FiscalNote Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 14, 2023

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning. My name is Dis, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Fiscal Note Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

Operator

I would now like to I would now like to turn the conference over to Sarah Buda, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the fiscal note Q3 2023 earnings call. During this call, we may make certain statements related to our business that are forward looking statements under federal securities laws. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, but rather are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from reflected in any forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

For a discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, Please refer to the SEC filings available on the SEC's EDGAR system and on our website as well as the risks and other important factors discussed in today's earnings release. Additionally, non GAAP financial measures and other KPIs will be discussed on this conference call. Please refer to the tables in our earnings release and the Investor Relations portion of our website for a reconciliation of these measures to their most comparable GAAP financial measure. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to fiscal note's Chairman, CEO and Co Founder, Tim Huang.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Sarah. On today's call, we will review our Q3 results, which mark our Q1 of adjusted EBITDA profitability. This is a tremendous milestone for the company. A year ago, we committed to adjusted EBITDA profitability and that is exactly what we've delivered. In fact, we've delivered this 1 quarter earlier than we originally forecast, even amidst the more challenging macroeconomic environment.

Speaker 2

If you look at where we were when we began this year, we've essentially shifted our adjusted EBITDA from a minus $7,000,000 per quarter loss in Q1 to positive adjusted EBITDA in Q3. This is an annualized improvement of over $30,000,000 in adjusted EBITDA as compared to where the company started this year in Q1. We have been laser focused on this milestone and we are delighted to achieve it ahead of initial expectations. At the same time, we have made significant advancements to accelerate our decades long leadership in AI, aligned our sales teams on the highest growth customers and refined our product portfolio. Now as we end 2023, it is time to build on the foundation and turn our focus towards reaccelerating growth.

Speaker 2

I'll get into the details of that growth strategy shortly. First, let me remind you of our mission here at fiscal note and the value we bring to more than 5,000 customers every day. At fiscal note, we're on a mission to help our customers make sense of the complicated and constantly changing world we live in by delivering a proprietary AI enabled platform that aggregates and organizes regulatory, political and macroeconomic information and analyze the impact on their organization. Changes in policies, regulations and laws impacted decision making of almost every organization around the world. Using our proprietary AI capabilities, We aggregate, synthesize and analyze mass amounts of legislative policy, regulatory and macroeconomic data and information around the world and provide actionable intelligence to customers in a subscription model.

Speaker 2

As such, we built an enduring company for the world's most and influential decision makers from hundreds of government agencies and public sector customers from the Department of Defense, the White House, Every member of the House and Senate in the U. S. Congress, the Federal Reserve and public sector organizations in Europe and Asia to major corporate customers, including more than half the Fortune 100. Beyond large enterprises, fiscal note serves a wide and diverse range of business customers ranging from healthcare and pharma, financial services, technology, Energy, food and beverage, transportation, automotive industries and beyond. These customers rely on fiscal note every day to discover, Process and navigate the impact of grid policymaking on their organization and more importantly to take actions which achieve their business objectives and minimize political and economic risk.

Speaker 2

This forms the basis of our durable and long term growth. Helping our customers analyze Over $6,400,000,000,000 in government spending and tracking the over 500,000 elected officials in the United States along with similar policymakers around the world, is an immense digital challenge, one that requires unrivaled information about the need to know policies, embedded workflows to manage regulatory risk and powerful analytics and research to understand mission critical updates. With every global conflict, Every time the United States and China get into a spat over semiconductors and every other new tariff sanction regulation and geopolitical dispute, Fiscal note's data and information are more relevant than ever to help companies and organizations navigate through an increasingly challenging complex world. This is a $37,000,000,000 market opportunity that companies spend every year trying to obtain this critical information and data. We have become an increasingly critical and ubiquitous Bloomberg terminal of political, legislative and regulatory information at the local, state, federal and global levels.

Speaker 2

The same way that other information companies such as S&P Global, IHS Markit, FactSet, Morningstar, CoStar and Avalara have innovated in their respective information fields. Fiskema continues to deliver mission critical information that has a direct impact on our customers' operations and created an entirely new category within the data information services space. We've invested tens of 1,000,000 of dollars in almost 10 years building a defensible combination of data, intelligence and AI technology to collect, synthesize and make sense of an exploding pace and volume of dynamic, unstructured regulatory, political and legal information around the world The software workflow tools help our customers respond. This forms the basis of our market leadership position and is the underpinning of our durable growth strategy. Further, with our AI pedigree and our vast array of validated trusted data, we are in a unique position and have a clear competitive advantage.

Speaker 2

We are a compounding growth company with a broad and diverse customer base against the backdrop of increasing global complexity uncertainty that we believe only fiscal could address with our unique and proprietary products and data sets. Now let me provide a brief summary of our Q3 results and our ongoing momentum as we reach the inflection point of adjusted EBITDA profitability next quarter and beyond. In Q3, we delivered another strong quarter of growth with revenue of 34,000,000 This marks an increase of 17% year over year and is yet again consistent with the guidance we provided. We also enjoyed consistent high gross profit margins. Q3 adjusted gross profit margins were 83% in the quarter.

Speaker 2

These margins are hallmark of fiscal note and stem from our SaaS business model, AI pedigree and data rich products, all of which form the basis for strong free cash flow in the future. On the bottom line, our Q3 adjusted EBITDA was positive $700,000 in line with the guidance we provided on the last call. Our cash and short term investments at the end of the quarter were $24,000,000 Turning to management KPIs, we delivered run rate revenue of $138,000,000 Our ARR was $123,000,000 growth of 14% year on year total and growth of 8% on a pro form a basis. Our net revenue retention increased to 100% driven by ongoing success in our large enterprise customer base where NRR rates continue to be well above company average. So now let's turn to the nuts and bolts of the business.

Speaker 2

First, we'll review the things that are going well. 2nd, we'll look at the things we need to improve on. And 3rd, we'll discuss the pathway for the company moving forward to accelerate growth now that we've achieved profitability. First, on the things that are going well. We are now profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis.

Speaker 2

For the last year, Considerable management time and attention has been placed on this goal. This delivered the tremendous inflection point of delivering positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time in the company's history and 1 quarter earlier than initially forecast. We enabled strong operating leverage, driving 160% conversion of incremental revenue to adjusted EBITDA this quarter. To achieve this, we took a number of actions, including reducing our G and A for efficiency, reducing our editorial and other expenses, shifting our R and D expenses and making hard decisions about product spend and sunsetting underperforming unprofitable products. We made major changes in our sales team to focus on large enterprises with larger ACVs.

Speaker 2

This has proven to be the right strategy with impressive outcomes. By shifting our R and D spend to higher value, higher growth products, We have reinforced our competitive moat and secured AI partnerships with market leading organizations that recognize and accelerate the applicability of our market leading data, intelligence and AI. We have brought to market successful new products such as Risk Connector and Physical GPT, which are both starting to gain traction in the market. By aligning our sales team and reallocating resources to focus on large enterprise accounts with larger ACVs, we have turned large enterprise into our largest Fast growing customer group with NRR rates well above company average, trending well above 105% on an LTM basis. And there is more upside here as we introduce new enterprise products with higher ACVs and continue to up sell and cross sell.

Speaker 2

By modifying our go to market model and reallocating sales and marketing spend, we are starting to drive growth in the areas of the business with the strongest upside potential. More importantly, by taking cost actions across the organization, we have achieved adjusted EBITDA profitability ahead of initial plan and position the business for very strong conversion of incremental revenue to adjusted EBITDA profit. And ultimately, we have created a durable, profitable company with highly innovative products and a superior market leadership position. We expect the company will continue to see strong conversion of incremental growth into adjusted EBITDA in the long term. Overall, the company has spent the last decade building an operational and technical infrastructure that is poised for rapid growth, With global operations ranging from Washington, D.

Speaker 2

C. To London to Seoul and Sydney, the company has an extremely talented management team, data, technology and AI organization as well as the go to market infrastructure to continue to grow. The changes we have made have resulted in a leaner, more disciplined organization poised for growth. All of this is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our teams and the unparalleled value we deliver to our 5,000 customers every day. So where do we see areas of improvement through the business then?

Speaker 2

Candidly, we are watching 2 data points very closely within the business. First, while we have seen great continued growth in our subscription business, We have seen some challenges in our onetime non subscription revenue, which is typically very strong in the second half of the year. With a challenging macro and some underperformance in some few non core products, This one time non subscription revenue didn't deliver on pace with our traditional seasonality. 2nd, we had some slower than expected pipeline conversions as we shift toward larger strategic accounts, which are taking longer than expected to close also due to the macroeconomic environment. While we have retooled our product strategy to go after larger, bigger accounts, launch new products and features and structure our go to market teams to go after these deals.

Speaker 2

Under the current macroeconomic environment, these deals are receiving more scrutiny in company P and So what is the company's plan to reignite growth and profitability now that we've achieved the inflection point of adjusted EBITDA profitability? It is now time for us to shift our management time, focus and attention to allocate our time and resources and capital to reaccelerating growth. This is the singular focus of the operating team to drive sustained growth within the organization as we have done for the last 10 years. Fundamental to this growth reacceleration is a refined product strategy. This is where we drive incremental upside to the durable base of revenue that we have in place today.

Speaker 2

Let me give some context. 1st and foremost, we will sustain and build upon our core products with the strongest demand profiles. Our regulatory and policy data solutions continues to be the strongest offerings in our portfolio with robust demand. Organizations are facing significant increases in regulatory complexity and it is spreading globally, which creates uncertainty for all organizations and significant top line and bottom line impact for companies that operate globally as well. We spent the last decade applying proprietary AI expertise to structure, normalize, analyze and digitize vast amounts of regulatory, legal, macroeconomic and geopolitical information, and to embed workflows to make data useful and actionable for our customers.

Speaker 2

Today, thousands of organizations, including those in the public sector and private sector, rely on Fiscal Notes' regulatory and data policy solutions. As such, we'll continue to invest and build upon the success of those core products with new product enhancements, new datasets and new AI workflows that reinforce our superior competitive position and bring unparalleled value to our customers. We believe there is ample opportunity to continue our land and expand strategy with our largest customers as we continue to up sell and cross sell legal and regulatory datasets. 2nd, we will pursue adjacencies to core products in fast growing areas of risk and compliance. This includes products such as Risk Connector, our new internally developed risk intelligence solution that enables enterprise to reveal operational, relational and reputational risk.

Speaker 2

Risk Connector brings the power of our proprietary data and AI capabilities to map relationships and identify risks within the organization's supply chain as well as the organization's customers, investors, partners and any other vectors through which risk can materialize. This empowers large organizations in the private and public sectors to anticipate, understand, quantify and track risks emanating from their operations and a full web of relationships in a way that current solutions cannot. Only a few weeks after public launch, we already have our first anchor customer and several other active proposals in market with Arch Enterprises. We are delighted with the early momentum of this new product, which exemplifies our AI leadership and our unrelenting commitment to innovation that delivers customer value. Risk Connector is just one example of a product adjacency.

Speaker 2

Have additional products in development that will enable us to accelerate growth through adjacencies such as this. We also continue to pursue geographic adjacencies as well. This year, we invested in our Europe expansion both organically and through acquisition, which allows us to be able to bring new datasets to our customers. Finally, we are investing in new generative AI capabilities for our customers with a new go to market strategy that we expect to result in faster revenue generation. We are placing a substantial shift in our new product strategy to focus on AI copilot agents.

Speaker 2

Our first new product initiative is our fiscal AI copilot program, through which we are developing a series of AI enabled applications that provide intelligent assistance for policy and risk management professionals. The Co pilot program leverages our decade long investments in AI, ML and MLP, proprietary, defensible reasoning and data aggregation tools, as well as the tens of thousands of proprietary and public verticalized data sets and comprehensive information that Fiscolent collects provides lightweight applications and very specific use cases. The goal of fiscal note is to launch a constellation of AI agents that include quick applications catered to our individual customer personas that automate the day to day work of creating legislation, drafting regulatory and legal analysis, doing advocacy outreach and conducting constituent communications and regulatory responses. In doing so, Copilot will reduce countless hours that our customers spend drafting legislation, responding to legislation, communicating constituents and other tasks. Delivered at lightweight self serve apps, these co pilots build in our fiscal and GPT generative AI platform we announced early this year and enable new go to market models with an array of fiscal note products that are easy to sell, easy to deliver and easy to scale across users.

Speaker 2

The value to fiscal note customers is clear as we essentially enable both existing and prospective customers to quickly and easily leverage our AI powered solutions to get their jobs done faster with the highest degree of confidence. The context for this copilot program is evident. Despite major advances in AI and the use of large language models in the technology industry, There is a crucial need for organizations to specifically address the unique complexity that exists in the legal and regulatory world. With our expertise in data ingestion, collection, cleansing and curation, and of course, our extensive archive of legal and regulatory data sets from around the world, it is logical to fill this void with fiscal and GPT and now our new AI Copilot program. Of course, fiscal Copilot complements and builds upon our integrations with large language model providers like OpenAI and With our new co pilot focused AI strategy, we will develop new go to market models aligned with expectations for per user pricing.

Speaker 2

We expect that these products will be sold on a per user basis that allows users to be able to purchase these products individually with a swipe of a credit card, substantially eliminating friction in our go to market process, enabling mass adoption of our generative AI tools and ensuring faster revenue generation. We expect our co pilot strategy to begin rolling out over the next several weeks months as we embark upon building a constellation of AI agents on top of our data. Our CoPilot program marks yet another development in fiscal note's ongoing leadership as we develop and bring to market AI enabled solutions specifically aimed at the legal and regulatory sector. You can expect to hear more from us in the coming weeks about fiscal and CoPilot and our other new product developments that over time provide incremental growth path to complement our proven Terrible base of recurring revenue solutions. In summary, there have been a lot of changes in 2023 as we dedicated our time, energy and resources to achieving profitability.

Speaker 2

We are now pivoting our focus to new avenues for accelerating growth in 2024 and beyond with a refined 3 pronged product strategy and go to market strategy that will enable us to build on our core products with the highest growth potential, pursue natural adjacencies to offerings to broaden our value to customers and develop new products with new channels for growth. This reflects our ongoing commitment to building a durable, profitable compounding growth company that provides unique value to the world's most important decision makers and scaling this business to $200,000,000 $300,000,000 $500,000,000 $500,000,000 $1,000,000,000 in recurring revenue and beyond. Separately, you all saw the disclosure that I have informed the Board of my interest in exploring and leading a going private transaction. As a result, the Board has appointed a special committee to evaluate any proposed funding

Speaker 3

it may submit in light

Speaker 2

of the company's strategic options in the best interest of shareholders. While I can't comment further, I will reiterate what I've said on our past calls. We have approximately $140,000,000 in run rate revenue, A proven durable compounding recurring revenue model with more than 5,000 customers, 80% adjusted gross margin and now have adjusted EBITDA profitability. The business has never been in a stronger position, yet our stock price does not reflect the strength of these fundamentals and we continue to trade well below other sector specific information services leaders. Ultimately, we will always do what is in the best interest of shareholders to achieve a valuation that recognizes and reflects the value of our fundamentals in our future growth opportunity as we build a long term large scale market leader in AI driven information services.

Speaker 2

Regardless of the outcome, the entire organization will remain committed to growing our business that is delivering value for the world's most important decision makers who trust fiscally to discover, process and navigate the impact of policy making on organizations and more importantly, to take actions which achieve their business objectives and minimize political and economic risk. Now let me turn it over to John for details on the financials and our outlook going forward.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Tim, and good morning. I'll spend some time going through the details of our quarter and then I'll walk through some of the operational changes we've made and our commitment to ongoing adjusted EBITDA growth moving forward. Let me start with the quarter. 3rd quarter GAAP revenue was $34,000,000 marking year over year growth of 17%. 3rd quarter subscription revenue, which makes up approximately 90% of our total revenue was 30,100,000 This is an increase of 15% from a year ago and 7% growth on an organic basis, Excluding the non cash deferred revenue adjustment from 2022, our advisory and other revenue was $3,900,000 an increase of $1,000,000 year over year.

Speaker 4

We exited Q3 with run rate revenue of $138,000,000 in total, marking 14% year over year growth. On an organic basis, run rate revenue was $129,000,000 reflecting 7% growth On a pro form a basis as defined in our press release, NRR or net revenue retention for the quarter was approximately 100%, A sequential quarter increase of 200 basis points and a year over year increase of 100 basis points. Let me provide some more details here because it is important to see the traction among our various customer groups. As you know, we have 3 primary customer groups we serve, Public sector, not for profit associations and enterprises. As we said, enterprise is our largest customer group And large enterprise and strategic accounts represent the fastest growing highest NRR customers And that has been the impetus for some of the changes we've made to our sales organization to capitalize on this underlying demand and to extend our growth in large enterprises.

Speaker 4

This quarter reinforced this is the right strategy. NRR rates among our large enterprise Corporate customers continues to trend above company average. Demand for our regulatory and policy data continues to be strong, particularly among large enterprises. With some of the recent changes we've made from product strategy to sales allocation, we see opportunities for NRR rates in this large enterprise group to expand further. Like many companies, we tend to see a bit more churn in the small enterprise space, particularly in this macro.

Speaker 4

Turning to ARR, we grew our total annual recurring revenue or ARR to $123,000,000 as of September 30, an increase of 14% compared to the same period in 2022. Organic ARR, as we defined, was $116,000,000 as of quarter end. This represents a 7% growth rate when compared to the ARR in Q3 of last year on a pro form a basis. While our ARR continues to trend up, it is slightly behind the pace we expected in Q3. This is largely due to budget tightening and longer sales cycle as we shift towards larger enterprise customers in the midst of the current macro environment.

Speaker 4

And a few of our ancillary products are underperforming expectations. That said, the pipeline rate remains robust And the demand for our core policy, regulatory, geopolitical, macroeconomic, security and operational risk products continues to be strong. These products are crucial to help large enterprise customers manage global complexity and operational risk. Large enterprise continues to be our fastest growing customer group on an organic basis. Looking at gross profit, we continue to enjoy strong margins.

Speaker 4

Our Q3 gross profit was $23,600,000 representing a 69% margin. Our 3rd quarter non GAAP adjusted gross Profit was $28,400,000 representing 83% adjusted gross profit margin after adjusting for amortization. Our adjusted gross profit margins remain consistently high in the 80% range quarter after quarter. In Q3, total operating expenses decreased by approximately $2,000,000 year over year, excluding non cash stock based compensation expenses, Cost of revenue amortization and transaction costs. Sequentially from last quarter, total operating Expenses declined by about $3,200,000 excluding non cash stock based comp and other non cash expenses.

Speaker 4

This combined with our Q4 cost actions means that we will realize almost $20,000,000 of annualized OpEx cost savings this year. We are delivering on the cost management programs, while continuing to invest in innovation and growth for the future. Within OpEx, Sales and marketing costs were $11,200,000 for the quarter, a decrease of $600,000 year over year even after acquisitions and a decrease of $450,000 from last quarter with our sales realignment program. R and D expenses were $4,500,000 A $1,000,000 decrease from last year and essentially flat from last quarter. Editorial costs were approximately $4,500,000 A slight increase year over year driven by acquisitions and a slight decrease from last quarter.

Speaker 4

G and A expenses for the quarter were $14,400,000 Excluding non cash stock based compensation and other public company expenses, G and A was $9,500,000 for the quarter. This is a decrease of about $400,000 year over year and a decrease of almost $1,000,000 sequentially from last quarter, reflecting the favorable impact of our ongoing expense management program. The operating loss for Q3 was $13,500,000 in total. This includes $6,200,000 of stock based compensation. Our total interest expense was $8,000,000 Of this, cash interest expense was approximately $5,400,000 which is a good proxy for our quarterly cash interest expense going forward depending on rates.

Speaker 4

You'll also note that our weighted average Shares outstanding for Q3 2023 decreased by about 5,300,000 shares for the last quarter. It is now 129,000,000 shares. This is related to our previous disclosed exchange agreement with GPO, a pre listing note holder. The GAAP net loss for Q3 was $14,500,000 And as we forecasted, adjusted EBITDA was a positive $700,000 this quarter, marking our Q1 of profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis, 1 quarter ahead of our initial guidance. We are delighted to achieve this important milestone for the company, which reflects our diligent cost management and solid top line growth.

Speaker 4

It is important to note that in Q3, we delivered 160% conversion of incremental revenue to adjusted EBITDA. This reflects the power of our business model. Despite the challenging macro, we're driving strong incremental revenue through a new logo acquisition cross sell And upsell without adding incremental costs. This operating leverage is a strong indicator of what to expect as we move this company from adjusted EBITDA positive to a free cash flow generating growth company over time. Our balance sheet remains solid with approximately $24,000,000 of cash, cash equivalents and short term investments as of September 30.

Speaker 4

We expect to increase our cash position in Q1 of 2024 through Continued compound need increases to prepaid ARR and seasonally strong collections. You see that we did file shelf registration. This is a 3 year $100,000,000 registration that simply gives us flexibility and optionality in our capital structure. This is the right time to put a shelf in place. It is a common practice 1 year after public listing.

Speaker 4

As we committed, fiscal note achieved positive adjusted EBITDA 12 months after our listing date and a quarter ahead of schedule and without raising additional capital. Now that we have achieved positive adjusted EBITDA, our operations are self sustaining. We are now actively looking at opportunities to strengthen our balance sheet, Resources that will further accelerate organic and or inorganic growth. As we turn our focus to reaccelerating growth, we will have the capital structure flexibility to invest strategically and drive our business to the next phase of growth. Now let me comment on our guidance and how we are positioned for profitable growth next year and beyond.

Speaker 4

For Q4, we expect revenue of $34,000,000 to $35,000,000 We expect positive EBITDA of approximately $2,500,000 The swing from a $7,000,000 adjusted EBITDA loss in Q1 to a $2,500,000 adjusted EBITDA Profit in Q4 is remarkable, particularly in light of the more challenging macro. For the full year, we expect GAAP revenue of $132,000,000 to $133,000,000 This is a reduction from our prior guidance with the majority of the impact driven by lower non subscription one time revenue. We expect run rate revenue of $139,000,000 to $141,000,000 As Tim mentioned, We've been making a lot of changes this year to position the company for greater growth. We've realigned our sales force, we've adapted our product strategy and sunset unprofitable products, and we've reduced our cost structure. At the same time, we've allocated capital to areas of the business with the strongest upside potential.

Speaker 4

As a result, we are well positioned as we exit the year. Our enterprise sales team are continuing to execute well against strong demand, particularly for our regulatory and policy data. Our AI leadership is broadening our market with new partnerships and enabling us to bring breakthrough innovations to market including Risk Connector, fiscal note GPT and now our fiscal note co pilot program. We have reached the inflection point of adjusted EBITDA profitability and paved the way for free cash flow over time. With strong operating leverage, we are well positioned to drive compounding recurring revenue growth.

Speaker 4

All of this positions us for ongoing revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth in 2024 and beyond. With that, I will now open it up to questions. Operator?

Operator

The first question is from the line of Matt Van Fleet with BTIG.

Speaker 5

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I guess First on the sales opportunity, not just in the Q4, but maybe as we look out into 2024 and I guess sort of two factors there. 1, what's the sales realignment doing in terms of driving more up sell, cross sell? Anything From an actual process standpoint that you put in?

Speaker 5

And then, as we think about sort of the maturity of the sales team, especially at the larger enterprise accounts, Where are we in terms of sort of reps fully ramped or what's the mix of fully ramped? And then secondarily on that, Where are you seeing the biggest impacts from the macro in terms of feedback from customers? And how is that impacting, I guess, either deal Flow or maybe deal sizes?

Speaker 6

Hey, Matt. This is Josh Rudnick. I can address that. So in terms of Upsell, cross sell opportunities, part of what we've been doing with the sales realignment has been adjusting Staffing responsibilities, quota setting, commission plans and such to align around upsell and cross sell and have in fact established a team that is focused specifically on up sell and cross sell because we do see significant opportunity up there, especially when it comes to large enterprise clients. The team has gone through significant restructuring over the course of the year.

Speaker 6

We've been viewing that as an optimization of our approach to go to market, both in terms of how we structure the teams, but also in terms of overall the quality of the talent that we have on those teams and as well as Our effectiveness, efficiency and speed in ramping new talent as we bring talent on board And continuing to build a pipeline of talent across the board that we can use to continue as we continue our growth down the road. And in terms of the macro impact, I would say we are still seeing strong demand for the products. We have a lot of confidence In our pipelines, including in regards to some of the new products that we've launched such as Risk Connector, where we tend to see an impact really is on sales cycles and really the time to bring those home as prospects see budget pressure internally.

Speaker 5

Okay, very helpful. And then can you just remind us as we look at the guidance, I think you mentioned that on the one time that's That's certainly being impacted by some of the products on setting and winding down of the underperforming products. But can you help us In terms of what the impact is on the subscription line limiting the growth there that maybe we were previously expecting And then how that's maybe balanced with the success of the better products, especially around the regulatory and policy data? Thanks.

Speaker 6

Sure, Matt. So yes, as you noted, lower non subscription, so one time revenue certainly played a large role in what we're seeing. Second half It is typically strong for one time revenue and that hasn't materialized this year due to largely due to budget uncertainty related to the macro. On the ARR subscription side, we have seen some slower pipeline conversion, like I was saying, and especially as we move to larger enterprise deals Where the sales cycle naturally are longer, again, the macro is going to have an impact there.

Speaker 5

Okay, great. Thank you.

Speaker 7

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Latimore with Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 3

Great. Thanks very much. Good morning. Yes, congrats on the positive EBITDA and sequential change was pretty impressive there. Gross margin that seems to be at a record level and was also up sequentially.

Speaker 3

Can you just sort of Describe the impacts there, was this kind of deemphasizing some of the lower value products, is this sustainable, just a little more color on gross margin would be great.

Speaker 4

Mike, I think We continue to see the gross margin stay pretty consistent. We saw some benefits from some credits this quarter that I don't think will be I'm continuing to repeat quarter over quarter. So in terms of thinking about it going forward, that 80% Adjusted gross margin number is probably the right way to think about it.

Speaker 3

Got it. Okay. Great. And then on the Just kind of some of the vertical effects here. The federal government vertical, have you seen any kind of nuances there that We're unexpected.

Speaker 4

In terms of revenue?

Speaker 3

Bookings primarily and Mike.

Speaker 4

We'll give you customer behavior. Josh, you might want to handle that. So we've done contingency planning around it as we think about guidance for the upcoming quarter.

Speaker 6

But I'm just going to go ahead. Sorry. Yes, Mike, this is Josh. I would say it It largely continues to be steady. Federal government tends to be a good steady revenue driver for us.

Speaker 6

We've seen some impact from budget pressures in the federal government, not surprising given the atmosphere on Capitol Hill, but still largely remains steady.

Speaker 3

Got it. Okay. And then the comment about this is the opportunity to kind of reaccelerate growth. Is the implication there that you would try to maintain current EBITDA margins while you reaccelerate growth? Or how do you think about balancing those 2?

Speaker 4

Mike, we will continue to drive the margin. We're not giving any guidance with regards to 2024 at this time, but Our operating plan will continue to push the company towards a more industry normative operating EBITDA margin over time.

Speaker 3

Got it. Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Speaker 7

Your next question comes from the line of Zach Cummins with B. Riley, your line is open.

Speaker 8

Yes, thanks. Good morning. And also congrats on the inflection of positive adjusted EBITDA in the quarter. In terms of I know you're not giving formal 2024 guidance, but just given the updated run rate revenue Is that sort of a good baseline to start from once we think about setting expectations for 2024?

Speaker 4

Thanks for the question, Zach. Yes, that's why we give the run rate guidance. I think it's a good way to kind of start your modeling from the beginning of the year And then kind of look at any updates we give further years, we see how we're gaining traction or other events that would drive The number north of that level.

Speaker 8

Got it. And in terms of the cash balance, I mean, John, can you give an update on is there any one time items impacting overall cash burn in this quarter? And any sort of update you can give on Expectations for cash burn in Q4?

Speaker 4

So Our interest expense and CapEx tend to be around $7,000,000 per quarter. I think that's kind of when we think about Beyond the adjusted EBITDA, how to think about that. The Q4 tends to be the lowest point of our year in terms of cash. We're not giving specific guidance around what we think the year end cash balance will be. And then we begin to see very strong cash collection going into the Q1 of each year.

Speaker 4

So we expect to see the balance kind of building back up as we kind of move into the Q1. But we model it, We plan around that the actions we've taken to date have all been done in light of cash requirements and maintaining the liquidity we need to keep the business Where it needs to be.

Speaker 8

Got it. And final question is really around, I believe you're expecting a bounce back in the cash balance in Q1 of next Is that assuming that you're going to start consistently generating positive cash flow from Q1 and beyond next Or is it more of just the strong collections to start the year and maybe it will take a little more time to get to consistent free cash flow generation?

Speaker 4

So there is a seasonality to our business where we generate significant kind of positive cash flow In the Q1 because of the amount of sales activity that takes place in the Q4 and the billing and the collection cycle off of that. From an income statement standpoint, we will be moving towards free cash flow from an EBITDA standpoint relative to our fixed charges, But having given guidance as to when we cross over that, but it's certainly a focus of ours as we move forward to get to that level.

Speaker 8

Understood. Well, thanks for taking my questions and best of luck in Q4.

Speaker 7

Your next question comes from the line of Rudy Sameer with D. A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. The trend in the last few quarters has been revenue coming in below the midpoint of guidance and the forward revenue outlook being lowered. And John, I know last quarter you said you guys were assuming similar close rates in the second half of this year as you've seen in prior years. And so with this lowered revenue outlook, just could you comment specifically on your assumptions for Q4 as it relates to close rates, Renewals, expansions, etcetera, relative to past years.

Speaker 6

Hey, Rudy, this is Josh. I can tell you and I'll reiterate that the biggest impact came from lower non subscription revenue, where typically We would have expected better results seasonally in the second half, and we didn't see that come through, largely due to budget uncertainty, some underperforming products. And then on the ARR side, it's been slower pipeline conversion than And so like I said, as we move to larger enterprise deals, you tend to see longer sales cycles, which is fine, We saw an impact largely due to the macro in the second half and conditions worsening in the second half.

Speaker 4

Sure. And Rudy, as it relates to the Guidance for the remainder of the year, we've taken into consideration the close rates that Joshua referenced and the slower pacing into that guidance. And that's why we Adjusted the revenue figure down for the quarter. We've reviewed the pipeline and looked at it in light of The conversion rates that we're actually seeing and that's why we took the adjustment that we did.

Speaker 9

Okay. And then I hear, I guess, what you're saying on the Q1 cash bounce back given changes in net working capital, but With I think roughly $7,000,000 a quarter in cash interest expense, I guess just what level of annualized EBITDA Do you need to get to the free cash flow breakeven to positive on an annual basis?

Speaker 4

So our cash interest expense to be clear is a little bit over $5,000,000 and then our capital expenditures are between $1,000,000 $2,000,000 per quarter generally. That's the reference to the $7,000,000 You could annualize that and kind of back into the number we would need to get to be Truly free cash flow positive, on a standalone basis.

Speaker 7

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Albany with EF Hutton. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Yes. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. And nice quarter, given some of the macro headwinds and lengthening of the sales cycle. I just wanted to get an update on the AI front and how you guys are utilizing technology.

Speaker 10

And really if you're seeing any green shoots improving efficiencies across the organization and I guess specifically where you're pulling out any synergies? Thanks. Yes.

Speaker 2

No, thanks for the question. So, I think that a couple of different things. So, the first thing that we pointed out to you today in the call was the Progression of some of the products that we have in the market, namely Risk Connector and some of the traction we're seeing there. That was a completely wholly built in house product that we went out to market to go after the sort of supply chain market and the like. In the second half of my earnings call, I basically had talked about some of the new initiatives that we're launching here in the market.

Speaker 2

And I guess what I would say is that the generative AI market in general has started to coalesce around the type of product and type of go to market that is somewhat different from what we've kind of got to market with traditionally. So if you look at very recent product lines from Microsoft or from kind of growth oriented startups and the like, A lot of the product lines that we're seeing are coalescing around call it per user pricing of $50 to $200 a month per user. And then pricing very, very targeted generative AI capabilities for those customer sets. And so Essentially, what I talked about is that over the course of next couple of weeks, our intention is to implement a similar kind of co pilot strategy for the legal and regulatory space to essentially take the data that we have embedded within kind of generative AI capabilities and then help lawyers, legal professionals, regulatory professionals, Draft documents, create legislation, create laws where the case is and then effectively charge in a similar price point Several $100 a month per user, such that people could essentially go out there and swipe a credit card and go to market very quickly.

Speaker 2

So that effectively means that, we've been in development with a series of these CoPilot products for some time now. And We expect that actually in a different go to market channel, different from a heavy enterprise sales model that we're going to try and go with a more product led growth kind of user driven model here to drive faster revenue generation and kind of really lead into generative AI market a lot more aggressively. So, So, we are seeing pretty good traction here overall, and I think that's something that we're going to continue to monitor as we try and accelerate the growth of the business.

Speaker 4

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 7

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back to CEO, Tom Wang for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Yes. I appreciate everybody taking the call here and definitely looking forward to another great quarter. Thank you everybody.

Speaker 7

This concludes today's conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.

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Key Takeaways

  • Adjusted EBITDA profitability: Achieved positive adjusted EBITDA of $0.7 million in Q3, marking a $30 million annualized improvement from Q1 losses and arriving one quarter ahead of plan.
  • Strong revenue and margins: Q3 revenue was $34 million (up 17% YoY) with an 83% adjusted gross profit margin, $123 million in ARR (14% YoY growth) and 100% net revenue retention.
  • Cost and sales realignment: Cut G&A, editorial and R&D spend, sunset underperforming products, and refocused the sales organization on large enterprises, driving NRR above 105% in that segment.
  • Refined growth strategy: Plans to accelerate growth in 2024 by enhancing core regulatory and policy data offerings, pursuing adjacencies like Risk Connector, and launching per-user AI copilot applications.
  • Balance sheet and outlook: Ended Q3 with $24 million in cash and short-term investments, guided Q4 revenue of $34–35 million with ~$2.5 million adjusted EBITDA, and the board is evaluating the CEO’s proposal to explore a going-private transaction.
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Earnings Conference Call
FiscalNote Q3 2023
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