Veritone Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 8, 2025

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you, and good afternoon. After the market closed today, Veritone issued a press release announcing results for the first quarter twenty twenty five ending 03/31/2025. The press release and other supplemental information are available on the Investor Relations section of Veritone's website. Joining us for today's call are Veritone's President and Chief Executive Officer, Ryan Stielberg and Chief Financial Officer, Mike Zometra, who will provide prepared remarks and then open the call up for a live question and answer session. Please note that certain information discussed on the call today, including certain answers to your questions, will include forward looking statements.

Operator

This includes, without limitation, statements about our business strategy and future financial and operating performance. These forward looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause the actual results to differ materially from those stated. Certain of these risks and assumptions are discussed in Veritone's SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 10 ks. These forward looking statements are based on assumptions as of today, 05/08/2025, and Veritone undertakes no obligation to revise or update them. During this call, the actual and forecasted financial measures we will be discussing include non GAAP measures.

Operator

Reconciliations of these measures to the corresponding GAAP measures are included in the press release we issued today. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that the call today is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link on the Investor Relations section of Veritone's website at www.veritone.com. Now I would like to turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Brian Stielberg.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Kate, and thank you everyone for joining us. We are excited to speak with you today and to provide an update on our first quarter twenty twenty five results, financial performance and progress against our strategic growth plan. I will begin by providing a strategic update and sharing my perspective on our current market environment and the opportunity that lies ahead. Mike Zemetra will then cover our quarterly performance and financials in more detail. We are pleased to report our Q1 twenty twenty five financial results, which reflects solid revenue performance and demonstrate strong progress against our growth strategy.

Speaker 1

Veritone secured over 100 new business and renewal software agreements during the first quarter. Notable contracts with marquee commercial clients include Fremantle, Odyssey, World Athletics, Cox Media Group and Hubbard. On the public sector front, notable deals include Fresno Police Department, Riverside County Sheriff's Department, as well as several agency components under the Department of Justice. And within Veritone Hire, notable new contracts include Rolls Royce and a nine plus year deal with the Bank of France. These deals highlight the continued Software as a Service growth and the importance and reliability of Veritone's AI solutions for our clients.

Speaker 1

The media and entertainment industry is experiencing significant growth, fueled by evolving consumer behaviors and technological advancements. This surge is driving demand for content across a fragmented ecosystem of platforms and devices. However, media organizations are struggling to meet this demand while also dealing with economic pressure and limited capital budgets. Veritone's cost effective AI solutions provide necessary efficiencies and automated workflows while also fueling growth. Our recent execution at this year's Masters golf tournament with our long standing customer, Augusta National, is an excellent example of how Veritone provides mission critical solutions at scale.

Speaker 1

Managing over 200 terabytes of footage, inclusive of over 90,000 video files and over 18,000 images, Baritone enabled unprecedented content access and distribution across the Masters Tournament, Augusta Nationals Women's Amateur and Drive Chip and Putt Championship, strengthening their brand presence and enhancing fan experiences across all digital platforms. Our comprehensive media infrastructure powered by aiWARE empowered both global broadcasters and content creators with seamless access to high quality assets, facilitating efficient content production and wider audience reach. Artificial Intelligence has emerged as the requisite solution for media companies to address these challenges by enabling them to extend the distribution and yield of their content assets with greater efficiency and automated workflows. Simultaneously, the expanding AI foundational models and infrastructure sector has led to an insatiable appetite and need for high quality training data. However, there is a significant shortage of accessible, clean, unstructured data, including audio and video.

Speaker 1

This is our time and our opportunity. Veritone's Data Refinery or BDR is solving this data gap by servicing the global training data market, which is expected to grow from $2,400,000,000 in 2023 to over $17,000,000,000 in 02/1932. As AI models data needs advanced from text to images to audio and video, Veritone is uniquely and strategically positioned to capitalize on this audio and video market demand. In 2024 alone, Veritone aiWARE processed almost 11 petabytes and nearly sixty million hours of media for our customers, providing further evidence of our ability to meet VDR fulfillment requirements. The big headline is this.

Speaker 1

VDR is gaining material traction and is now expected to generate significant revenue for the remainder of the year with a qualified and near term pipeline of over $10,000,000 up from $5,000,000 just a few weeks ago. As a reminder, our targeted CAGR from 2024 to 2027 to address the large and growing training data market is over 300%. VDR transforms unstructured data in the AI ready assets, enabling enterprises to prepare and leverage their data efficiently and effectively, both for internal use as well as for licensing such data for third party AI model training and tuning. BDR is powered by Veritone's aiWARE platform, supporting incredible scale and now has contracts with major hyperscalers, AI model providers and intellectual property owners. To put this scale into perspective, we have already ingested, prepared and delivered the equivalent over 200,000,000,000 tokens derived from premium audio and video to multiple hyperscalers and model developers for advanced model training and tuning.

Speaker 1

We are now targeting to achieve the higher end of our previously disclosed VDR pipeline of at least $10,000,000 in 2025 alone. As the media and entertainment sector continues to evolve, Veritone is poised to lead the charge in providing AI driven solutions that empower organizations to meet the increasing demands for content, audience engagement and data monetization. With the momentum we have built so far this year, we are confident that Veritone is well positioned to maintain its leadership in the AI space and deliver strong sustained growth in 2025 and beyond. I'll now shift to discussing Veritone Hire, our products and solutions for the HR and job recruiting industries. Despite the global challenges to the labor market, Veritone Hire remains focused on mid and long term growth.

Speaker 1

This is being pursued through a concerted three pronged approach, expanding the reseller network, enhancing ATS integrations and growing our Media Services solution. Currently, our Media Services penetration within existing customers is less than 5% of their respective annual spend budgets, which we estimated to be close to $1,000,000,000 per year. Therefore, we see significant growth potential against both our installed client base as well as from net new accounts. In Q1 twenty twenty five, Veritone Higher increased its number of Media Services clients, grew client budgets under management compared to the previous year and extended Media Services to new international markets. To close my update on Veritone Higher, I want to highlight our partnership with Workday, one of the largest global HCM ATS providers.

Speaker 1

As a Workday certified platinum partner, Veritone is now co selling with Workday. And through this collaboration, we have already generated numerous opportunities and leads, which have resulted in the swift acquisition of new clients, especially considering that our Workday agreement only officially started just mid quarter. As our partnership with Workday develops, we anticipate meaningful growth in both opportunities and signed clients. Baritone higher is set for further expansion. The results of the first quarter demonstrate our effective strategic implementation and adaptability to market changes.

Speaker 1

With a solid groundwork established, we are optimistic about our direction for the remainder of the year ahead. Now turning to the public sector. I'm proud to report that our Baritone Intelligent Digital Evidence Management System or IDEM continues to gain traction, both domestically and internationally. In local law enforcement, we are now servicing hundreds of customers using our IDEMs applications for investigation workflows, public record requests, freedom of information requests and redaction workflows. Our users include detectives, investigators, crime analysts, public affairs and FOIA personnel.

Speaker 1

And they're all seeing the transformative impact of our AI powered solutions, helping them streamline their operations and achieve improved outcomes faster. As we continue to grow, we are expanding our technical partnerships and integrations with new sales opportunities arriving on a weekly basis. The addition of our IDEMs application suite has been a game changer for us, driving increases in deal size and opening up new opportunities. We are in the final stages of procurement with several large counties in California as well as law enforcement agencies and district attorney offices in major cities across North America. We are also expanding our footprint in Canada with a strategic partnership focused on opportunities across both The U.

Speaker 1

S. And Canada. Additionally, our partnership with technology and public safety leader, GTEC, is now moved into the operational stage, and we are beginning to work closely with joint customers. As we continue to innovate, we are also working on new integrations with other major industry players, bringing our AI, scale, workflow and expertise in video and audio analytics to create combined solutions that deliver enhanced value for our customers. On The U.

Speaker 1

S. Federal side, we've made strong progress as well. Veritone Investigate has achieved awardable status within the Tradewinds marketplace, broadening our footprint in federal agencies. We're also assisting with a proof of concept for procurement fraud with the Department of Defense Agency. Additionally, we are working closely with the Defense Logistics Agency or DLA on the Jet two point zero contract for FOIA and Investigative Services.

Speaker 1

Our IDEMs applications are now the system of record for several service providers, fulfilling key tasks for the DLA, and we are also deploying IDEMs and aiWARE on the DLA's private tenant in their own secure environment. This is a significant milestone for us as it proves our ability to meet the highest security standards required by the Department of Defense. We are also supporting multiple agencies across the DoD, DHS and DOJ as they scope requirements and implement proof of concept deployments under Project Defender, a key initiative that aligns with the President's strategy for securing the border and modernizing law enforcement. We expect significant budget approvals and revenue generation for fiscal year twenty twenty six, and we are confident that Veritone will play a key role in this critical initiative. In the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we added eight new SLED customers and 40 expansion sales transactions in the public sector.

Speaker 1

Our public sector pipeline now exceeds $110,000,000 underscoring the increasing demand for AI based applications and services across all four of our public sector segments, SLED, FedSIV, FedDoD Intel and international markets. I am very excited about what lies ahead as we continue to leverage the momentum from the strategic milestones I've just detailed. We are confident that Veritone is well positioned to capitalize on the increasing demand for AI powered solutions in both the commercial and public sectors. I would now like to turn over to Mike Zemetra, who will provide more details on our quarterly performance and future guidance. Mike?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Ryan. We started the year strong in Q1. Revenue was in line with our preliminary results, but did fall slightly below our guidance, primarily driven by delays in some of our larger public sector deals, offset by outperformance from our VDR business, which resulted in slightly lower gross margins versus expectations. We ended Q1 with solid customer metrics and contributions made across our software products and services and managed services. As we enter the second quarter of twenty twenty five, we remain very bullish on the future growth prospects across our public sector and VDR initiatives, which I will explain in more detail.

Speaker 2

During my prepared remarks, I will discuss Q1 year over year performance and KPIs, which exclude the results of our media agency, which are presented as discontinued operations in the corresponding historical financial periods, balance sheet and liquidity position and Q2 and fiscal twenty twenty five guidance. Starting with our Q1 twenty twenty five performance. Q1 revenue was $22,500,000 down 1,700,000 from Q1 twenty twenty four, principally due to a decline in managed services and to a lesser extent from software products and services. Q1 managed services of $8,000,000 declined to $900,000 principally driven by declines in campaigns across our representation services, coupled with slightly lower licensing. We expect this negative trend in representation services to continue throughout 2025 or until the macro economy shows demonstrated improvements over 2024.

Speaker 2

For software products and services, Q1 commercial enterprise revenue declined $600,000 year over year largely due to a decrease in consumption based revenue over the same period, coupled with a decline in foreign exchange rates in Europe in Q1 twenty twenty five as compared to the U. S. Dollar. Offsetting this was growth in Veritone Data Refinery or VDR in Q1 twenty twenty five over approximately $900,000 in revenue. VDR, which launched in Q4 twenty twenty four is one area where we anticipate substantial year over year growth throughout fiscal twenty twenty five with a near term sales pipeline of approximately $10,000,000 or double that from early March of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2

Overall, our public sector saw a small decline in revenue year over year and was slightly better when you exclude the loss of $300,000 of certain non recurring project related revenue in Q1 twenty twenty four that is not recurring in Q1 twenty twenty five. As I will explain later in my prepared remarks, we remain incredibly excited about our public sector and the growth it will achieve in fiscal twenty twenty five, which we are forecasting to start in Q2 twenty twenty five. Turning to key performance metrics across our software products and services in Q1 twenty twenty five. ARR was $58,700,000 which was relatively flat sequentially and down year over year as we expected declines in consumption based revenue from the customers across our commercial enterprise sector, including Amazon over the trailing twelve months. Overall, ARR from recurring subscription based SaaS customers remained relatively flat year over year.

Speaker 2

As of Q1 twenty twenty five, '80 '1 percent of our ARR was from subscription versus consumption based customers, up from 68% at Q1 twenty twenty four and flat sequentially from Q4 twenty twenty four. Total new bookings of $15,800,000 up $2,900,000 or 22% year over year, primarily due to larger renewals across our software customer base. Gross revenue retention continued to be above the ninetieth percentile and total software products and services customers of 3,156 was down 7% year over year, predominantly from our commercial enterprise sector, which includes lower consumption based customers across Baritone Higher and the rolling impact of sunsetting legacy CareerBuilder customers post the June 2023 acquisition of Broadbeam and smaller customers as we focus on larger ARR opportunities, offset by an increase across public sector, largely from growth in public safety customers. Q1 GAAP gross profit was $13,900,000 compared to $16,600,000 in Q1 twenty twenty four, down $2,700,000 largely as a result of the decline in revenue, coupled with a higher mix of lower margin revenue in Q1 twenty twenty five, with GAAP gross margin of 61.9% as compared 68.8% in Q1 twenty twenty four. Excluding non cash depreciation and amortization expense, 2025 non GAAP gross margin was 65.1% as compared to 71.2% in Q1 twenty twenty four, a decline of six ten basis points largely due to the reduction in higher margin consumption based revenue coupled with a higher mix of lower margin revenue.

Speaker 2

Note that in Q1 twenty twenty five, VDR gross margins were approximately 40%. We expect that as VDR product matures, margins will initially be similar to Q1, but should expand throughout 2025 as we grow and diversify our content offerings. In addition, certain larger content licensing renewals in Q1 twenty twenty five continue to drive lower margins in their early phases of tiered volume pricing, but are expected to improve throughout 2025 as the volume revenue increases over time. Q1 operating loss of $21,600,000 improved by $2,700,000 or 11% year over year, primarily driven by lower operating expenses and severance costs year over year as a result of our Q1 twenty twenty four restructuring, offset by lower non GAAP gross profit from the decline in revenue over the same period. Net loss from continuing operations was $19,900,000 an improvement of $6,300,000 or 24% compared to Q1 twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2

The year over year improvement was principally driven by the previously discussed $2,700,000 improvement in loss from operations and a $3,700,000 benefit from the change in fair value of our earn out from the divestiture of Veritone One recorded in Q1 twenty twenty five. Non GAAP net loss from continuing operations was $11,100,000 as compared to $10,300,000 in Q4 twenty twenty four. The decline was principally due to lower non GAAP gross profit offset by improved operating losses. Turning to our balance sheet. As of 03/31/2025, we held cash and restricted cash of $16,400,000 as compared to $17,300,000 at 12/31/2024.

Speaker 2

The net change in cash reflects net cash outflow from operations of $17,000,000 principally driven by our non GAAP net loss of $11,100,000 deferred purchase consideration of 1,200,000.0 and interest paid on debt of approximately $1,200,000 coupled with the timing of working capital of the quarter, offset by net cash inflow from investing and financing activities of $16,500,000 driven by net cash inflows of $19,900,000 from our January registered direct offering, partially offset by $1,900,000 in debt principal payments and $1,400,000 in capital expenditures. Turning to liquidity. In Q1 twenty twenty five, we completed a registered direct offering selling 4,400,000.0 shares of common stock priced at $2.53 per share and $3,600,000 of pre funded warrants priced at $2.52 per share for gross proceeds of approximately $20,300,000 At 03/31/2025, our consolidated debt is down from a peak of $2.00 $1,000,000 in December 2021 to approximately $130,000,000 today, comprised of term debt of $39,000,000 maturing in December 2027 and convertible debt of $91,300,000 due November 2026. As of 03/31/2025, we have over $30,000,000 available across our $35,000,000 ATM, which was established in November 2024. That said, we are currently in various discussions to further improve our cash position and balance sheet in the near term, which we will discuss in more detail as these initiatives progress.

Speaker 2

At 03/31/2025, we had 44,900,000.0 shares issued and outstanding and 2,500,000.0 warrants outstanding to our debt holders. Now turning to updated Q2 twenty twenty five and full year 2025 guidance. Our software products and services revenue pipeline and long term outlook continue to be at all time highs. More specifically, we continue to see strong demand across the approximate $10,000,000,000 global digital evidence management market. In the public sector alone, we are beginning to march towards our 100% to 150% revenue growth target for fiscal year twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2

We also remain in near term contract phases on several large products with various facets of the U. S. Federal government and international public safety customers with a near term sales pipeline in excess of $100,000,000 These deals range in the high seven to mid eight figure levels and will last anywhere from one to five years in duration and our confidence on closing these remains high. While there has been a lot of scrutiny around government spending under the new presidential administration, these initiatives are not expected to be scrutinized by the current administration and will drastically improve the federal government's investigative and evidence gathering capabilities and forecasted centralization. As previously noted, we are seeing strong demand for our VDR product offering.

Speaker 2

Our near term sales pipeline on VDR is now over $10,000,000 which is an increase of 100% or $5,000,000 since March of twenty twenty five. We are in active discussions with most of the largest hyperscalers on various VDR initiatives, and we'll provide more detailed updates as we continue to progress on these initiatives. More specifically, in Q2 twenty twenty five, revenue is expected to be between 23,000,000 and $25,000,000 as compared to $24,100,000 in Q2 twenty twenty four. In Q2, we expect public sector revenue to be up year over year, led by the launch of larger initiatives across the Department of Defense. Commercial enterprise revenue is expected to be relatively flat, driven by $1,000,000 decline in consumption based revenue across our managed services and Veritone higher services offset by 1,000,000 growth in commercial SaaS driven in large part from expanded VDR revenue.

Speaker 2

Managed Services is expected to be down year over year, principally due to the representation side of our business, which is experiencing some deceleration as a result of the more challenging macro environment. We expect Q2 non GAAP gross margins to be around 68% to 70%. Q2 non GAAP net loss is projected to be between 8,000,000 to $9,000,000 as compared to $9,700,000 in Q1 twenty twenty four. Turning to fiscal twenty twenty five outlook. We are updating our prior guidance for fiscal twenty twenty five, which we are expecting revenue to be between $104,000,000 to $115,000,000 which at the midpoint represents an 18% increase year over year.

Speaker 2

The change in our outlook is principally driven by the shift in some of our larger growth initiatives across our public sector and VDR to the second half of twenty twenty five, coupled with a forecasted deceleration in managed services reflecting the more challenging macro market today. And non GAAP net loss to be between 30,000,000 to $20,000,000 representing a 39% improvement year over year at the midpoint. The change is reflective of the timing shifts in revenue coupled with the compression in gross margins on VER in the first half of twenty twenty five, which we expect to improve in the latter half of fiscal twenty twenty five. Key drivers to our fiscal twenty twenty five guidance remain intact and include in the public sector. As previously discussed, we are expecting the public sector to grow 100% to 150% year over year, led by near term deals across the Department of Defense, public safety, including international expansion into Europe, and through more recently announced and expanded partnerships with AWS, GTAC and others.

Speaker 2

We are currently in early phases of deployments and projects across the U. S. Government and later trials on other opportunities. All of these projects when aggregated are projected to generate substantial revenue over today's baseline, more prominently in the back half of 2025. Commercial Enterprise.

Speaker 2

Since August 2024, we renewed partnerships with some of our largest customers, including multi year and expanded services with the NCAA, CVS and iHeart. Moreover, we recently renewed ESPN for a multi year deal that included expanded software products and services. We are also in the early phases of our VDR product offering with meaningful growth opportunities in fiscal twenty twenty five and beyond. Today, we are expecting anywhere between 5,000,000 to $10,000,000 of deals to execute in 2025 and exciting new partnerships with some of the largest AI LLMs and cloud providers expanding our offerings into generative AI. These existing and newer market opportunities will drive year over year growth across our commercial enterprise sector and more importantly drive longer term sustainable growth.

Speaker 2

We believe the opportunity for VDR could generate $60,000,000 in revenue annually by 2027. BaritoneHigher. Given the current macro environment, we continue to expect modest to flat growth across our BaritoneHigher applications and services in fiscal twenty twenty five. With the exit of consumption based customer dependencies in fiscal twenty twenty five, we do expect a more stable year in fiscal twenty twenty five and a return back to growth in late fiscal twenty twenty five to fiscal twenty twenty six with expected macroeconomic improvements. Non GAAP gross margins.

Speaker 2

We are expecting our non GAAP gross margins to be between 65% to 70% throughout fiscal twenty twenty five. To the extent that we approach the higher end of our fiscal twenty twenty five revenue guide, we can see non GAAP gross margins expanding closer to 73% on a blended basis. As we begin to scale and look towards 2026 and profitability, our non GAAP gross margins should return to 70% or better. And finally, cost structure. With the backdrop of significant cost savings enacted over the last two years, we exited 2024 with a much improved cost structure relative to the past three years.

Speaker 2

We will continue to manage our cost structure throughout 2025 to ensure we time necessary investments with corresponding growth. Today, largest cost driver remains headcount and to a lesser degree professional services that have recently been higher and driven by transactional volume and integration. That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open up the call for questions.

Speaker 3

We will now begin the question and answer session. To withdraw your question, please press Our first question comes from Scott Buck with H. C. Wainwright. Scott, you may ask your question.

Speaker 4

Hi, good afternoon guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess first I'm curious on the public pipeline. What of that is new customers versus more customer expansions?

Speaker 1

The majority of it is, I'll say, customer expansion. So why definitively why we're bullish is we've already executed two revenue based contracts for some of the larger pipeline customers. Meaning, we're expecting here over frankly the next few days or the next few months our ability to communicate and announce much larger and expanded contracts against I'll say, existing agencies under the DoD. So it's really a combination of expansion or additional expanded task orders and contracts within existing agencies that we've already been working with and recognizing revenue as well as net new agencies under the DoD and the DOJ.

Speaker 4

That's helpful, right. And I guess kind of piggybacking off of that, the second quarter guide and the annual revenue guide suggests kind of second half revenue being up mid-30s versus the first half. Can you just speak a little bit more to your visibility and confidence? And it sounds like it's going be a combination of several factors public sector, VDR but any kind of additional granularity you could provide there would be helpful.

Speaker 1

Yes. I think it will be dominated by that delta will be again be dominated by VDR and public sector. So it's a public sector we probably have I'd say great visibility on magnitude of the size of the deals and the revenue contribution. Obviously the timing of when those contracts get opened and we're able to execute against those contracts most of which is software not services. That is going to be one of the variables and hence why we took a slightly more conservative position on the guide.

Speaker 1

On VDR, we do have great visibility and we're hopeful that that could be a breakout win even to the upside. So really the combination of active deal flow proposals and sort of where we are specifically with VDR in conjunction with frankly all ready to go and just ready for these next phase of these contracts to open up in the public safety side does give us confidence that we will be able to meet or surpass those kind of growth targets and prospects for Q2 and I'm sorry for Q3 and Q4.

Speaker 4

That's great. And it sounds like the difference between the low end and the high end of the range is just again simply timing, right?

Speaker 1

So say timing on one and velocity on growth of VDR as well. I'd say VDR is less of a timing function. Public safety is more a timing function.

Speaker 4

Yes. And the increase in VDR today versus the end of the quarter, is that one contract, two contracts, several contracts? Just trying to gauge how widespread

Speaker 1

this contracts with new partners, new clients, prospective clients.

Speaker 4

With new partners. Perfect. I appreciate it. That's it for me guys. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from Seth Gilbert with UBS. Seth, you may ask your question.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thanks for the questions. I had two. Maybe to start off as a follow-up from the previous question. The full year guide still implies a pretty healthy uplift in the second half.

Speaker 5

I was wondering, maybe more generically speaking, when could some of these public safety deals start generating revenue? Is it once you get the deal signed and the go ahead, they'll immediately begin generating revenue and that's why you're so bullish about the 104,000,000 to $115,000,000 guide? Or will it sort of trickle bit by bit because there's some integration work or other work you need to do with some of these deals? Thank you.

Speaker 1

For some of the high visibility contracts that we're discussing, we're ready to deploy. So to be clear, we've kind of and obviously we've been talking a lot about our historical deployments with the DLA Defense Logistics Agency, which mind you which just to provide a little bit more insight, with the actual deployment on Azure, So, aiWARE based and application deployments on a secure environment on the Azure stack. For some of the ones that we've been talking about that are immediately going to be accretive and potentially contribute as early as in Q2 is on AWS which we've successfully done many times and we're kind of ready to go which means the software modules, the applications that are being procured and contracted for are ready to be delivered and stood up. So again, I would say you will start to see and it's not mostly service based revenues, but you will start to see full satisfaction of obligations starting almost immediately once that contract gets released. Got it.

Speaker 1

Very helpful. Maybe in

Speaker 5

the second one, Veritone higher, I know the market is tough right now and Mike just walked through some comments at the end of his prepared remarks. Maybe could you just talk about some of the steps you're kind of undertaking on that side of the business? Or has there been a change in the competitive landscape like anything else that you'd mentioned just on Veritone higher? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yes. I think number one, we've reached a point of stability. So again, on a relative to how it's been over the past previous years primarily as an impact from Amazon as a major customer, we've absolutely achieved an element of stability. In terms of growth, as I touched on briefly in the prepared remarks, it's really a three pronged approach. Number one is the expansion of the reseller and partner network.

Speaker 1

A pretty big chunk of our new leads and new deal flow is now actually coming more consistently through partners such as Bullhorn, such as Workday. Again, so we're leaning into those and another benefit of those deals with those larger HR companies is some of the average contract value is actually higher. So again, partner engagement and partner activation is a one of the three pronged approach for acceleration of the growth on the hiring side. Number two is the media services. So in effect, where helping using our software to manage, let's just say x percent of a customer's job acquisition budget, there's been a concerted effort starting frankly a couple of years ago, but really picking up velocity at the second half of last year is to procure and secure a larger portion of the overall spend budget.

Speaker 1

And we're seeing good success there. And we actually have some pretty good a pretty strong pipeline. It's one of the key areas where we probably have the most visibility of growth for the Hire business is the expansion of that share of wallet or taking more of that spend allocation. And then the third prong approach again is just continued optimization right of our algorithms and it's been leaning in more to our competitive advantage in terms of ROI yield. So in effect when we do get a dollar from a customer, what is the yield that we can get from in terms of proving whether that's cost of applicant or cost per hire is continuing to maintain our competitive lead in the performance there.

Speaker 1

So it's pretty defined, I think well organized three pronged approach. But I guess it's going to be dominated with confidence mostly by expansion of the partner one again with the big players like Workday and others as well as the expansion of our media services opportunity.

Speaker 2

Got it. Thank you for elaborating. Thank you.

Speaker 3

And our next question comes from Glenn Mattens with Ladenburg Thalmann. Glenn, you may ask your question.

Speaker 6

Sorry, was on mute there. Sorry, I've covered this. I'm bounced amongst a couple of calls here. So just one quick one for me. Mike, can you help us understand the margin kind of flow throughout the year as VDR kind of maybe drags earlier and then gets better over time, but then also the public sector, it sounds like it's going be a big second half for public sector.

Speaker 6

So the impact that has in the recovery, just kind of as we want to think about it quarter to quarter? Yes, that's would be helpful. Thanks.

Speaker 2

I think I mentioned it in my prepared remarks that we had some slippage and some planned delay on some of the public sector stuff that's going to come in at a higher margin. And then we had some VDR stuff that kind of drove that down a little bit further. As we get into Q2, Q3, Q4, those margins are expected to improve.

Speaker 6

Okay. So just kind of think about it stepping up each quarter a little bit, I guess. And you may have covered this as well, but just kind of the stair step of growth from $5,000,000 a little less than a month ago in pipeline to $10,000,000 Can you just talk about the nature of that difference? Was it broad based or is it a couple of large I guess, is the deal size here so large that one or two deals can move that? Or is that

Speaker 1

It's a few. It's not dozens, but let's just say a few players who we've been speaking with for now several months have progressed to, I'd say, a level of visibility in terms of data sampling even at that stage already that we're pretty bullish and it's against a lot of the same data assets that we've been servicing and mobilizing already. So specifically, it's not a net new of having to find new data assets per se. It's actually just expansion of in effect selling those data assets to net new customers who are some of the biggest names out there. Again, we're not going go into the details of those.

Speaker 1

So specifically, it's expansion for net new customers is why we're bullish.

Speaker 6

That's great. And just quick, is it are you starting to see any of the feedback loop yet to bring in new content customers in terms of their We are. Business. Yes.

Speaker 1

Like the halo effect of us so once again, just to clarify what you're asking is, know, if we're talking about, you know, customer like the NCAA where they are technology customer, they're a footage licensing customer and now a VDR customer right where that three pronged opportunity has created a halo effect. And so now we're in discussions with dozens of net new IP owners to become net new customers. So not only will that we do expect this to be continue to accelerate and drive the VDR line item but we do expect acceleration in I'll say core AI where DMH software SaaS licensing as well. Thank you for asking the

Speaker 4

question. Great. Thanks guys.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jesse Sobolson with D. Borel Capital. Jesse, you may begin.

Speaker 7

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question here. Just a bigger picture one since we're later in the call. With AI adoption accelerating, how are you guys balancing these R and D investments in VDR against the profitability targets? And then when you look at this product for the rest of the year, what milestones are you really looking to define success?

Speaker 7

Is it converting this doubled backlog by the end of the year? Or are there other milestones we could point to? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Sure. I'll hit the first one on the CapEx. The good news is I think we have a pretty good runway where at least as it relates to BDR, we're not going to expect or we foresee a lot of capital investment to continue to advance I'll say that revenue line at least for the next maybe couple of quarters. Specifically it's because it's relying on everything we've already built and it's using the exact same aiWARE based platform and software systems specifically DMH to manage that product offering. So in effect we're already have made the investments and we're actually generating revenue and profits from those software services with media companies already.

Speaker 1

So this is almost like a net new very organic new extension built on the same infrastructure and AI infrastructure that we've already been that has already been subsidized, right, because of other lines of business. Now over time as we get more sophisticated and the scale and velocity of VDR grows, by all means we're going to want to make sure that we double down, I'll say and cement our moats around the opportunity. So we can continue to be more efficient. And that's one of the areas that I think over time where you're going to start to see an improving of margin, right? As we can continue to streamline the operations of VDR, we do expect again over time the margins to increase.

Speaker 1

So that hopefully answers the question on VDR. And do you mind, can you answer ask the second part of your question again, please?

Speaker 7

Yes, sure. I appreciate the detail there on the extension of an existing platform. I am very excited about the business model here, which is one of the things I wanted to highlight. The second piece of this is just with VDR, what other milestones for success can we point to with this? Is it converting that backlog or is there an additional piece of

Speaker 1

question. So I think we've achieved some of them already, which means we're not just limited to facilitating BDR revenues against data assets that are already under contract, right, meaning with our historical DMH and aiWARE based media companies. We've already now facilitated deals against new datasets. So Veritone has established a level of credibility and trust on both sides of the equation both the sell side meaning our representation of the content IP owners such as the news outlets and the broadcasters etcetera. But now we're also facilitating deals I'll call on the buy side.

Speaker 1

So representing as both a service and technology partner for the hyperscalers and the model developers. And that second part was something that we did not foresee to happen as quickly as it has. But it puts us in a very strategic leverage position that we're really excited about. In terms of the asset classes, I think one of the big milestones was, hey, when can we show the efficacy of our ability to sell frankly the same data asset to multiple buyers. And I would just say we're very, very close to achieving that and hopefully over the next few weeks here, a couple of months that we'll be able to sort of communicate that in more detail.

Speaker 1

But those are the two big KPIs that I wanted to see is could we represent and participate on both sides of the equation in terms of representation and buy side? And could we start to see a viability of selling the same data sets to multiple buyers which we've done? In terms of like trying to sell every piece of asset that we have under management, I don't think that's necessarily a goal. I think most importantly is, do we feel that we have either direct control and oversight over the right audio and video assets today, right, which proves the supply to go realize those revenues. And if we don't, do we have the intimacy of the relationship with the buyers that if there are data sets that we need to go get, right, and fold or expand our current corpuses of data or get net new types of data sets out there.

Speaker 1

Do we have the trust and do we have the ability to go procure those? And I will state that we have done that already. So for example, we are already procuring, I'll say, elements of security and public service data that is becoming an interesting asset class where we're seeing high demand for. So, this is no longer just limited to a media and entertainment news and sports related content but we're also seeing again managed through baritone VDR surveillance and other forms of unstructured data sets that's in high demand as well which is a great crossover to our public safety business as well.

Speaker 7

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you. It seems there are no further questions at this time. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to now turn the call back over to your host Ryan Steelberg for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Well, you everybody for joining today. I would say I'm somewhat disappointed that we had some slippage in timing of some of these deals. But I think what you're hearing through our voices in the Q and A, we're very, very bullish on VDR and we're very bullish on public sector. These are going to deliver in a big way for us and we're very, very excited about that. We are going to be participating in a few upcoming in the very near term financial conferences.

Speaker 1

Hopefully, many of you can listen in if they're virtual or participate in person. Those conferences are going to be the Needham Conference, the Technology Media and Consumer Conference, which is actually virtual conference starting tomorrow. And so you can get more information on our investor site or on Needham's Web site about that conference. Next week, we're going be participating in person at the JPMorgan, their annual Global Technology Media and Communications Conference in Boston on May. Again, encourage everybody to participate if they're in the respective area.

Speaker 1

And then finally, the Ladenburg Thalmann Innovation Expo twenty five, which is on May 21 in New York City and I'll be there in person presenting. So look forward to speaking to everybody in person and going deeper into different areas. Thank you for your time everybody today.

Speaker 3

This conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a pleasant day.

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Key Takeaways

  • Veritone reported Q1 FY25 revenue of $22.5 million with solid SaaS performance, secured over 100 new and renewal software agreements, and reaffirmed Q2 guidance of $23 – 25 million and FY25 revenue guidance of $104 – 115 million.
  • The Veritone Data Refinery (VDR) pipeline doubled from $5 million to over $10 million in weeks, is expected to generate at least $10 million in 2025, and targets a $60 million annual run rate by 2027.
  • Public sector traction remains strong with hundreds of law enforcement and federal agency deployments, a pipeline exceeding $110 million, and an expected 100 – 150% year-over-year public sector revenue growth in FY25.
  • Veritone’s AI-powered media solutions scaled to manage 200 TB of footage at the Masters golf tournament and processed nearly 11 petabytes of media in 2024, demonstrating its capability in content automation and distribution.
  • Veritone Hire is executing a three-pronged strategy—expanding reseller partnerships (including a Workday platinum alliance), enhancing ATS integrations, and growing media services penetration—to stabilize and grow its recruitment solutions business.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Veritone Q1 2025
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