i3 Verticals, Inc.

The replay may also be accessed for 30 days at the company's website. At this time, for opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to Jeff Smith, SVP of Finance. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning. Welcome to the third quarter 2023 conference call for I3 Verticals. Joining me on this call are Greg Daley, our Chairman and CEO, Clay Whitson, our CFO, Rick Stanford, our President, and Paul Christians, our COO. To the extent any non-GAAP financial measure is discussed in today's call, you will also find a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure by reviewing yesterday's earnings release. It is the company's intent to provide non-GAAP financial information to enhance understanding of its consolidated GAAP financial information. This non-GAAP financial information should be considered by each individual in addition to, but not instead of, the GAAP financial statements. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements, among others, regarding the company's expected financial and operating performance. For this purpose, any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. You are hereby cautioned that these forward-looking statements may be affected by the important factors, among others, set forth in the company's earnings release and reports that are filed or furnished to the SEC. Consequently, actual operations and results may differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Finally, the information shared on this call is valid as of today's date and the company undertakes no obligation to update it, except as may be required under applicable law. I'd now like to turn the call over to the company's chairman and CEO, Greg Daly.

Thanks, Jeff. And good morning to everyone on the call. We're excited to present our third quarter results for the fiscal year. This quarter, we set another record for revenue and adjusted EBITDA, which were up 17% and 26% over the same quarter last year, which reflected our improving margins. We continue to focus on bringing excellent software to our vertical markets. We monetize these solutions primarily through recurring sources of revenue through a variety of means, such as software as a service, or SaaS, which grew at 20% over the prior year, or volume-based payments, fees, which grew at 14% over the prior year. Depending on our needs of our customers, we can align incentives and lock in sustainable long-term growth. Overall, software and related services revenue made up over 50% of total revenue. Rick will elaborate on M&A later, but we continue to explore opportunities. There are many in our markets of focus, such as public sector. Our standards are very high, and we are patient and disciplined. We want deals that fit our culture and offer us more tools to execute in our vertical strategy. However, to say that our team is staying busy despite the slower pace of M&A would be an understatement. We have seized on the moment to accelerate internal optimization and are proud of the strides we have made. We've always intentionally counter-positioned ourself against private equity or other strategic buyers who would focus on quick wins, short-term home periods, and aggressive synergies. This has served us well in leading into acquisitions of many great businesses at attractive financial profiles. We've retained incredibly talented people and have accomplished this mostly through a proprietary pipeline of M&A. The word is out that I3 can be trusted with your business, which might be your life's work. However, when the deal is closed, there is much integration work that is necessary. This is where our culture makes the difference. Once closed, our sellers quickly see what can be accomplished together, And I'm always amazed at the willingness to collaborate, embrace new business practices, and be team players. Some of the areas that our team has centralized and upgraded this year include our enterprise RFP response team, an enterprise support team, and consolidation of many of our professional services functions. These join many other shared services such as marketing, accounting, and legal that are always continuing to improve. These wins have the business clicking on all cylinders. To illustrate that, we are proud to announce two state-level wins from our justice tech and transportation divisions of public sectors. We've never been better positioned to compete in many more similar processes. And I'm excited about the additional detail Rick has to share. But first, I'll turn the call over to Clay, and he will give you more details on our third quarter financial performance. While in Clay's comments, Rick will provide more detail and update on the business and address M&A. Then we'll open up the call for questions.