Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Enthusiast Gaming Holdings Inc. Fiscal Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Eric Bernofsky, Chief Corporate Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Enthusiast Gaming's Second Quarter to 2021 Earnings call. My name is Eric Bernofsky, the Chief Corporate Officer of Enthusiast Gaming. I'm joined by our Chief Executive Officer, Adrian Montgomery, our Chief Financial Officer, Alex Macdonald, and our Chief Operating Officer, Thamba Tharmalingam. We'll begin with commentary on the quarter before opening the floor to questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's presentation contains forward-looking information that involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from current expectations. These statements should not be read as assurances of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements.
A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the company appear in the company's management discussion and analysis for the three-month period ending June 30th, 2021, which are available under the company's profile on SEDAR and EDGAR, as well as on the company's website. We are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this presentation. The company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update and revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or for any other reason. Now, I will turn the call over to Adrian Montgomery, Chief Executive Officer. Adrian.
Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, welcome to our Second Quarter 2021 Financial Earnings call. It is my pleasure to once again report on the financial and operational accomplishments our team made last quarter and speak about what we believe will be an exciting second half of the year. I'm extremely pleased with our results this quarter and the significant growth we have achieved across all of our financial and operating metrics, and I would like to thank each and every one of the hardworking Enthusiast employees for all of their efforts to put us in the position that we are in today. Despite the headwinds posed by unfavorable exchange rates, we managed to exceed expectations across the board on revenue, gross profit, and gross margin. I'm pleased to report that Q2 revenue grew by more than 427% to CAD 37.1 million from CAD 7 million in Q2 last year.
Gross profit grew to CAD 8 million from CAD 3.2 million a year ago, while gross margin improved to 21.6%, which is a nearly 200 basis point increase from just one quarter ago. Revenue growth continues to be driven by our focused buy and build strategy. Key organic growth drivers, including direct advertising and sponsorship sales, grew to CAD 4.4 million in the quarter from approximately CAD 500,000 in Q2 last year, and double from CAD 2.2 million just a quarter ago. Some of the partners we worked with in this past quarter include major blue-chip brands such as State Farm, Bell, Bethesda, Disney+, Mars, PlayStation, GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft, Red Bull, HBO Max, Twitch, Hasbro, Noom, G FUEL, Riot, ExitLag, Excedrin, Fireball, eBay, bet365, Sony Pictures, Toyota, and General Motors. The number of paid subscribers at June 30th was 155,000 compared to 111,000 a year ago, an increase of 40%.
Most notably, however, is the acceleration of growth we are seeing in paid subscriptions. This quarter, we added 18,000 net new subscribers, the highest quarterly growth in four quarters. This is a direct result of the investment we made in Q4 last year to establish a team dedicated to growing subscriptions. The upward momentum in net new subscribers this quarter is proof that strategy is working. We remain confident that subscriptions will continue to show meaningful growth in the back half of the year. As we've mentioned previously, we believe subscriptions to be one of our most exciting growth opportunities. That's why we announced our plans to build a pan-Enthusiast social network with a premium subscription opportunity for our target Gen Z and millennial audience, codenamed Project GG.
We are making strong progress on this front, and I'm pleased to announce today that we expect to release an exclusive alpha version with select gamers toward the end of September. As we've said before, direct sales and subscriptions are two of our highest margin revenue streams, and you can see how the growth this quarter has contributed to gross margin improvement by nearly 200 basis points or nearly two full percentage points. We like the direction both of these businesses are moving in and the upward trajectory they are on as we move through the second half of 2021, which is our busiest time of the year. You've heard me talk about our proprietary flywheel in the past, and I'd like to take a moment to reiterate why we believe this is the right strategy.
Every month, millions of video game and esports fans come to one or more of our 100-plus web properties, our 1,000-plus YouTube channels, watch our talented Luminosity Gaming streamers on Twitch. I would point out we are the number one most-watched esports organization in the world this year on that platform. Tune into one of our proprietary shows like "Gamer's Greatest Talent" or "Rising Stars." The first season of "Gamer's Greatest Talent" aired in Q2, and it was sponsored by TikTok and e.l.f. Cosmetics. Live-streamed on Twitch over six episodes, GGT had a total audience reach of north of 10 million viewers. Discussions are now in full swing on another follow-up season. Another unique content experience we are particularly proud of is our partnership with Grammy Award-winning international music superstars Coldplay.
For the event in May, we collaborated with ZHU and Luminosity Gaming star Fresh to launch an exclusive remix of Coldplay's new hit single, "Higher Power," which was live-streamed on Luminosity Gaming's Twitch channel. The collaboration of music and gaming is proving to be a powerful combination for fans and sponsors, and we look forward to more events like this in the future. This is our fan flywheel, which delivers great content and experiences throughout the gamers' fan journey, and we will continue to add meaningfully to this fan flywheel, both through organic and acquisitive means. At the same time, companies across North America are trying to build out and deploy strategies to reach Gen Z and millennials at scale. We have been out there talking about it in recent months.
You can read and see it in places like Bloomberg, the MIT Sloan Management Review, USA Today, Digiday, Washington Post, and others. We are winning in the marketplace because we offer more touchpoints to Gen Z and millennials than anyone else out there. We're selling integrated packages that include media, sponsorship, unique content, talent activations, and esports. This breadth of offering is proving to be a winning strategy, as is evidenced by the doubling of our direct sales business this quarter to CAD 4.4 million from CAD 2.2 million in Q1 of this year. On a currency-adjusted basis, our Q2 performance in direct sales is similar to the direct sales for all of Enthusiast in 2020. In Q2, we partnered with the Ad Council and the COVID Collaborative on their COVID-19 vaccine education initiative, promoting COVID-19 vaccine awareness and education among young adults.
It was the largest and most significant public health communications campaign in U.S. history, and we were very proud to be the Ad Council's gaming partner. Hollywood studios and filmed entertainment remain an exciting growing category for us. This quarter, we completed activations for Universal Pictures to promote the North American release of "F9," the latest in the "Fast & Furious" franchise. We worked with Walt Disney Studios to promote "Black Widow," and we partnered with United Artists to promote the Guy Ritchie film "Wrath of Man." Those studios leveraged our innovative platform of video game and esports fan communities, customized content, and integration with top gaming influencers.
For "F9" specifically, the activation included custom content activations with Luminosity Gaming talent and across Enthusiast Gaming media brands, five exclusive "Grand Theft Auto" events throughout the launch weekend with Luminosity Gaming talent competing against fans using "Fast & Furious"-inspired mods, and media placement across ArcadeCloud and Upcomer, fans versus Luminosity all-stars gameplay, even during the finals of "Gamers Greatest Talent." We remain confident that Hollywood and filmed entertainment will continue to be an exciting growing category for us as we move through the rest of 2021, and the pipeline of opportunities continues to grow.
Subsequent to the quarter, we announced a renewed and expanded Luminosity Gaming sponsorship deal with G FUEL, as well as an integrated media and esports partnership with the United States Navy that will include the creation of multiple unique gaming activations incorporating our company's roster of gamers, creators, and athletes to increase awareness of the wide range of professional opportunities the Navy offers. We are also currently in market with innovative campaigns for State Farm and DoorDash, to name just a few. Another activation I am particularly proud of is the innovative work we are doing with LEGO. In partnership with LEGO Technic, we have launched the Luminosity Academy to push the boundaries of creativity and guide the development of young gamers. As you can see, we have worked with top brands on their biggest campaigns this quarter.
We've executed on many new programs and provided innovative ways for brands to reach the elusive Gen Z audience. It's working. Anticipating that, we'll continue to build on this exemplary quarter. We are adding more staff. We now have more people in key centers including N.Y., London, and L.A. We've added people in Detroit. We are looking at adding members to our direct sales team in Chicago. Our monetization flywheel, which consists of a diversified revenue stream, continues to gain significant traction each and every month. I've already highlighted the performance of direct-to-brand sales and paid subscriptions. We're also seeing gains within our content licensing and distribution segment, particularly on platforms like Snap, where we are distributing more content that leverages our expertise and reach for the type of content gamers want.
In May, we launched a new YouTube channel called ArcadeBlox, focused on Roblox-related content. That channel has already garnered almost 100,000 subscribers and nearly one million watch hours. We're also pushing deeper into storytelling with original content for a gaming audience. Our new brand, Upcomer, which also launched in Q2, expanded into Snap with two different properties, Livestream Fails and Rage Quit. These are properties we've created from scratch that are already contributing through new subscribers and content. This quarter, we completed our NASDAQ listing and subsequently raised gross proceeds of just over CAD 60 million. This raise significantly improved our balance sheet and has allowed us to accelerate our business plans with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions. On the M&A front, we successfully closed the Icy Veins and TabStats acquisitions in the quarter, and they are integrating well into our fan and monetization flywheels.
We are well-funded to continue to execute on additional acquisitions that will expand our audience reach, provide a deeper and more authentic fan experience, unlock new revenue streams within our flywheel, and be accretive to margin. We anticipate being able to execute on additional exciting transactions this quarter. We're just getting started and believe very much in our buy and build growth strategy centered around our proprietary monetization flywheel. As you can see, we have accomplished a lot in the first half of 2021, and we are confident in our team's ability to continue to grow and to continue to execute in the back half of the year. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Alex Macdonald, for further commentary on our financial results. Alex?
Thank you, Adrian. We find ourselves here once again in a fortunate position to be able to comment on an exemplary quarter, our second quarter of 2021. I have a few notes to mention before I begin my commentary. I note that our results are presented in Canadian dollars. I note that our business is affected by seasonal trends in digital advertising, with sequential increases each quarter throughout the year, driven by increasing ad prices and demand, which peaks in Q4. This seasonality is isolated to our media and content revenue streams. As we head into the second half of the year, I want to note that the increase between Q4 and Q3 ad prices is much greater than the increase between Q3 and Q2 ad prices. I also note that the acquisition of Omnia Media occurred on August 30th, 2020.
The comparative financial figures relating to Q2 2020 in the statements and the MDA do not include the results of Omnia, except where noted. The 2021 balance sheet and income statements include the balances of the company, including Omnia. Now back to the second quarter. We've seen continued progress across the metrics which drive this business. Q2 revenue was CAD 37.1 million, up 430% from the reported Q2 2020 revenue of CAD 7 million. This increase was driven by our acquisition strategy, including Omnia, as well as strong organic growth in direct sales and across all three of our revenue streams of media and content, esports and entertainment, and subscriptions. Q2 revenue by source was as follows: Media and content, CAD 33.5 million; subscription, CAD 2 million; and esports and entertainment, CAD 1.6 million.
The media and content revenue of CAD 33.5 million compares to a CAD 4.2 million reported in Q2 2020, or nearly eight times. Q2 media and content revenue attributable to Omnia is CAD 26 million, which is up 29% year-over-year. Q2 media and content revenue excluding Omnia is CAD 7.5 million, which is up 79% year-over-year. The increase in Q1 media and content revenue, apart from the impact of the Omnia acquisition, is mainly due to a significant increase in direct sales, the majority of which are recognized in media and content, and a portion of those are recognized in Omnia. Total direct sales were CAD 4.4 million in Q2 2021 as compared to CAD 600,000 in Q2 2020.
Number two, a web RPM, which was 175% higher in Q2 as compared to Q2 2020, which was caused by our continued internal ad platform optimization efforts and a shift in the distribution of views amongst different properties. This result is also driven by the prior year's downturn of the digital ad market relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, a downturn we now declare has fully recovered. Number three was the addition of 18 new partner websites added to the web platform in the first half of 2021. Number four is the continued expansion of our own and operated video properties, which also contributed to the increase in sequential quarterly video views. Video views were 9.7 billion in Q2 compared to 7.3 billion in Q1 this year. Q2 subscription revenue was CAD 2 million, up 18% from CAD 1.7 million in Q2 2020.
The increase in subscription revenue is attributable to an increase in paid subscribers. The company had approximately 111,000 paid subscribers as at June 30th, 2020. This number has increased to approximately 155,000 paid subscribers as at June 30th, 2021. The company continues to grow the subscriber base on its existing subscription offerings through pricing optimization, promotional events, and marketing initiatives. The increase in paid subscribers outpaced the increase in subscription revenue due to movements in foreign exchange rates, which I will discuss shortly. Q2 esports and entertainment revenue was CAD 1.6 million, as compared to CAD 1.1 million in Q2 2020. This 45% increase year-over-year is as a result of the growth of our virtual events, such as Pocket Gamer Connects Digital, as well as increased sponsorship of Luminosity. There is a revenue headwind I want to point out relating to Q2.
The significant majority of our revenue is earned and measured in US dollars, which is translated into Canadian dollars for presentation in our financial statements. The average USD to CAD exchange rate in Q2 2020 was 138.5, which dropped to 122.8 in Q2 2021. Had the exchange rate remained constant at 138.5, revenues in Q2 2021 would've been CAD 4.9 million higher for a total of CAD 42 million. Even on a pro forma basis, to include the acquisition of Omnia on a constant currency measurement, revenue would've been up 54% year-over-year. While the FX movements have a similar effect on cost of sales in certain areas of OPEX with limited net economic impact, we feel that the strong momentum the company has shown in Q2 should be considered in light of this revenue headwind.
The exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and our presentation currency of the Canadian dollar should be monitored and considered when analyzing or forecasting results. Gross profit was CAD 8 million for Q2, up 150% from the reported Q2 2020 gross profit of CAD 3.2 million, driven by both our acquisitions and growth strategies. Our growth strategies include higher yield and higher margin revenue streams, such as direct sales and subscription. This, coupled with the tuck-in acquisitions of Tabwire and Vedatis in Q2, resulted in continued progress in gross margin. The gross margin for Q2 was 21.6%, up from 16.7% pro forma in the same quarter last year. As we continue to execute on our growth strategies, this 490-basis point improvement in gross margin in one year reveals a compounding effect when considering the significant growth in revenue over the same periods.
Operating expenses were CAD 19.6 million in Q2, up substantially from CAD 7.5 million for Q2 2020. This increase is due to the acquisition of Omnia as well as significant non-cash expenses, including CAD 1.7 million of amortization, which relates largely to the initial recognition of intangible assets upon acquisitions, and CAD 4 million of stock-based compensation, which relates to option and RSU awards granted in Q2 and in prior periods. I also wish to note we incurred costs relating to the SEC registration, the NASDAQ listing, and the financing conducted in Q2. Professional fees were CAD 1.2 million as compared to CAD 600,000 in Q2 2020, with the increase attributable to these efforts. We expect these expenses to be reduced in periods of less corporate activity. Office and general expense was CAD 2.2 million compared to CAD 500,000 in Q2 2020.
A significant portion of this increase is also related to the registration of the company with the SEC and the NASDAQ listing. General includes items such as insurance and filing and listing fees. Many of these expenses, such as the required insurance, will continue for the foreseeable future. Net loss and comprehensive loss was CAD 12.8 million, resulting in a net and comprehensive loss per share, both basic and diluted, of CAD 0.11 in Q2. We continue to invest in our operations, expanding our technology and content capabilities as well as our staffing levels throughout the first half of this year. We are proud to say that our full-time staff as at June 30th, 2021, was 160 people, up from 90 people as of December 31st, 2020. Most of these hires are focused in three areas: direct sales, content, and product development, with Project GG being a notable area.
These are important investments for the future of the company, and these are driven people passionate about what they do on a daily basis. I've noticed in the first half of this year, they have become acutely aware of the metrics which drive this business. Therefore, they are, in my judgment, our most valuable asset. I reiterate that we are investing in order to drive the capacity of the business. There is a tremendous opportunity ahead to monetize our audience, and we are confident in our pursuit of this opportunity. We are, once again, more than ever of the opinion that the results of operations and the financial condition of Enthusiast Gaming has never been stronger. In June, we conducted a public offering of common shares, issuing 8.6 million shares for gross proceeds of approximately $50 million or CAD 60 million.
In Q2, we also completed the acquisitions of both Tabwire and Vedatis, bringing the popular properties of TabStats and Icy Veins into our portfolio. Of course, worthy of another mention, in April, the company became an SEC registrant, and on April 21st, the company commenced trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. To all the stakeholders joining us today as a result of that listing, I want to once again express our appreciation for your time and support, and welcome to the Enthusiast family. Certainly, it was a busy quarter.
As I reflect on the quarter and the past year, as we approach the anniversary of the acquisition of Omnia, I am proud of the consistent progress we have made towards our growth strategies and the unwavering dedication the company shows towards its stated objectives. We maintain our original proposal that the direct sales model is a compelling investment thesis in and of itself. As a Comscore Top 100 internet property in the United States with a growing portfolio of notable clients, we are as confident as ever in the direct sales model. We have always been of the belief, and have said in the past, that there will come a day when Enthusiast Gaming is as well known for selling advertisements as Amazon is for selling books. In Q2, we have continued to advance our data capabilities, both internally and through the acquisition of Tabwire.
Our subscription offerings are being significantly expanded, most notably through Project GG. In early 2022, we will bring to the public a social network made by gamers for the nearly 3 billion gamers in the world. This will also represent a significant step into the mobile space, unlocking a completely new market for Enthusiast Gaming. For these reasons, we have never been more excited about the short and long-term future of the company. I'd like to welcome the two analysts who initiated coverage since the beginning of Q2, being Scott Buck with H.C. Wainwright, and of course, the one and only Jeff Fan with Scotia Capital. To all our analysts, thank you for the work you do on Enthusiast Gaming. To our shareholders, we don't stop working hard for you. Thank you for your continued trust in us as custodians of your business, of our business.
Of course, ladies and gentlemen, our business is the business of gaming. Operator, I kindly turn it back to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touch-tone phones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, you may press star and two. Once again, that is star and then one to ask a question. We'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question today comes from Robert Young from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi. In the press release, you highlighted that you expected margin improvements, I think sequentially through the year. Is that gross margins, operating margins? What type of margins would that be? I assume you mean gross.
Gross. Yeah. That's right, Rob.
And then, I was hoping that you could talk about the direct advertising bookings. You've given us a bit of a flavor around the pipeline and the bookings around that business. Maybe you could talk about how they've paced from Q4 to Q1 into Q2. As a part of that, I was hoping you could talk a little bit about if there's any way to parse between new and existing customers. It sounds like you've added a lot of logos this quarter, but I wanted to see if these customers are coming back after it's proven and upping their engagements and use of your direct sales model.
Sure. I think as it pertains to the pipeline, and as we've seen it evolve from Q4 to Q1, and now we're in Q3, we've been really pleased with how the pipeline has developed. I think certainly if you look at the number of RFPs that we're getting, that number has grown substantially. We're getting, on average, 13 RFPs a week. I think if we were to remember back to the beginning of Q4 just a little while ago, it'd be two or three a week. We've built out a customer success department that knows how to churn and burn these RFPs really quickly, which has given us a leg up. Seeing the growth from 3 RFPs a week to 13, that has been an encouraging sign. Seeing our pipeline develop has been an encouraging sign.
I can say that, you know, CAD 4.4 million, that doubling of direct sales in Q2 over Q1 certainly exceeded our expectations. As we sit here today and as we look at the pipe and we look at what we're executing and we look at back to school coming up, we expect to see growth beyond that in Q3. Of course, Q4 is its own animal. It's what we live for in a business like ours. We have American Thanksgiving and Black Friday and Cyber Monday and the holiday season and people spending budgets, and we are extremely well-positioned to capitalize on that. In terms of the repeat business that we're seeing, again, we started this journey as a direct sales operation in Q1 of 2020. Candidly, went down to Madison Avenue and went down to Los Angeles and no one knew who we were.
It took a lot of effort and a lot of success winning business. Again, the customer base at the time was not fully sold on gaming and esports. They were testing. They were dipping toes in the water. That has changed massively to the point that you're seeing big companies and name brands investing heavily in this space because they realize what the guys at Enthusiast and others have been saying is true. If I need to get in front of Gen Zs, and more importantly, if I want a shot at them paying attention to me, I better have a gaming strategy and I better have an esports strategy.
We're very encouraged and excited by our renewal of our G FUEL deal. That's the most iconic drink brand in the space. We went from a 1-year deal to an 18-month deal. The size of that deal has grown substantially. We've done repeat business with HBO Max. We've done repeat business with Disney+. We've done repeat business with Procter & Gamble and Gillette and Activision. We're starting to develop a recurring model. We're at the front end of that. People are really excited by our customer offering and by the fact that we are really the only ones in the space who can deliver media, who can deliver video media, web media, talent activation, and e-sport sponsorship. Our ability to be a 1-stop shop is a winning formula, and it's starting to manifest itself in significant repeat business at higher and higher spending levels.
Okay. Is it fair to say that a lot of the direct sales revenue today is very experimental? Where you're seeing the customers come back, they're upping the size of deals?
Not as we sit here today. As we sit here today, and we think about the campaigns we're doing for State Farm, for the United States Navy, for G FUEL, for DoorDash, these are significant campaigns with a lot of moving parts, and we are officially, as an industry, and officially as a company, beyond the experimentation phase. Up to and including a bit of Q1 this year, certainly, people were experimenting, but we're beyond that as an industry and as a company as we sit here today.
Okay. Thanks a lot. I'll pass the line.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Jeff Fan from Scotiabank. Please go ahead with your question.
Thanks. Good afternoon, guys, and thanks for the kind words. I've got a couple of questions, maybe a follow-up on some of the sales activities here. Can you talk about the capacity that you have within the current staff that you have to, you know, grow productivity further? Maybe also talk about how much you want to add sales staff in the coming months or quarters based on the activities you're getting on the RFPs. Also on these RFPs, how far are these advertisers planning ahead? Are they looking to execute these campaigns within months, six months? Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
Jeff, I'll let Thamba, our COO, expand upon those questions. Go ahead, Thamba.
Hey, Jeff. Just to answer the first part of your question on our sales team and the growth of the team. If you look at, you know, where we are right now, as we discussed before, a productive sales rep for us takes anywhere from 3-6 months to get to their optimal capacity. We're still in the early stages with some of our reps. We're continuing to hire. We've opened up offices in Chicago and Detroit. We've opened up offices in London, U.K. We're continuing to expand our direct sales team. I don't think we're at maturity yet, so, you know, I would expect significant growth even as we go into 2022, as we see a huge opportunity for us to work with a number of different brands with the asset that we got. That's the first part of the question.
The second part of the question, Jeff, if you could maybe clarify, and then I'll add color.
Just on some of these RFPs and campaigns that advertisers are considering. How far are they planning ahead, is really the question. Are we talking about this fall or within six months?
Sure. The good news is, you know, we're definitely seeing a turnaround in the economy, especially in the U.S., with theatrical for example. These companies plan 6- 9 months in advance, and we're seeing big Hollywood studios starting to put together their marketing plans for movies that are releasing 6- 9 months out, and we're in those RFPs. There is some advanced planning in some verticals. There are some verticals that have sort of held back on spending throughout the most part of this year, but now are spending as fast as they can, such as travel and tourism is a good example of that industry that just all of a sudden showed up and they're starting to spend.
It varies, but it is a very good, healthy sign to see that there is advanced planning going on in the marketing departments and those RFPs are starting to come in.
Right. That's good to hear. Maybe just a couple of quick ones on Project GG. You talked about releasing a limited alpha in September. Can you just talk about what you're hoping to learn from that? It's coming up pretty soon. I know you probably don't want to give away all your secrets, but just curious what you're hoping to learn from that release. On the more the financial side, this is probably for Alex, regarding tech support costs, how should we think about the spend as you go through product launch and further development on the tech support side?
Sure. I'll take the GG one, and then I'll pass to Alex for the tech support. On the alpha release, Jeff, the thinking really is to bring in our first 1,000 to 2,000 testers and the evangelists, the enthusiasts that we have within our community, and to get as much user feedback as possible. As you know, we've highlighted that we're building this because we're seeing the need for gamers and the missed opportunity, and we want to get as much user feedback as possible so we can incorporate that into our feature set, into our roadmap. That's essentially what we're going to try to do with the first cohort of testers that we'll let in. As we start to advance our roadmap, we'll slowly add different parts, different groups of audiences to bring in that represents the wider enthusiast community.
You'll hear us sort of give you more guidance and information around what we're learning from the initial tests and which cohorts are we bringing in. That's the objective behind the first alpha release and the cohorts that we're looking to bring in.
Hey, Jeff. Alex here. The areas you want to watch, of course, are tech web development and content, that expense line, and salaries and wages. Those would be the areas that's going to relate to GG. I'd say that a lot of the costs for GG are kind of already incurred and running. A lot of the increases you can see in tech and content as well as salaries and wages are in support of that this year, that and related initiatives such as data, such as fulfillment and subscription and whatnot. I would expect, though, continued modest increases in both of those areas, but not quite to the level we've seen in the first half of this year. GG is reasonably staffed up.
It's a work in internal product. From here on out, I think that most of the hires will be more specialty roles and not necessarily bulk hires. There will be some tech investments associated with the public launch, I wouldn't think that those would necessarily move the needle, given the size of our existing tech portfolio already. It's, of course, some additional servers and whatnot. That's how I look at the cost for GG.
Great. Thanks, guys.
Our next question comes from Brian Kinstlinger from Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead with your question.
Great, thanks. One follow-up on the direct sales force. Obviously, with the success you're having, it sounds like you're going to invest in more people. Can you talk about how many people you started the year with, how many people you ended 2Q with, and where do you hope to get to in the next 6- 12 months?
We started the year with about five direct salespeople, now we would have 12 or 13. That's not plus customer success.
Yeah. If I could add, Adrian.
Yeah.
We started the year out with about five direct sales. We're at about 13 to 15 right now with the producing headcounts. We're also building. Remember, as we become sophisticated, we're also segmenting our sales team into direct sales, inside sales, and building out a full-fledged customer success function. Net-net, we're about a 35-people organization combined as a sales and inside sales organization at this point.
Got it. Really about 5 - 15 right now on the actual non-support people, the ones going after the business, right?
Correct.
Where do you hope to get that to? You're having so much success, and I assume the more people you add, the more you can reach out and touch brands. Do you expect that, especially this is the busy season, four months ahead of it, do you expect that to end the year at 20? Much faster? Is it hard to find people right now? Just maybe take me through the plans on the hiring side?
For us, we think that a really good sales executive, sales professional within our flywheel can generate $1 million. Again, what I don't want anyone not hearing on this call is there has been a sea change in corporate America and the corporate world's understanding of the importance of gaming in a Gen Z strategy. We're past the experimentation phase, to Rob's point. Chief marketing officers, middle-aged people who didn't quite get it before COVID, have seen firsthand in their homes just exactly what their kids are doing, and that has resulted in companies like Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, building out esports and gaming departments to evaluate opportunities, et cetera.
We're beneficiaries of that, and we think that great quality salespeople, the metric we think about is give them a quarter and a half to two quarters to ramp up, and the good ones should be doing CAD 1 million or if not more. For us, we evaluate not on the basis of the size of the headcount, but plugging in people with those expectations to satisfy those opportunities. I can say that the opportunities are not slowing down, and in fact, they're growing in quite an exciting fashion. In terms of are people hard to find, look, managing salespeople is an art. It's an art. Thankfully, Thamba Tharmalingam and I have a lot of experience in that area.
The other advantage that we have, and I think Alex might have mentioned this, since January, this company, in addition to raising money and listing on the NASDAQ and buying 2 other businesses and executing against our strategy, this company's also onboarded 70 people. The benefit, though, that we have is we're like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory for a lot of young people who love video games. We're kind of a cool company to work for. We're an interesting company to work for. We have what, 10,000, 11,000 followers on our LinkedIn account. We have an ability to get talent and to get talent who want to work for us. That's a tremendous advantage that Enthusiast has on the HR front.
Great. My follow-up question is, you're growing subscriptions nicely, the amount of paid subscribers. Can you just from a high-level talk about, is the majority still coming from Sims? Or I know you've started some other subscriptions, maybe provide some detail on where that growth is coming from.
Sure. It's Thamba here. I can add color on that one. We continue to grow across most of our properties, and Sims definitely had the early mover advantage on subscriptions, and we're seeing really good growth there. We're very pleased with that. We are starting to get good traction on some of our other properties such as Escapist and Icy Veins. Definitely seeing good momentum there. I think to the earlier point that Adrian made in his opening remarks is that what we're super excited about is the Pan-Enthusiast subscription offering that is going to combine all the other properties that we've got and offer it through GG. We think that is the big game changer for us in subscriptions, but we're very pleased with the current trajectory of the individual properties themselves.
Sorry, lastly, that subscription you hope, if I think I read the MD&A right, if the first quarter is the hope or is the second quarter of 2022 where there's a hard launch? Or did I read that incorrectly?
I think the exact comment was early 2022. As I alluded to here on the call, we'll bring in the alpha users in September, and then based on that, we'll bring in more beta testers, and then we're hoping to be out in the public in early 2022.
Great. Thanks so much for answering my questions.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Mike Crawford from B. Riley. Please go ahead with your question.
Thanks. You're number 1 performer on the Twitch platform. What about overall if you look cross-platforms, including Facebook, Twitch or Snapchat, TikTok, whatever? Do you have any data on that?
Hey, Mike. We don't have exact data readily available, but we're number 1 on Twitch specifically talking about Luminosity. We're a tier 1 org. There's that small class of esports organizations, and I think that Twitch is probably the most relevant for that niche area of the gaming industry. I think that's the most relevant stat for an org at least. Thamba did
Sure. If I understood the question correctly, it was about our status across the platforms and especially on Twitch. Is that it?
Right, beyond Twitch.
Beyond Twitch. I think we published our Comscore results. We're top 100 internet property in North America. We command the number one gaming audience in a number of markets. If you look at U.S. alone, we are number two next to Twitch. Within Twitch, Luminosity streamers hold the number 1 spot. We're well-positioned from a gaming audience perspective. Even if you look at outside of North America, we hold number one spots to our properties in a number of different markets, which is one of the reasons why we're building aggressively in the U.K. We hold the number one spot for a gaming audience there. Our properties are really tier 1 properties that resonate really well with our gaming audience, and we continue to capitalize on that.
Okay. Just since you mentioned Luminosity streamers, what tends to happen for these influencers' own viewership levels once they join Luminosity? I guess related to that is what does a typical revenue share look like?
Sorry, what was the last part of that? What is the share? Sorry.
Of revenue look like for someone who's signed on, like say, xQc?
Yeah. Look, I think that Go ahead. Sorry, Mike.
Yeah. I mean, I could name 10 others, but there are these people that are affiliated with Luminosity.
Yeah, look, one of the reasons we've had the success we've had at Luminosity is we have a pretty strong track record of helping content creators build followings. It goes back to Ninja. If you look at Sommerset and her growth, if you look at Tori Pareno and her incredible growth, Rocky NoHands, Fresh, who has completely blown up since he's joined Luminosity, and Nick Eh 30. I think you have a number of examples where we've grown alongside and helped nurture this talent. It's not independent and happening just on Twitch. I think it's a direct result also of the Enthusiast Gaming flywheel, putting Fresh and giving him an opportunity to DJ to a massive audience and work with Coldplay, giving him an opportunity to do a merchandise drop with Lil Tecca.
You think about GGT, and the viewers, the 10 million viewers that GGT pulled in, and you think about all the Luminosity talent that we invited to serve as judges, including Muselk. There's a halo effect here of the proprietary properties and content we're creating, inviting our Luminosity talent to participate. We created a whole content piece around Darius Slay Vs on Twitch, and have grown his following. I think we have a pretty strong track record to be proud of in terms of helping our creators build their audiences. Again, we can't take a lot of credit for xQc. He's a supernova and a superstar all to himself. It's no coincidence that his girlfriend, Adept, wanted to join Luminosity and wanted us to help with her career. Those are the touch points.
Look, the Twitch revenue stream is basically exclusive to the creator.
We don't touch it.
We don't touch it. We help them grow, they make more money, and presumably, they're happy with the involvement with Luminosity.
Okay, great. Just a final question, just coming back out to a bigger picture, if there's any update on where you envision the long-term business model margins to be for Enthusiast in terms of growth or EBITDA or when we might get there or what needs to take place before any all of that happens?
Sure. I would say there's no real change in that long-term vision. I actually love that about us. We've been very dedicated to our growth strategy, and it's been coming true. Everything we said a year ago has been coming through, and here we are today. We're pulling forward certain aspects of the growth strategy that we originally thought would be farther out, such as the social network. Therefore, in the terminal state, I don't see any difference. I've always kind of compared it to traditional media companies and the P&L profile that they enjoyed at the peak of that industry, which were margins well over 50% and very healthy operating margins. I could easily see it getting to 25% or 30% on a terminal basis.
If anything has changed, I think that we have a clearer vision of those outer growth strategies, which I think may pull them forward a couple of years. It's still low. Of course, those profiles are still our long-term plan. As you can see, the incremental gains we're getting, we're getting 50, 100, 200 basis points a quarter, and that's just fine. That's what we want. You can imagine a long-term basis, which a lot of people would define as five years. That adds up. That adds up significantly and changes the profile of this business. That's how I view the income statement profile.
I also think just as one contributing data point to that, we talk internally and have always talked internally about in a few years' time doing CAD 100 million of direct sales. That might have sounded fanciful when we had two employees, but we want to move 10% of our inventory to being directly sold. I think that the trajectory that we're on, the success that we're having, the repeat business that we're winning, and the type of companies that we're doing business with, we are confident that we're executing in a manner that supports those kinds of performances.
Excellent. Thank you, Adrian, Al.
Thanks, Mike.
Our next question comes from Kevin Mackey. Please go ahead with your question.
My question has to do with expenses. In the Q4 conference call, you guys talked about how CAD 50 million in expenses annually was a good run rate to look at and model things. These past two quarters have been substantially higher than that. Just curious if that's from one-time investments and that's going to relax a little bit, or if we're looking at a higher run rate looking forward.
Okay, thank you. I don't think it's too much higher than that, to be honest, but it certainly is higher. Where the portion that is higher is, a lot of it is because we've seen the ROI. I think direct sales is performing as well as we could have expected. I will tie it to the fact if we had said a year ago when we did CAD 100,000 in the first quarter. Look, next year, Q2, direct sales is going to be 12% of our overall revenue in the same period that revenue has grown well over 30%. We've seen that ROI, so we've accelerated. The other things that we've accelerated are of course, the social network and the data capabilities, which as of even six months ago, were farther down our growth path. We've accelerated those, being a bit of opportunist, to be honest as well.
We saw the opportunity and we're seizing on it. I wouldn't say that we will go back, certainly not, to a lower operating level. We would readjust to this operating level. Those were investments that were consciously made. Although I wouldn't expect the next three quarters to be the same increase we've seen in the first half of this year. We're both business. I do want to point out, too, though, OpEx is up significantly. If we block out some of the non-cash, the amortization, and the stock-based comp, it is up nearly 100% not pro forma. Not pro forma, the revenue is up much, much more than that, of course, even the gross profit is up significantly more than that. We're seeing some ROI, and we keep doubling down, and as long as we keep seeing that ROI, we're going to do that.
Yeah, look, the opportunities got bigger quicker, and we are hell-bent on capitalizing on them. Direct sales, thanks to COVID, those budgets increased. We wanted to hire people. We wanted to pull forward our ability to exploit a void in the marketplace to deliver on a subscription-based social network. At the same time, this is a company, and again, it's not dissimilar to a lot of high-growth companies, but we're executing building out direct sales, building out GG, building out Upcomer. In our spare time, we raised CAD 120 million in the first six months of the year. We listed on NASDAQ, we bought two companies, and we put a CAD 250 million base shelf in place. These are a lot of corporate actions that require spend, but we're confident that we're being really, really opportunistic about seizing our moment in the sun here.
Thank you for sharing your mindset there. My other question has to do with the drama that has unfolded around Activision and corporate culture and work environment. I just wanted to hear your thoughts on what you guys are doing to protect your company from experiencing that kind of stuff, how you're fostering a positive corporate culture that's egalitarian and so forth.
Yeah, no, thank you for the question. Certainly, Vancouver Titans and Seattle Surge, of which we have ownership stakes in, issued a statement some time ago supporting everyone taking a stand against discrimination and harassment in the workplace. We believe as a business that everyone deserves the right to feel safe, valued, and included in the workplace without fears of judgment or prejudice based on gender, race, or orientation. That was a statement that was important for us to attach our name to, and it's a statement that we believe as a company. We just hired our new head of people and culture, Candice Levy, who starts next week. We take these values seriously. We have an incredibly diverse group of people that work for Enthusiast.
We do our best to make sure that their voices are heard and respected, and we're going to make the investments in people and culture to walk the walk and talk the talk.
Great. Thank you. My last one has to do with subscriptions. Just wanted to hear what your thoughts might be about how you're going to potentially convert existing subscribers, someone who might be just on The Sims and converting them over to this pan-Enthusiast offering that I assume will come at a higher price point.
Sure. I can take that one. Just on the first point on the conversion, remember, it isn't going to be a brand migration for the existing subscribers on any of our platforms. Really what this will do for anyone who is on, whether it's on Escapist or Destructoid or The Sims Resource, this will just make it a single sign-on access that allows them to access multiple different features, assets, networks, apps in the wider Enthusiast Gaming asset mix. It's not exactly a brand migration. We will not go down that path. We would want the communities to remain within their communities, but will have access to the wider asset mix that Enthusiast Gaming offers. As far as pricing of GG and how we think about it, I think it's too soon for us to comment on any of that. Our focus right now is heads down.
Let's get the product stabilized. Let's make sure that we're building the right social network AI into our platform. Let's get the first 1,500 testers, and let's get the learnings out, and then let's prepare for a public launch in early 2022. That's our focus, and I think as we develop more of a commercial sense on what the pricing structure would look like, we'll be more than happy to share that at that point.
Great. Thank you. You guys are at the tip of the spear in a lot of things that you're doing, and I appreciate your efforts.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's question and answer session and conference call. We thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.