Welcome to this presentation of the Q4 and year-end report of Beyond Frames and the Q and A session that will follow. A warm welcome to Emma Partin, the CFO of Beyond Frames.
Thank you so much, Linda.
Welcome, Ace St. Germain, who you are with us here from California. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Linda. For those of you not yet familiar with Beyond Frames Entertainment, we are an XR-focused games company, which means we make games for virtual reality, mixed reality, augmented reality, and spatial computing platforms. This is being driven by some of the largest tech companies in the world, including Apple, Meta, Pico, Sony, Google, and more. Despite the tremendous growth of the platforms, we're still seeing significant problems with the growth of software. Players do not have enough games to play. Platforms do not have enough content for their platforms for people to purchase. The game makers themselves, like studios, do not have enough funding to create more games for the ecosystem. That is where we come in. What Beyond Frames does is we have a two-pronged approach toward the development of new games.
First is our studio business, where we make owned and operated intellectual properties through the studios that we have in-house, of which we have three award-winning studios. We also have a publishing business where we go out and talk to third-party studios and form partnerships with them to sell, distribute, and market their content in store for the XR platforms. If you're not familiar with the way the games industry works, this is a simple chain to follow along. We have developers who make games. You have the publishers who help bring those games to market, the platforms where those games are then sold, and the consumers who purchase those games. The consumers make game purchases for publishers and developers to make money. Additionally, the platforms themselves provide funding to the publishers and developers for the development of new titles.
The way that we look at the world is we have a slightly diversified portfolio and a way of thinking. If I may start at the bottom of this pyramid here. The bottom part of the pyramid is the tonnage amount of what we can do within our publishing business. We are allowed to make significant volume bets in terms of what we can do on the publishing side because we pay very little money upfront for the publishing rights. Obviously, that means softer margins. What we are able to do is take the data from those and move them up into our studio business, which, while it is still higher cost, provides a significant higher margin and, in most cases, leads to owned IP that we can re-exploit over time.
Furthermore, the studio part of our business is subject to additional benefits, like being able to get co-financing from distributors, which is one of the ways that we make money. I am going to hand it over to Emma Partin to talk a little bit more about our finances.
Thank you, Ace. This leads me to the Q4 and full-year performance, where I'm happy to share that we continue to deliver a record-breaking year and the strongest Q4 in the company's history, with strong recurring sales on top of paid milestones, reaching about SEK 175 million for the full year in sales, which is an increase of 28% compared to last year and an increase of 609% compared to 2022. As you know, we started the year very strong, and I'm really pleased that we have been able to maintain the strong sales throughout the entire year, even though the VR market has had some challenges during the last quarters in 2024, something that we mentioned already in our Q3 report. Despite this, we have been successful in leveraging our portfolio strategy and maintaining good sales throughout the entire year.
Furthermore, we are EBITDA profitable with SEK 12.6 million for the full year compared to SEK 10.2 million last year, which is an improvement of 28%. We are also EBITDA profitable during Q4 this year with SEK 3.6 million. Profitability of the financial items is negative both for the quarter and the year and is heavily impacted by our depreciation model, where we start to depreciate our capitalized cost already during development, not waiting until the game is launched. With multiple titles in development during 2024, this has impacted our result. Focusing on our income statement, income was, as prior quarters, primarily driven by the consumer sale of the award-winning game Ghosts of Tabor and the collection of paid milestones for Cortopia's ongoing projects. Our operating costs are all inclusive of platform fees, partner royalties, as well as depreciation costs of our capitalized development.
This means that OPEX scales with sales, which is the big driver of the increase in OPEX year over year. OPEX elements as overhead cost and internal staff have more or less been the same since 2022. EBIT amounted to an operating loss of SEK 4.1 million for the quarter and SEK 19.2 million for the full year, heavily impacted by our depreciation model, as mentioned. Cash flow after changes in working capital amounted to SEK 18.5 million. Investment activities, which are the capitalized cost for our internal development, amounted to SEK 33.8 million for the full year. We had a net burn of SEK 14.5 million during the year, which is in line with our expectation since we are heavily investing in new games for further rewards when the games are all launched to the market. With multiple titles in development, this is impacting our consolidated OPEX.
We ended the quarter with SEK 7.4 million in cash, which is lower than our preferred cash level. To ensure the cash level going forward, we executed a directed share issue of SEK 10.2 million after the quarter in early January this year. Moving on to operational highlights and starting with our studio business and focusing on Cortopia, that during the year have released Escaping Wonderland, which has been named a finalist nominee in the Immersive Reality Game of the Year category at the annual D.I.C.E. Award. In addition to this, Cortopia continues to focus on the two games they have in development that are tracking according to plan. Where the large Hollywood IP that we previously have mentioned has been revealed to be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which, of course, is super exciting.
Cortopia's third project in development in cooperation with the publisher Devolver Digital has not yet been revealed, so much to look forward to going forward. Highlights from our publishing business that during the year have continued to work close with the Combat Waffle Studios to maintain the good retention of Ghost s of Tabor, but also the release of Ghosts of Tabor on PlayStation VR2, which unfortunately has been delayed, but is something to look forward to during 2025. In addition to this, our publishing business has continued to work with the Combat Waffle Studios' two next titles, Grim and Silent North.
Grim, that is a multiplayer survival game, was expected to be launched as a public alpha in Q4, but was, for strategical reason, moved to mid-January and was released a couple of weeks ago and has been since January 22, number 10 of the top-selling list of Meta Quest Store. Silent North, that is a multiplayer open-world zombie game, and that is expected to be launched during Q1. Looking ahead, we are continuously having a full slate of new titles coming out from now until the first half of 2026, with Grim being first out already released to the market. Thank you, and over to you, Ace.
Thank you, Emma. What this has all led to has been a record-breaking year for growth for our company, the highest ever in the history of Beyond Frames Entertainment, plus 28% over the prior year. Diversity is really what led the strength of our revenues in this year, being able to provide significant project funding from our partners in addition to the consumer sales that we saw, not only on premium sales, but also downloadable content across our live service titles. Our cash holding was a bit lower than we were expecting. To mitigate this uncertainty, we went out and raised a directed share issue of SEK 10.2 million in early January after the quarter. These studio titles that are currently under development are still progressing nicely.
They are according to plan and on time, and we will plan on distributing those to market between this year and early next year. As mentioned, one of those titles is our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles virtual reality game, which we are targeting in H1 2026. The publishing team this past quarter released their seventh title, Grim, which currently launched in early access around January 17, I believe. Another title that they have called Silent North is soon to be launched on the main store, actually in early access soon. Now, XR growth tends to continue to have a positive trend. Google has re-entered the market, as mentioned earlier, with their Android XR, which is really compelling to see. Meta has shown a 40% year over year growth, which is also really promising to see. We are really interested to see how this growth continues to move along.
For us in general, we see a lot of opportunities coming up in the next year. We're still being offered several very interesting partnership opportunities and games that we might want to be part of and other major things that are core to our business. We hope to be able to take advantage of that and more in the next coming year. Thank you for allowing us to present our Q4 end of the-year report. Back to you, Linda.
Thank you, Ace. Let's dive into the Q&A session. 2024 was the best year in the company's history so far. In terms of revenue, what were the main drivers behind this growth?
The primary drivers behind this growth were the relaunch of Ghosts of Tabor out of Early Access and onto the main store. This was prior to Meta opening up their store, so everything was on the main store. It created a significant additional discovery that we did not have once before, with the game being so popular, just added onto the top. Additionally, we had a lot of downloadable content sales on Ghost s of Tabor, which contributed more this year than we were actually anticipating. I think the game is truly in live service now and doing quite well on the revenue front. Additionally, we had some major milestones across multiple titles that were then paid out, which contributed to the overall revenue for the company.
In December, you confirmed that the Hollywood IP that you are developing is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Emma described it as super exciting. The launch is planned for before the end of the first half year in 2026. Could you elaborate a bit on your expectations for this game and what are the key upcoming milestones, please?
Yeah, so currently we have high expectations for the game, but arguably, relatively speaking, our expectations are fairly conservative compared to what we were receiving from independent third-party analysts, what we were receiving from some of the distributors in terms of expectations. What we did was we went out in late Q4 and announced to the market that our anticipation of the game is between SEK 350 million and SEK 700 million in top-line revenue over the course of roughly three years. That is our current expectation for the game. Right now, in terms of milestones, the next big thing we have is we have an alpha milestone that we need to deliver on this year. We are pushing really hard to make sure we hit that milestone.
The Combat Waffle Studios Grim was released in January and became a top 10 title in the Meta Quest Store. How do you view the future of this game and its potential?
Grim's future potential seems really bright to me. The game is improving day every day. Spoonfed, the single developer working on the title, has been listening to his community and building alongside with them. I think that what we've seen is growth in terms of players and the player base and the positivity. I think we actually converted some of the lower review scores and the higher review scores down the line. That's exactly what you want to see. You know, the spirit of early access is to get in there early and build a game alongside your community. It's not out there to get a giant hit on day one. It is going exactly according to plan and according to management expectations.
You are using Early Access as a strategy for your titles. Could you describe a little bit what are the benefits for this strategy and what have you learned from experience from, for example, Ghosts of Tabor?
When going into Early Access, one of the benefits you get is a lot of the early adopters tend to be a little more willing to build a game with you instead of expecting something to be completely polished. What that allows you to do, it gives you time to build a game that more people want, and then you can scale it from there and not waste a lot of money marketing towards an audience who may or may not want to be there quite yet.
Thank you, Ace. Now back to Emma Partin, CFO. Let's discuss some financial aspects. You carried out the directed share issue of SEK 10 million in January to secure the development of your projects in pipeline. How do you assess the company's cash position for the time being, and are there any plans for additional financing?
After the directed share issue, we are on a much better cash level. That gives us the margin to better manage our working capital. As we mentioned in the Q4 report and also already in the Q3 report, we are actively exploring additional ways in increasing cash liquidity to support our operation and also to be able to pursue new opportunities. We will update the market whenever we have something ready, but this is something that we actively are working on.
Okay, thank you. The Meta Quest Store made some changes that have impacted your cash flow forecast. Could you tell us a little bit about that and how are you managing this risk?
Yeah, so first off, from a short-term perspective, we have adjusted all of our budgets and forecasts going forward. We have also been focusing on the cash level to make sure that we have the margins to manage our potential volatility in sales. From an operational perspective, we have adjusted our strategies and ways of working to be able to fit the new structure in the Meta Store. Bottom line, I think Meta's intention is to increase numbers of users and retention in the platform. From a long-term perspective, that is good for us. From a short-term perspective, we are working to mitigate the risk that we can see as an example with the directed share issue to make sure that we have a cash level that will support us throughout this year.
What additional initiatives are you looking at in order to increase your liquidity?
Yeah, as mentioned, we are actively exploring further opportunities to increase our cash levels or improve them to pursue both new opportunities, but also to make sure that we have the margins that we need for this uncertainty in the Meta Store market. What these are, I can't talk about as of now, but we will get back to the market as soon as we can.
Do you have any new studio products, and if so, how do they strengthen your business?
Our studio business, I mean, they released one of the projects. They have been developing three projects during last year, during 2024, which Escaping Wonderland was one, and that had been launched. They continue to deliver two additional titles, the Turtles Game and also the Unnamed game. Since both of these will be released before the end of the first half year in 2026, now is the time to start thinking about what to do next. It is all in a very early stage, but we are continuously working with exploring new opportunities to understand what to do after these games.
Okay, thank you, Emma Partin, CFO. Back to you, Ace. You mentioned a strong belief in social sandbox and VR-first experiences. Could you describe your strategy for future game investments and outline your upcoming portfolio?
Correct. For clarity, not every single game has to be both a sandbox game and a social experience, but we do find that these two avenues are an extremely powerful recipe for success in VR. I think what we've seen is that social experiences are a superpower for people. They like to gather in virtual spaces and participate in playing games together and just treating it a little bit like they were at the playground. We see that this works. You see a multitude of extremely successful games on the platform that continue to do that.
Okay, and the last question, Ace, what would you say are the biggest risks and opportunities in 2025?
I would argue the biggest risks to the company in 2025 is the macroeconomics of the greater games industry. I think that it's been a little bit tighter for people to find financing for the games, which softens our publishing portfolio. I would say that that has a knock-on effect to the rest of the industry overall. The growth of VR depends on more games being made. If fewer games are being made due to fewer financiers, then I think we probably risk a little bit of stagnation in that space. I would say the biggest opportunity is the same thing, given the fact that there's probably going to be a bit of stagnation.
If we're able to use our resources to continue being the catalyst for more games getting made and put in the market, then we can really come out on top for the players who are here for VR and really want to play more. We could be the cornerstone publisher to help them do that.
Thank you so much, Ace St. Germain, and thank you, Emma Partin, CFO of Beyond Frames.
Thank you, Linda.