Hi everyone, and welcome to today's earnings call with Vertiseit. Today we have disclosed our year-end report for the fourth quarter of 2023. My name is Jonas Lagerqvist. I am Deputy CEO and CFO of the company, and with me I have.
Johan Lind. I'm the CEO of Vertiseit.
Today we will focus on the highlights for the quarter, for Q4. We will have a brief review of the full-year 2023, and we will elaborate a little on our priorities for 2024. We will finish up, finish off with a Q&A session. So, if you have questions along the call, just use the Q&A function, and we will answer them by the end of the call. And if you wish to speak during the Q&A, there is a raise hand function which you can use, and we'll let you in by the end of the presentation.
Perfect. If we look into the key metrics that I know that every one of you are following, it's the ARR growth. We continue to have a stable growth, where we develop according to plan. Notable is that in Q4 we actually ramped up the growth rate. So the annual annualized growth rate was 24% if you measure the Q4 figures. If we look into the highlights, what's beneath the figures, overall it's we are really happy with the performance of Q4. It met all our expectations. So we are really proud of what we have achieved in the quarter. To mention a few of the wins, we actually signed a framework agreement with Abu Issa, which is one of the leading retail operators in Qatar. Really cool.
They got to know our platform as they take care of Nespresso in that region. Nespresso already have a global platform agreement with us. And when they started to use that, they wanted to use it for all their other brands as well. So we're in the beginning of that. Looks really promising. And as we already press released, we signed a significant deal with Scientific Games during the quarter. And what stands out is that it's for the North American market where we want to increase our presence. And it also has a minimum contracted source value of more than $20 million. So it's really a milestone both in the minimum value for the contract, but also that it's not in our, it's not in Europe, where we have the majority of our operations.
Last but not least, we have worked a lot with Dobit, which is really, it's a new strong partner for us, where they also stated that we are their preferred partner for retail. We have invested heavily into educating them and bringing them up to speed. So they are located in Belgium, but also present in nearby markets. For those of you who have time, just visit the Dobit website and get to know them a little bit because we think that they can deliver in line with the best partners we have. Jonas?
Yeah. And the high-level financial highlights for the quarter is, of course, what Johan already mentioned, the ARR growth, which we grew during the quarter at an annualized growth rate of 24%, which is really important as it is our key metric. And also that the measures for improved efficiency that were implemented during Q3 actually gave effect now during Q4. So which leads to an increased profitability, reaching an EBITDA margin of 24%, which is an all-time high for Vertiseit during the period that it's been a listed company. And we also reached a milestone when it comes to leverage, so that we can report our net debt now being below 2x EBITDA.
Looking a bit deeper into the financials, we can see that margins overall are increasing. The gross margin came in at 92%, and that's, it's in a normal range between 90%-95%. So that's, we're quite happy with that as well. But overall margins are improving. What is also positive to see is that consulting now is trending in a positive way from having quite soft numbers during Q2 and Q3. And we also have right-sized our consulting organization for the current demand. And we can also see that the investments that we've done in ERP now are actually showing results, increasing our operational efficiency significantly.
Perfect, Jonas. Looking into some core metrics, for those of you who have already read the report know that we have an extensive list of core metrics that you can follow. But of course, the ARR growth in the quarter, we already mentioned. Net Revenue Retention, we have a goal to exceed 100% on an annual basis. During the quarter, it was the Net Revenue Retention was 103%, meaning that roughly 60% of the growth came from existing customers and 40% from new brands. And that is have been and will be key to our success is to grow on existing customer base.
Looking into LTV/CAC multiples, we now have a lifetime value in relation to customer acquisition costs with 19x, and it's also due to a really nice churn number where we are at 0.7% during the quarter. So, all in all, it looks really, really nice. To summarize or review some of the highlights for the year now when we have the year-end report, of course, we need to mention MultiQ where we did the acquisition but also completed the full integration during the year. We also, part of that was, of course, to take the tech team in the form of MultiQ into Dise, to bring the partners in as partners to Dise. Also, a lot of direct customers that we brought into Grassfish where we see that we can actually expand on those brands and improve the offerings.
We have divested the ITS operations, which was not in line with the platform company for Digital in Store. It was the Danish MultiQ ITS sold to Journeo. And we also have built a much stronger, like, partner network during the year. And I think we can see that now when we have wins in other territories than the Nordics and the DACH regions that it really pays off that we can win large deals on a global level. We expand our global footprint and, of course, working more and more with partners, making them do the heavy lifting, improve our scalability and profitability. And then none of the above would have been possible without the big investments that we done in the ERP infrastructure, and that is now fully implemented.
So, we have seen that with the unified IT infrastructure, we also have been able to go from like 200 FTE full-time employees down to 145. And we have at the same time improved operational efficiency in a really good way.
In parallel with all these activities, we are quite happy to see that we've managed to grow our ARR year over year of 17% despite quite challenging market conditions during large parts of the year. We've managed to improve our profitability from a 14% EBITDA in the beginning of the year, coming out at 24% by the end of the year, thanks to the measures that we took in Q3, which were made possible from the investments in our IT infrastructure. Summarizing, like, the core metrics for the year, we're happy to summarize the net revenue retention for the full-year to 109%, which we consider quite strong.
For the full-year, strong ARR growth. We did both, which comes from both organically and acquired. And acquisitions are now fully integrated during the year. We've successfully managed to finalize the ITS divestments. We can now see that consulting is moving in the right direction, and we have the right organization in place. And we also have the right profitability level in that segment. System sales come in a bit lower than last year, which is fully in line with our strategy. We have been very clear that system sales as share of total revenue will decrease over time.
The operational efficiency increases have made it possible to decrease cost of staff, coming down from 200 to 145 employees. So all in all, profitability picking up quite extensively during the end of the year.
Thank you, Jonas. So, like, the starting point for the year to come looks really promising. Like, now we have done a lot of, a lot of the work building a strong foundation. We have a unified ERP system with Business Central for 15 legal entities, no exceptions. And we have implemented, like, Salesforce for the sales team, for support, for marketing, and all the processes that are connected to that with CPQ and so on. And we also have right-sized the organization. So we go into the new year with much, much stronger profitability and cash flow. And the priorities for the year to come is, of course, to continue to strengthen the partner network. That is necessary to expand our global reach.
If, as of today, about, like, 5% of our licenses are in North America, of course, that is a priority for the year to expand our partner network into North America. Looking at, like, future acquisitions and so on, North America is also a priority for us. We want to have at least 20% of our sales in that market. Also now when we have a really, really neat portfolio of brands, we have a high Net Revenue Retention. We know that we create significant business value for our customers. We want to take proven concepts that worked for brands in a certain market and just multiply that to new markets. Of course, the end goal is to sign global agreements, of course. Then the last but not least is to utilize the development synergies.
So now it has been a lot of, like, operational synergies, running the businesses. But now we focus on actually the core products of the Dise and Grassfish and see how we can leverage synergies especially on the back end and platform outside of things. So that's a big topic, but it will also have a huge impact for future growth and future acquisitions if we do this in a smart way. And more on the priorities, we will also disclose later this year, Jonas, right?
Yes. As we wrote in the year-end report, we will invite to a Capital Markets Day during spring where we will present new long-term targets and elaborate on our strategies going forward. But more information on that will come separately with an invite and a set date and so on. And financial-wise, priorities for 2024 is, of course, to keep improving profitability and cash flow. And to keep working on optimizing our internal processes, working for operational excellence, which is crucial to execute on our growth strategy and to be able to scale our business on a global level.
So, now please submit any questions you might have, and we will do our best to answer them. So I will.
Let's see if we have.
Yeah.
Yeah. So if you give me the questions.
Yes. I will read the questions. Okay. Okay. Hi, congratulations to a strong quarter. Is your view that you will be able to keep the number of employees around 145 during 2024, or will they increase again, coming quarters?
That's a very good question. I think, all in all, we are very happy with the organization that we have in place now. We did a huge work with actually right-sizing the organization in Q3, implementing a more strict and more efficient organization. So I should say that we are in a good position now, but if something happens, it will be an increase. But, of course, we will not increase, we need to increase, like, the sales, like, at least 2x this compared to the rate of how we are new employees.
Yeah. In your CEO comments, Johan, it sounds like the market is picking up during Q4. Could you please elaborate on that?
As I wrote, not to say too much. Like, the pipeline is record strong, we have a record strong pipeline, but we also have a lot already, we also have an order book that is stronger than normal. So, we, I think we have been really positive in both end of Q3, but especially in Q4. So, the market conditions look really promising for the year to come.
Yeah. Okay. And a question regarding systems. Why are system sales so relatively strong even though you've had, you have divested the ITS operations? That's one question.
Yeah. I think it's due to that we actually have low investments in Q1, Q2. We saw that we had a really weak Q1, Q2 in consulting. But there also were not so much order intake on system sales. And that has also ramped up. So it's more like normalized, I should say, the situation that we're in.
Yeah. And, what's your expectations on how the system sales will be developed and phase out going for going forward?
I should say I think that the system sales overall will be more or less flat going forward, I assume. But the sales will continue to grow, and consulting will continue to grow. So relatively, sales is now exceeding 50%, but it will, of course, continue to be a larger and larger portion. For those of you who have been with the company since we listed the company in 2019, the sales for sales share of revenue was 25%, and now we are above 50%. And it will continue in that direction.
Sales revenue is down SEK 4.6 million, from Q3 to Q4. Is this entirely related to the ITS business, or how did sales develop organically quarter-over-quarter?
Yeah. That's a very good question. I'm happy that someone asked it.
Yeah.
So the like ITS business in Denmark that we divested, the sales revenue in that business didn't met our criteria for ARR. So it has never been in our ARR charts. So that's why you should follow the ARR charts because that's the best metrics to follow. But in sales revenue, so it's 100% related to the divestment of ITS. That's correct.
Yeah. Organic, organically, quarter-to-quarter at fixed exchange rates, the sales growth was between 4% and 4.5%.
Yeah.
Your market outlook for 2024 seems strong. Do you expect this to result in an ARR growth around your historical average of 20%?
Yes.
If the overall market is expected to return to double-digit growth in 2024, are you expecting to outgrow the market? And what are the key differentiators that help you gain market share?
That's a good question. A very initiated question. Like, the market was at zero growth rate for the digital signage market as well. But despite that, we were able to grow our ARR with 70%. So definitely, we expect to continue to develop better than the market. But I think we are not that big that, like, the overall market trends have that high of an impact on our growth. It's more in our own hands to do a great job and deliver value to the customer.
An even more initiated question regarding the rollout with Lind. Could you tell us more about how that is progressing?
Yeah. So, they have actually now also signed a contract with our consultancy team. So we have a small retainer for them to support their in-house team of 20 people working with their digital in-store concept. And, the number of licenses is picking up, and we also have different concepts in different markets. So they really use this global platform and global framework agreement throughout their organization, and also a lot of that work is done with Schwarz IT, which is basically their own integrator.
Can you see that you're gaining traction in that vertical? And in that case, why?
I think that the Lidl case is really, really important. And we also have some other, like, was it Carrefour or some, someone, some other we had? So there is, I think relatively, like, it's, I think that we need to do more in the grocery segment than we do today. But I think it has a really strong potential going forward. And having, like, a real, like, global contract with a customer like Lidl, of course, is the best reference we can have.
And questions related to another vertical. You seem to have great traction in, for example, automotive. Your product offering seems strong. Can you elaborate on how you see that product portfolio consisting of Dise and Grassfish is suitable for others?
Yeah. So I think there were a lot of things that was perfect. Like, there was a disruption in the market in the business model of the automotive sector. So they needed to be responsible for the brand experience at the dealership. They needed to be responsible for the customer journey to bridge the gap between online and in-person at the dealership. It also fits us well due to that it was many different touchpoints. It was a lot of, like, data integration involved. So I think that's why we nailed, like, the automotive. It's now 20% of our ARR. But for those of you who are new, we have a global framework, a global platform agreement with BMW, Porsche, with Lamborghini. We also our local markets were also strong with Volvo and the whole Volkswagen group.
I think the components here, if we look at components, like, I see that a lot of the components that we have in automotive also apply to other verticals, which was the question. Sports fashion is one of the segments which I'm very positive, stepping into, much stronger. Also, another segment that is electronics. So if you combine branding with personalized communication and all the way to sales support and transaction, when you need all those components in a digital in-store concept, I think we are the go-to platform and company.
There are talks in the industry about that you cannot have one or a few software for all kinds of different verticals. Do you agree?
Yes, 100%. So that's why we still compete with, like, general digital signage softwares. But if you look at the winners now, like, we have Broadsign, who is the winner for digital out of home, which is under the digital signage umbrella, but it's outdoor advertising, basically, out-of-home advertising. And then you have Appspace, which is, I should say, the clear winner now in corporate communication. And our aim is to become the clear winner within customer experience and digital in-store. And that's why we also work on this acronym IXM, which is in-store experience management.
I think we have Fredrik, analyst at Redeye, who would like to come in and ask a couple of questions.
Hi. Thank you very much. I want to start with the OpEx. I mean, there have been a lot going on with the divestment of MultiQ ITS and the right-sizing, as you call it. I mean, the current level seen in this quarter, is that representative for the underlying run rate of costs?
Yes, I would say that.
Okay. Great. And also, you mentioned that you see increased opportunities for acquisitions. Could you elaborate a bit on that? And also, I mean, you have increased your cash flow and so on quite a bit, but still, how do you view your opportunities regarding financing?
Like, if we continue to develop according to plan now, there will definitely, especially in the second half of the year, we will have a lot of room for taking on acquisition with our own capacity that we have of both our own cash flow generation and taking out new loans if needed. But we are not in a rush. We think it's more important now to focus on operational excellence, continue our organic growth with this nice, like, 20% level. But we see that there are opportunities in the market, and we are more and more, like, picky, of course, in what companies we look at. But we will most likely come back with a more detailed description on that in the capital markets day this spring.
I see. Makes sense. That's all from me. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Fredrik. There is a detailed accounting question, what's included in other operating income. I think that's a quite straightforward answer, is that there are, like, operational currency gains are accounted for in operating income. Operational currency losses are accounted for within external costs. They usually sum up at around zero.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, like, the full effect for, like, last year, was not that significant, right? We actually had a look yesterday on that.
Yeah. When we are evaluating our currency risk, we see that our currency net, all in all, sums up, like, below SEK 500,000 for the full-year.
Yeah. Why is that?
Because we have operations, and we have both revenues and costs in all of our major currencies, which is Swedish krona, euros, US dollars, and British pounds. And when on the balance sheet, we of course have goodwill in Europe from the Grassfish acquisition in 2021. And to hedge that, we also have financing in euros. So we have hedging both in operations and in the balance sheet. Okay, next question. You might have answered that before, but again, what's the ARR growth split between new and existing customers?
Yeah. I should say Q4, I estimate it to be 40% on new brands during the year and 60% on existing brands. And I think that's kind of the level we want to see. I think between that and maybe even, like, 75% on existing is good. It depends on if you are in early stage of large framework agreement, then you, of course, focus your efforts in growing those brands. But I should say 60%-75% of the organic growth from existing brands.
Can you tell us more on your strategy for North America?
Yeah. So I will not deep dive into that because then, you will not visit the Capital Markets Day. But we will like, the strategy now is to learn more and more about the market. We onboard carefully selected partners in the market. We support them doing joint customer meetings and really building knowledge, building network, building an understanding of the market and the competition. And I think that's really the stage where we are at right now. And if we actually get a lot of traction from that work that we do with the partners we have in place now, we might not even need to perform any acquisitions. But of course, we also look at acquiring platform company with already a partner base and an installed base in the market.
A full-year question. Total sales decreased in 2023 compared to 2022. Why?
It's 100% related to the divestment of the ITS business in Denmark.
Okay. I think we have a last question. If you have any more questions, please, please ask them, ask them now. What profitability and cash flow can we expect during 2024?
Of course, that's something that we have chosen not to disclose. I, I think that you know you know our goals. Like, we, we aim for 30% EBITDA in the end of the year. We, we have a clear goal of reaching SEK 200 million ARR. So I think you can do the math.
That was everything from us, this earnings call for the year-end report 2023. Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening in.
Bye.