Hello and Welcome to Today's Webcast Presentation where we have Checkin.com Group Presenting their Year-End Report 2023. With us presenting, we have CEO Kristoffer Cassel and CFO Martin Bäuml. Feel free to use the form on the locator to the right for questions. With that said, please go ahead with your presentation.
Thank you, Jesper. So my name is Kristoffer Cassel. I'm the CEO, and with us today we also have Martin, who is our CFO. And I think, first of all, thanks for everyone listening in to this presentation. We will keep a similar format to what we have done previous quarters, which is that I speak a bit about the business and the outlooks, and Martin goes into some of the numbers from the report to highlight a few things. But all in all, we expect you as a listener to have read the report and to already be somewhat familiar with us as a company. So we'll go pretty much straight to the point. And starting off, I think I write in the CEO letter that I'm grateful to begin the new year with this strength.
I feel this sort of step shift we have done last year and the profitability and the cash flow strength that we're having feels very, very good to have now that we start 2024, especially that we have strengthened the cash flows and the profitability. I think that this quarter shows that the profitability improvements that we have had last year, where we have fivefolded our EBITDA during the year compared to 2022, is trickling down as well into real cash in the bank account.
We have more than SEK 16 million in cash flow from operating activities during the quarter. Despite that we invest heavily in R&D and amortize on some of the loans, etc., we still strengthen the net cash position by almost SEK 7 million . We do this despite that we see a slight seasonal weaker usage than expected from our clients. This profitability that we see enables long-term investment for us. We take all the investments in R&D and product from the cash flow that our operating activities generate.
We also, as I said, amortize on our loans, and that strengthens our equity ratio with to 86%. We're in a strong financial position for the year that begins. As I said, just to repeat, the net cash is strengthened by almost SEK 7 million compared to last quarter. We're now generating cash. This allows us to think quite long-term, to do what's best for the company in the coming year. The organic growth is at 38% year-on-year, stopping at SEK 27.2 million for the quarter. That is slightly lower than the Q3 number, mainly due to seasonality usage from the travel sector, which is our biggest, most important sector.
There is also some currency shifts where we invoice almost all our clients in euro currency, and we report this in SEK. The travel segment has had seasonally weak usage. It's the most important customer vertical. Seasonally, we have seen weaker volumes during the winter compared to the sort of peak usage of the late summer. I think we should expect continued weak volumes in Q1. At the same time, we have, during the fourth quarter, rolled out more functionality together with our biggest clients, and we are taking a larger share of check-in, which means that actually our expectations for the full year have strengthened. As we say, we think volumes in Q1 should be quite weak as well. The quarter's rollout should provide strong leverage. The cooperation with our largest customers has developed well, as I said.
The technology rollout has continued during Q4. We have added new modules. I write some about this in the CEO letter. Added new modules, but also taking a larger share of the total check-ins. This should provide leverage, as I said, when the volumes increase again from the existing clients, and especially this large European airline that we have been working with for a long time. We've also been in deep discussions with several international airlines. I think the potential of these discussions are obviously really, really promising. With some luck, I think we can add a few airlines in the coming year. That would, of course, be really a further shift upwards in terms of revenue generation. Because our focus continues to be on the large customers, on the enterprise players.
We see that these players require long-term thinking and persistent work over several quarters, maybe slightly longer lead times. But once they go live, hopefully, great, the leverage. And we speak about a large fintech company, which is a great example of this, where we are integrated. We are in a revenue-generating phase. And we have, during quarter four, and still working hard to increase their usage and add more use cases for our software. And the potential of that client within fintech is massive.
If we play our cards well, I think it has the potential to repeat the success we have had in the travel segment. But of course, it will take several quarters, and it requires continued work. We also have, in general, I think, a stronger commercial position than ever, really, in terms of the pipeline and the discussions we're having. Not only that we're speaking with several potential clients, but the size of each of those clients are very promising. So we will keep focusing on enterprise clients, and hopefully some of this will translate into revenue in the coming year.
Also, just want to mention that a lot of mine and Martin's work is actually around acquisitions and M&A. We see that there's still plenty of potential in the market to create shareholder value by additional acquisitions. Just reminding what we're looking for, we're looking for leading technology within niche areas that can strengthen our offering, oh, sorry, our offering to our clients and to the end user. Also excellence in the team and product-driven companies with strong momentum and growth. We're not looking for M&A to increase the revenue sort of the next quarter.
We see this as a long-term game and looking for acquisitions that make our product offering better and that accelerate the growth long-term. I hope to come back with some news in this area in the year to come. Also, it's the second quarter with new financial targets. As you know, we have a variant of the classic SaaS metric, Rule of 40. Our goal is to maximize the sum of revenue growth per share and EBITDA margin. We feel confident with the ambition to exceed 80% in this metric on an annual basis.
This quarter is at 69%, slightly below the ambition. Last quarter was way above. But again, here the important thing is over time and on an annual basis that we keep delivering on this metric. We believe if we can do that, that we will continue to create big shareholder value also in the future. With that said, I will hand over to Martin, our CFO, who's also in the call.
Thank you, Kristoffer. The quarterly report itself is packed with a lot of numbers and details. I thought we'd go through the high-level overview in this call and then leave more room for questions in the end. Net sales increased by 38% compared to the same quarter last year, ending at SEK 27.2 million in the quarter. That growth was not affected by any acquisition. The organic growth was also 38%, which has actually accelerated organic growth compared to the same period last year. The gross margin was 81% in the quarter in line with recent quarters. We continue to see clear signs of the scalability of the business model that we talked about in the last quarterly report, which led to a sharp increase in EBITDA compared to last year, plus SEK 9.2 million, which corresponds to a margin of 34%.
The one thing that sticks out the most in this report is the strong cash flow, I think. We generated SEK 16.6 million in cash flow from operations, which is almost a four or quadrupled—which is almost quadrupled compared to Q4 2022. The strong cash flow trickles into the bank account as well, of course. We ended the quarter with a cash balance of SEK 37.7 million, where the net cash is up almost SEK 7 million compared to Q3. The strong solvency ratio of 86% means that we have a lot of financial flexibility as well. So going into the net revenue details here, we are adding the second largest building block ever in this kind of building block slide, which confirms that we are at this new level that we've talked about in the last quarter.
We had a few previous quarters where we were around or slightly below SEK 20 million each quarter, and now we are closer to SEK 30 million, so kind of confirming that new level. This quarter itself is SEK 27.2 million, as I mentioned, and the growth was 38%. For the full year, net revenue landed on SEK 97 million, and that was also up 38% compared to the full year 2022. Going into the gross profit, that grew also in the quarter up to SEK 22 million in the quarter, which corresponds to a margin of 81%. We've been in that area in the last kind of six to eight quarters, something like that. In absolute terms, we had a gross profit during the whole year of 2023 of almost SEK 80 million.
It is these high gross margins and the absolute kind of money from it that allows us to spend and invest resources into revenue-generating activities, and foremost product development and also sales and marketing. If we go to the sales and marketing slide, we have continued with these investments. We've also experienced over the last kind of year or two increased improvement and a larger focus on enterprise clients. In 2023, we spent pretty much the same amount as we did in 2022 on sales and marketing activities, SEK 15.3 million in the year. That corresponds to 16% both during the year and also in Q4. That's a little bit lower than our previous guidance.
If we move to EBITDA, as I mentioned, we continue to see the scalability in the business model and also some synergies still from the acquisitions of GetID and Datacorp, which led to a strong increase in EBITDA. We had SEK 9.2 million of EBITDA in the quarter, which corresponds to a margin of 34%. For the full year, we had SEK 27.2 million of EBITDA, which corresponds to a margin of 28%. As you can see in here, it's a quite big increase compared to the full year of 2022. It's almost a five-folded year-over-year. Finally, if we go to the cash position, we ended the quarter with cash of almost SEK 38 million.
It is a bit down compared to last year. As we kind of reached this new level in the last two quarters, we have started generating cash. Net cash was up almost SEK 7 million only in this quarter, quarter four, which kind of indicates we are at this new level where we are self-sufficient and cash flow-generating. The high equity ratio of 86% in combination with these positive cash flows means that we now have quite a lot of financial flexibility. With that, I'll hand it back to Kristoffer for some final comments and Q&A.
Thank you, Martin. Just to sort of summarize the points that both me and Martin have mentioned, we see strong cash flows thanks to this five-folded EBITDA that we had during the full year. We have delivered now organically without acquisitions. We do this with a strong net revenue retention. Although in this specific quarter, it's slightly lower than the previous one, still, the net revenue retention and the fact that our clients continue to work with us and expand their usage is really a key driver to understand how we can five-fold the EBITDA basically in one year. Also, commercially, we have never been in a better position. We hope that translates to some news to come. With that, I think we can open up for questions.
Okay. Thank you for that presentation. We have a lot of questions that have been submitted here. The first question is, cash flow is at high levels. Can we expect these high levels to be maintained?
I think in a general sense, definitely. There will be differences quarter to quarter sometimes. But I think the key driver behind the high cash flow is the profitability. And the profitability, in turn, is driven by the scale. So if we continue to grow the way we have historically been growing, the profitability should continue step by step to increase, which trickles down into cash flow. So absolutely.
The growth is at 38%, but still lower compared to Q4 2022, I think they mean there. What is behind it?
The organic growth in Q4 was 38% year-on-year. Actually, it was only 31% one year back. We are growing faster organically. But I guess the question refers to that the revenue is lower than the revenue in Q3. Yeah, I'll refer back to what I said regarding the travel segment and their usage or seasonality, which is affecting our volumes in turn. It's driven mainly by that.
Yes. Okay. So you mentioned new modules that help you attract enterprise customers. Can you tell us a bit more about them and what problems they solve?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, in the end, it is the fact that we create unique and valuable software that solves our customers' needs that enables this growth that we have seen historically. We have added two modules during Q4. One is called BotLens. It's a solution to ensure that you don't have automated systems populating or trying to act as a real person.
The other module is regarding analysis of signatures, not to e-sign documents, not to make legally binding documents, but to use signatures as a way to or actually as an alternative to other ways of biometrically verifying a person. Both of those modules are fully in production now and starting to trickle in some revenue from. They also set us apart from the competition. It's modules that we have created by listening to our biggest partners and their needs.
Checkin shows a continued strong EBITDA margin. What long-term goals does the company have for that?
The long-term goal is to maximize the sum of the organic growth or basically the revenue growth per share and EBITDA margin. The sum of those should be maximized. So we don't have specific targets for EBITDA. But I think it's fair to expect if we manage to keep growing the top line, the margins should improve over time.
Were you surprised that there are such large seasonal variations within travel?
In one way, yes, although it's maybe not that surprising when you think about it. But maybe, yes, to some extent, we were. On the other hand, for us, our key focus is to get new customers in, make sure that the customers we have expand their usage, and that we take a bigger part of their check-ins, so to speak. And that has been our focus. And then if their volumes are coming slightly not even throughout the year, in the long run, that doesn't really matter too much, to be honest. And our focus is to take more and more. And I think the low seasonality now hopefully comes back as a high season over the summer.
Okay. You have relatively recently updated your financial target. How do you see the targets linked to the result in Q4?
Yeah, also this question, I think we touched upon in the slide regarding the financial targets. Just reiterate my answer there, which is we feel confident with the ambition we have set of 80% for the full year. And yeah, I think we're quite in line with that for the first two quarters that we have had this goal.
You're in discussion with several international airlines. On what time horizon can the market expect effects from those discussions?
I don't think we make any clear prognosis on that. We have seen that enterprise clients take several quarters to get live and to get expansion. And if we look at our big airline client, that has taken three or four quarters, maybe even five, to fully expand the corporation. So I think those we should see long term. But hopefully, some of these can have an effect on the later part of this year.
Can you share some numbers or trends around the growth broken down into separate segments and/or products?
Not really. I think we published that in our upcoming annual report. So I think I will refer mainly to that. But generally, of course, the travel segment last year was growing faster than the other segments and has a bigger share than previous year. But otherwise, I'll refer to the annual report.
Okay. Discussions are being held with the major fintech customer about in-depth collaboration. What does the potential look like in the long term? Should one expect lead time as long as with the large airline you work with?
First of all, this large fintech client, we are in a revenue-generating phase. So it's not that we're discussing or trying to sell something. We are in a revenue-generating phase. What we're talking about is trying to or basically, we're building to make sure that they are integrating more functionality and using us in a wider context than today. And that work, I think, normally, like I said, with airlines, it's something that could take maybe three-four quarters. The difference with this client is it's a tech-native client. It's, I would say, a strong technology-driven company. So hopefully, it will go slightly faster than what we have seen with other enterprise clients. But again, I think you should have patience and look at the long-term effect of this. So maybe a couple of quarters or so.
You have added several new segments in recent years. Which do you think have the greatest chance of contributing in the future in addition to travel and fintech?
Yeah, I think we see we have some verticals where we have a strong footprint and a good sort of momentum. And that's our focus right now, to keep adding more airlines, adding more fintech clients, and build around the strengths we have. But we also have more than 20 other industries where we have customers. So I think the potential is quite wide. And it's not a vertical per se, but I think our platform and partner corporations and strategy that we have to use technical platforms and basically resellers to make sure we get the wider and faster distribution of our software is a promising strategy that we have started working with successfully.
We have a few cases. And I think over the year, the importance of those technical corporations should increase. And my hope is that will bring more clients from different sectors in. I don't have a specific sort of next sector in mind. But we have a wide array of possibilities.
I understand. So the last question is, what specifically are you looking for in terms of new acquisitions?
Yeah, also here, I guess whoever wrote the question, it's a good question. And maybe they wrote it before my slide or hopefully before we went through this. But I'll reiterate also here that we're looking for technology within niche areas that when we add it to our software, we can create even better software for our customers and in the end, for the end consumer. That's important. That's sort of our guiding principle. We're also looking for sort of product-driven companies with expertise and a strong team. We're not looking to just add revenue the first quarter, sort of the coming quarter. We see this over a long period of time.
And we make the acquisitions not really to grow this year or the year we do the acquisition, but over the coming three to five years. We have a long-term perspective on it. And yeah, we're looking. As I said, I hope we can come back with something because we're convinced there is a large potential to generate shareholder value by adding further components.
Okay. Well, then I have to thank you, both Kristoffer and Martin, for this presentation.
Thank you.
I also like to thank all the listeners that tuned in and posted all these questions. With that, I say thank you for today.