-off cost, as you see on the report, so the EBITDA is negative, but we have strong working capital effects in Q4, partly driven by the customer receivables. Also, some of the effect is related to invoices for the relisting that were not paid at the year end. That will have a negative effect again in Q1. In general, you see on the full year figures that our working capital profile is very much supportive to our cash flow, given that we invoice customers upfront and then we pay afterwards. You see that even though we have this big one-off cost of NOK 30 million for the full year, we are still very close to being break-even on the free cash flow side. That illustrates the power in our working capital profile.
Finally, on the financial targets, we are now reporting in SEK after our relisting. We have just provided this slide to convert the target we provided in NOK in October to SEK at the currency rate at the date of publication of the targets. With that, we can open up for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Frederic Nielsen from Redeye. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Daniel and Svein-Martin. Morning. I want to ask a question. The next question comes from Frederic Nielsen with a question regarding... Please go ahead. Region Stockholm will decide on a new system for the public care in next week.
How might that impact your addressable market in the region for the long term?
We are really positive today as today most private providers in Stockholm use the public system not just because of historical reasons. When Stockholm privatized, the region offered them to use the public system, which is called TakeCare, which is called OmvärldsCGM, CompGroup. They most just chose that system. There were no others to choose from. Webdoc was not there at that point in time. Today, most customers we are winning are, we are winning in Stockholm. What is really good is that all those private providers now have to change systems. Usually our, the challenge for us is not to convince customers that Webdoc is better than what they use today. It is that it is also worth all the effort in changing systems.
Here in Stockholm, now in Stockholm, everyone will have to change systems. We think that would really support us going forward. What's also really good, or yeah, it is that CompuGroup has almost stopped developing TakeCare. That system will die and everyone knows that. That also means that that system is lagging more and more compared to Webdoc. That would really help us too. What's also good is in the last couple of months, Region Stockholm has been more and more clear that you're not allowed to have large amounts of private pay or insurance payments in their system. That will also help us. In total, I'm really positive to this. Finally, why I'm positive is that TakeCare is a system which is not really good for hospital, but it's quite okay for primary care and specialist care.
It was built for that from the start. They, the rumor is that they would choose Cambio, and that's what they wanted to choose. We know the system well and it's, it's good for a hospital, but it's really not what the small private clinic wants to work with. It's also much more expensive. In total, I'm really optimistic about this change. It will take a couple of years. Okay. Do you have an answer question?
Interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah. Please go ahead.
Yeah Nice. Just to follow up on that, because I know in other regions using Cambio, the private clinics might be locked into that, but I assume you see no risk of that here then. You can never say there's no risk.
At the moment, Region Stockholm is pushing private providers out of their system. I think that's the way we're going. In Stockholm, you have a lot of private pay, insurance patient. The region is actually not allowed to provide systems for that, and that's what they're now acting on. I think that's quite good. Today, Stockholm is not pushing anyone into the system. The other regions, nobody has really challenged that. We'll see what's happened there. We have some good discussions with a couple of clinics that are in the Cambio region. After the new, I don't know how many of you follow that, but Cambio has been pushed out in a couple of more regions, and private providers who used to be in the old public system there are now in Cambio.
They're really unhappy because it's really, really slow, the system. We have a process there together with, or hopefully together with the region, to move them to Webdoc. We'll see if that happens. If that's the case, it would open up a lot more markets. We'll see. That's early days. We see no reason why we wouldn't be able to. Also, Cambio is built with a lot of APIs, so it's very possible to also connect systems. You don't really have any downside of working in different systems. Also, Cambio is always saying that they are for a very open environment. We'll see what happens over time. At the moment, that's the case at least. I feel very positive about Stockholm. It's a large market, and that's where we're now gaining a lot of customers.
Great. That's clear. Last question from me. I mean, looking into this year, I assume your recruitment plans are very modest considering your guidance. What about beyond this year? What should we expect for the next few years in terms of recruitment?
I mean, we're keeping costs flat. As I mentioned before, we feel that we have a really good development capacity and that that does not need to increase. What we do is prioritize between different projects. We are most likely the systems investing most in their systems. We feel that it's a good idea to do that. What happens then is that, as we always invest a little bit more in our systems than what others do, we get better and better compared to other systems, creating more and more incentives to change systems.
I feel happy that we are doing that, but we do not need to increase the level of investment in the system. We're also becoming more and more efficient in our development. I mentioned AI before. We're also doing a lot of new structures when it comes to our development departments. We're getting better and better. I'm feeling really hopeful that for our development, which is our largest part of cost, we can keep it quite stable. We are also working with quite a lot of other issues. Even though we have much more customers, we do not have more support, business, support, support questions coming to our support. That's also a place where we can get more and more efficient and also use different tools to automate more answers.
We feel that we can control costs quite well and keep them quite stable even as we continue to grow in coming years.
Great. That's all from me. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Frederic.
The next question comes from Elvin Rolder from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Daniel and Svein-Martin. I think several of my questions were actually answered by you during the presentation, so thank you for that. I have just one additional question because my line was a bit bad for some time, and it's about data in Germany. You mentioned that you have decided to replace the other products as well to simplify and streamline. Can you just say that again for me?
Because I think I missed that during the presentation, what that means and what you would replace with them and so forth.
Yeah. Data Al has two products. It's a product that's called Data Al, so it makes it a bit confusing. The product called Data Al is for doctors. It's been built since the early 1990s or the end of the 1980s. I don't remember exactly at the moment. It has really a lot of functionality. That's a product we've said it will take a couple of years for Webdoc to replace, because, you know, the doctors using the least amount of functionality we can take quite soon. The ones using the full functionality of Data Al will take a couple of years to replace. That's fine.
At the same time, we'll start selling to other customers that have the same use needs. Data Al also has a new product called Data Cure, which is a web-based, cloud-based system, and it has just like 70 or 60 customers. It was launched one and a half years ago, but it's not built as robust and as scalable as Webdoc X. Initially, our plan was just to replace Data Al and let Data Cure live in the therapist part. It is better to get rid of two platforms and just have one left. In the long run, that's much more efficient. That is why we have chosen to replace Data Cure first. There is almost no functionality that we need to develop that's not used by the doctors anyway.
It will set us in a much better position, going forward and also lower our costs. Then we can put all our efforts into Webdoc X. We'll only have one product to sell to customers, one product to support and so on. It's a bit of a change, but it's not a dramatic chang e. Did that answer your question?
Thank you. Yeah, yeah, of course. Thank you. That was very clear. And then just a follow-up on that, because I guess you can remove a bit of personnel from, I don't think, working maybe on Data Cure and cover that with Webdoc X personnel.
What would you expect the net effect be on costs from this, when we say this is fully, when you've completed the actual move and focused on Webdoc X, so to say, what can one expect in savings from this if there are any, or do you need to fill that, fill it up with additional Webdoc X workers or something like that?
That would be a question. Yeah. There would be a couple of roles possibly, but we will have to discuss that in public when we get to that point. I would not characterize it as any major changes. I mean, for the overall group, we are all the time trying to become more efficient in different parts. We are also, you know, adding roles.
We believe in always trying to be as efficient as we can. For example, we're adding roles within marketing. We're adding roles in compliance, which are two very important parts. Compliance is also important when it comes to sales. All our customers want to feel really comfortable that their data is stored really securely, that no one else can take that data or access that data. They also want to feel comfortable that they themselves always can access that data. Because otherwise they can hardly work without our systems being up and running. They have to almost stop down all of their own processes if we are down. Compliance is an important part. For example, we're doing ISO 27001 now. That will be finalized during Q2.
I wouldn't do any large calculations on it, but of course it will help us being cost-efficient going forward. Yeah. It's a long reply.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. Then just one follow-up on the bankruptcies and the churn that we will see here in H1. You mentioned two to three million in ARR churn. Is that going to get like a full effect in Q1 or will the full implications on revenue be from Q1 or Q2 and onwards? Then there will be some effect in Q1. How should one think about how that churn will transpire through the P&L, so to say?
It will take effect at the end of Q1 is our best estimate now. In March. One month effect in Q1 and then full effect from Q2 onwards.
Okay. Great. Thank you so much. That was all from me. I'll get back in line and see if there are any other questions.
Thank you, Elvin.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad.
We don't have any more people dialing in, so I think we can go to the chat where we have a few questions as well. First one is from Emilia at DNB. What do you expect in revenue contribution from Germany in 2025, upside to the guidance if the migration process goes faster than you anticipate? And can you say something about when we should expect sales to come in from that region on Webdoc X?
In terms of revenue contribution from Germany, we do not expect to have any material contribution from the Webdoc X product. When we updated the guidance in connection with the Data-Al acquisition, we increased the guidance NOK 40 million. Somewhere slightly above that will likely be the impact. I think on revenues from Webdoc X, there is not much upside in 2025 on the figures on the revenue side to the guidance, given that even if we start to sign customers, we will not have much revenue impact during this year, basically. We expect more material contribution to come in 2026-2027 from Webdoc X, I would say.
Next one, same from Emilia. How much of the churn was driven by bankruptcies in Q4? Should we expect to see some effects from this also going to 2025?
I think we addressed this already, but these additional bankruptcies that we mentioned for Webdoc did not take effect in Q4. It will take effect, like I mentioned, in the end of Q1. Next one from Rasmus Persson. Good morning and congratulations on the year and the quarter. Thank you, Rasmus. First one, a large cash pile remains following the acquisition. It would be nice to get an update on the plans going forward. Are you expecting additional acquisitions?
Yeah. That is per session discussion we have with the board. As we see it, we will start having a strong cash flow from the business going forward. That can be used in different manners, of course. We do not plan to sit with a lot of cash on the balance sheet, but also, we see a lot of interesting opportunities.
That's a prioritization discussion we'll have with the board, and then we'll come back to the market with how we view it. We feel strongly that it's important not to stress any acquisitions. That you always have to do with good control and really think through things. It's first now we are in that position that we really see this positive cash flow coming in, and that will grow over time. That's something we know we need to address also to the market now. We'll come back to that in the coming months, I would say.
Next one regarding Stockholm, our customer is hesitant and waiting for the new tender for a main system.
No, I wouldn't say so. The change in systems will take place if they manage to keep timelines for the first time ever, by the end of this decade. It is quite some time to go before they actually have to change systems. I do not think they are waiting for tenders. Webdoc is still quite unknown in Stockholm. We are working on that. We have had a lot of events in Stockholm during the autumn. We are doing a lot of marketing towards private clinics in Stockholm, in different ways. I think it is about that and also about, you know, most of our sales today are people using our system and talking to others, private clinics, and they say, "Oh, okay, that is a good system." So then I will look at it. Most of it is word by mouth. Word of mouth is probably the way to say it.
That's of course weaker in Stockholm than in Gothenburg, as we have much fewer installations in Stockholm or there are no installations at all, but users in Stockholm. That's also an important part, but we're trying to really split it up with marketing and a lot of events. The large private providers who are really very much better connected into the different systems and know what the different systems are, that's where we have most of the discussions at the moment because, yeah, they have large IT departments. They know different systems. They know they want to use Webdoc, so that's easier for us to move with them and then have the smaller ones moving to Webdoc later on. I don't think there has to, tend is not a big part.
What would really drive Webdoc growth in Stockholm is just more people getting to know the system.
Next one is on the bankruptcies. I think we addressed that already. Then one from Richard here on the ARR growth was a bit slower in Q4. Could you elaborate? Seems churn is stable, but net upsell is down. It is true that it is slightly a couple of percent down from Q3, but I would say in general, around 15% is where we have been trending this year. That is basically our run rate as well going into next year. We need these large contracts that we have signed that are not yet being reported in revenues. We need to implement those to drive up the percentage points, basically.
We could also mention that those large contracts are taking quite a lot of effort from the organization. It's a lot of close work together with customers. It also a little bit hampers our possibilities to take on other new contracts at the moment. When you assign the small contracts, it's no problem at all. We can assign them as we go and implement them as we go. All processes are there. That's really easy to do. Most of our growth is small contracts, but large contracts take a lot of effort from the organization to really discuss all the requirements that the customer have, go through it, show how we actually fulfill them. It's long, quite tedious processes. Our capacity to run those processes at the moment is a bit hampered, because we have these larger ones.
but as we mentioned before, also it's important to run them anyway on the side so that once we've implemented these, we have the next large contracts to implement. I think we'll get there, but it's, at the moment, it's quite a lot of work with the existing large contracts.
Next one is from Niklas. Two questions. First, on the cash position, I think you addressed that already. Second one, it's related to the historical tax losses. What happens to the historical tax loss after relisting? Will you be able to use this onwards to avoid having to pay full taxes? This is related to the NOK 250 million-NOK 295 million tax loss we have in Norway. That was, of course, an important part of the relisting process, how we should manage that.
The structure we made in the end for the relisting made that available for the future as well. In Norway, we have a very high degree of tax loss for a long time. We also have some in Sweden.
We could also mention that what we, when possible, are trying to do is create values in Norway in order to be able to use these losses going forward. For example, the development of our new AI tools for customers is taking place in Norway so that we can use those losses. When possible, we do development in Norway in order to be able to use these losses going forward. I think that's all the questions we had. Thank you all for your attention this morning. Let us know if you have any questions. We're available and have a good day. Thank you.