LiveOne, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Abby and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the LiveOne Incorporated Third Quarter Fiscal 2025 Financial Results and Business Update Webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press the followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one a second time. Thank you. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Aaron Sullivan, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Sullivan, you may begin.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to LiveOne's Business Update and Financial Results Conference for the company's third quarter and to December 31, 2024. Presenting on today's call with me is Rob Allen, CEO and Chairman of LiveOne. I would like to remind you that some of the statements made on today's call are forward-looking and are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that involve various risks and uncertainties. These statements include, but are not limited to statements regarding the future performance of the company, included expected future financial results and expected future growth in the business. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed on this call for a variety of reasons. Please refer to the company's filings with the SEC for information about factors which could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements, including those described on its annual report on Form 10K for the year ended March 31, 2024, and subsequent SEC filings. You'll find reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures discussed today in the company's earnings release posted on its investor relations website. The company encourages you to periodically visit the investor relations website for important content. The following discussion, including responses to your questions, contains time-sensitive information and reflects management's view as of the date of this call, February 14, 2025. Except as required by law, the company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise this information after the date of the call. I'd like to highlight to investors that this call is being recorded. The company is making it available to investors and media via webcast, and a replay will be available on its website in the investor relations section shortly following the conclusion of the call. Additionally, it is the property of the company and any redistribution, transmission, or rebroadcast of this call or the webcast in any form without the company's express written consent is strictly prohibited.

Now,

I would like to turn the call over to LiveOne CEO,

Rob Allen. Thank you, Aaron. Good morning, everyone, and thank you everyone for joining. This has been an extraordinarily challenging and exciting quarter for the company. Thanks to the unwavering dedication and relentless drive of the LiveOne team, we've achieved record revenues of $95 million the first nine months and $29 million plus for the quarter, underscoring our ability to navigate an extraordinary challenge and turn it into the biggest opportunity of the history of the company. Our audio business, Slack Radio and Podcast One, I'm pleased to report, broke $90 million in revenues for the first time in the history of the company, accompanied by $14.1 million of adjusted EBITDA for the first nine months. This outstanding performance demonstrates our ability to pivot, survive, and thrive. We've made significant strides to diversify the business and diversify our partnerships, especially in the B2B partnerships with five deals signed in the last 90 days, adding over $44 million in revenues, including $25 million with Fortune 500 immediate conglomerate and $16.5 million with Amazon. We expect to close at least two more partnerships by year end. Our pipeline is robust with over 70 B2B partnerships in various stages of development with billion to trillion dollar companies. Now for the challenge and the opportunity of a lifetime. Our partnership with Tesla changed dramatically from being a white label partner in Tesla cars with a guaranteed $3 a month from Tesla, as long as the customer, that car owner signed up and paid $9.99 for connectivity. We have now renewed our contract to the 12th straight year with Tesla, providing for the first time ever beachfront property with our logo, with our branding right in the front of every single Tesla car. And the amazing part, this is in perpetuity with the help and support of Tesla and using AI marketing and multiple strategies that the company has used over the years to convert all of the car owners into true subscribers, both free and paid. For the first time ever, we will have data and information of each of our subscribers. This is a multi-billion dollar opportunity for anyone that's been an investor or part of my companies over the years, we shoot for the moon. This is now that unique moonshot you have that you're going to struggle and take some hits in revenues for a period of time. But as you look at the future of this, all you have to believe is that you can get over $3 a month. So you have this beachfront real estate and now the rents have been going up to 12 years, but we weren't able to raise our rents at all. These numbers have exceeded any expectations of management, analysts, and most of all, Tesla themselves. Since December, we signed over a staggering 800,000 plus new users. That's 40% of the entire pool of the 2 million Tesla cars in North America. This collaboration is nothing short of transformative. We believe the partnership provides a proof of concept that can help us with the success of signing those B2B partners. Imagine partners with 10 million to a billion plus eyeballs. I've been talking about a flywheel for the last seven years, and as you see a sign, those massive B2B deals. This proof, now think about whether a Facebook, an Amazon, a Walmart, a Microsoft, an Amex, any one with 10 million to a billion eyeballs, if we can convert 40%, even if we can convert 1% to 2% of those users, we have a multi-billion dollar opportunity. As we move forward, we're pivoting our business model, leveraging our partnerships, and delivering our music platform to your large user bases in B2B deals. In addition to our continued growth, I'm pleased to reiterate that LiveOne has committed $12 million to the stock buyback program. We currently have $6.2 million remaining on that buyback program, and shows the confidence we will continue to buy and show our confidence in the future of our company and provide that group of concepts that the company and the management are backing and believers in our company. We are committed to continue our growth, both in terms of revenue and market presence. Our cash position increased by $4 million, so it's $11 million. After paying off $3 million to East West Bank and acquiring 900,000 chairs of our subsidiary, PodcastOne, I couldn't be more excited about where podcasting was going. The presidency was one with the help of podcasting. Fox just bought Red Podcast Network for over 15 times revenues. Conan O'Brien's network sold for over 15 times revenues to Cirrus. You're seeing deals that Kelsey brought, selling for $150 million, Smartlist for $125 million. We have one of the biggest networks in podcasting. I'm excited to share that PodcastOne subsidiary has achieved record revenues and traffic for the quarter. We've expanded our network to become the eighth largest in the industry, have secured a major partnership with Amazon, a three-year deal worth $16.5 million, and have just guided to $51 million in revenues and, for the first time, positive EBITDAs for the year. Positive EBITDAs for the year means the fourth quarter has to be substantially EBITDA, and we fully expect that that number is going to continue going forward for the year. These achievements demonstrate our commitment to delivering high-quality content, innovative solutions to our audience, advertising partners. We're excited about the future of PodcastOne, and we look forward to continued growth. To further accelerate growth, we are working with multiple bankers, including JP Morgan, to explore all M&A opportunities that can enhance our business and unlock additional values. These steps align our strategic goals of expanding our market presence and strengthening our office. I want to thank our employees, our partners, our shareholders for our continued trust and support, and I look forward to the following quarter. Thank you, everyone, and I'll open it up to Q&A.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one a second time. If you're called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Again, it is star one if you would like to ask a question, and your first question comes from the line of Brian Kintzlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks so much. So on your website, you offer Slack Radio for $3.33 per month today. I look, it's $39.99 for the year. Is this the ARPU we should suggest we think about going forward? It's the most, it's the question I get most from investors. They want to

I think it's a great question. I think that dynamic is challenging to answer exactly. But we did say recently we'll be raising up prices. As this change with Tesla has happened, what we found is, is we found a lot of people want to buy a year long subscription, which is exceptional for us. What we found is, is that pricing elasticity, there's an opportunity to raise prices substantially. As you're aware and have seen with Spotify, they've raised that substantially. They just announced another price increase. So I think this is the opportunity now that the company is collecting real data, actually has an understanding of not just having a VIN number of a car, but actually having Brian Kintzlinger and Rob Elin and the names and data and emails and credit cards and so on. This would be the time that we're really going to find out how far we can expand those. But if you look at the industry, we're the top 10 in the industry. We're the lowest by far in terms of pricing. I think it's a huge opportunity to increase our prices over the next 12 months. Okay.

And if I were to buy a Tesla today, do I get free service to attract me for some period of time? I'm just curious how a new Tesla plays out

now. Yeah, it's a great question. You have the opportunity, right? And remember, this all just happened as of December 4th. On December 4th, we renewed our contract, dynamically, right? That contract, we guarantee $3 a month. Now we have the opportunity to upsell that customer with the help of Tesla. You have the opportunity of getting subscription, right? That is monthly or for a year, right? Or you have the opportunity now as of 30 days ago to be able to turn that service back on, right? You look in your car, every single Tesla car on the left-hand side, you'll see our logo for the first time ever. You click on that button. And if you choose it, you can either choose ad supported or you can have subscription with no ads.

Right. No. So I get that. I'm curious. For example, I buy my car, I have free serious radio for a month. And then it goes away. Do I get, is it going to start playing day one and then you have to have so much time to select ad supported or buy?

That's what I'm curious about. Yeah. Great question. We have not yet, as of 30 days ago, we launched the free ad supported. And to our shock and excitement, right? As we said yesterday, we have signed over 450,000 free ad supported subscribers. And what we decided to do that is, is that we've had such success for 12 years with Tesla in the usage, right? The time people spent, right? We didn't want to take the risk that they switched and didn't sign up for subscription because it's a little, it's a little funky and a little complicated. Well, I have to do it. You have to get a barcode, right? You got to sign up. You got to, you got to put your information in, you got to put a credit card in. Well, this gave them an easy way that we get them back into the funnel. We get those consumers back in the funnel. We give them. And when you turn on the music, you'll get your five favorite songs you've listened to, whether you've been a subscriber for a year or for 12 years, right? You'll get your five favorite songs. And then our DJs and DJs will invite you to a special offer to sign up a subscription. I can't answer you that we're learning every day and, you know, figuring out daily what that next offering is going to be. And some of it will be free for all forever. Some will be discounted offers and we'll come up with strategies and, and, and what works the best, right? We're learning on the job here, but I mean, the fact that we've signed this many subscribers is just, it's so substantial. You know, you've, you've rarely ever seen a model where you can sign 40% of the total allocated pool of cars. We signed 800 out of 2 million. And even the more amazing part is they're using it for an average of like 36 minutes, three times a day, right? It shows proof of how much people love our service, right? How loyal they are to our service. And, and I think that's going to continue. And it'd be a telltale sign that I can't imagine we're not going to live with way more than $3 a month, right? Whether it's ad supportive or it's subscribers down the line.

Okay. Last question I've got related to podcast one, you've added a number of new shows and new talent. We've talked about this for quarters. Your costs are going up twice as fast as revenue over the last 12 to 18 months. I would have expected eventually the gross margin would stabilize and start to increase as shows added 69 months ago, start to drive revenue to offset that new content. Maybe talk about what's delaying the revenue streams and given these dynamics, has anything at all changed on your onboarding

strategy? Not at all. I mean, you, what you have right now is, you know, when you're signing these deals, there's some upfront money, right? The industry, right? Whether you like it or not, advertisers pay in 90 to 120 days. It takes time to onboard them. And some of these, you're writing the checks up front. And if people aren't even moving over to our network for four or five months, because they're on the contract with who are there before. It's also a challenging environment, right? You got to be aggressive right now and you got to get people into the funnel and sign them, right? And once you sign them, right, you're going to start to see all those brand new revenue streams that you and I, Brian have been talking about that eventually change those margins dynamically. Right? So right now, if you look at audio boom, public company, you're going to see worse. Their margins are even lower than us, right? So it's right now it's a land grab, right? And you've got to grab those great talents, right? You're going to grab as many of them as you can, you believe fit into the dynamic of your network. And that'll change. And just to follow up on that,

how do you think about that? How do you think the time when it takes to start to see the trend reverse? I mean, you've seen your margins get cut significantly. When do we get back to 10%? Are we over a year out? Are we 18 months? Just maybe talk about that.

I think it's happening right now. I've been talking about the last two quarters, you know, Brian, you and I have watched in so many industries, right? You have the first wave, right? You watch $17 billion of acquisition and some of the wildest deals, Wondry was across the street from me, sold for $350 million, right? They were doing the same revenue as we're doing today, right? I'm sorry, they were doing the same revenue as we were doing when I bought the company, right? So they sold for like 30 times revenues. You watched Amazon, Apple, you watch Amazon, Apple, Sirius, Spotify, I Heart, by everybody out there, right? And then there was left with little networks, the smaller networks are out there, right? And the radio companies who are obviously struggling terribly with their own issues, right? And now you're starting to see that second round of acquisitions. When you see Conan O'Brien sell for 15 times revenues, 15 times revenues, and then you see Red sell for around the same, right? You're starting to see where some of its desperation, some of its perspiration, some of its reality of how big podcasting has become, right? Trump has said he won the election off podcasting. He just announced a head of media for podcasting, right? Guy that the world is changing there and what Rupert Murdoch amazingly, you know, you know, probably had some desperation as well realize yesterday, he's got to go back and buy podcasts because he's losing all his talent, all the talents moving away from radio and television. So as the big guys start to roll those back up, right? Where we sit in the world, right? We sit in the world of under $5 million podcasts, right? Maybe we'll get to a 10 million one. We sit in sort of that micro cap land of the best podcasters, we're true podcasters. I think the model is going to change again, dynamically as these acquisitions happen, the roll up will happen, and then the pricing will come back, you know, in a way better form in the next six to nine months. Great. Thanks so much, Wow. Thanks, Brian.

Excuse me. Your next question comes from the line of Sean McGahn with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open.

Morning, Rob. Morning, Aaron. How are you?

Good, Sean. How you doing?

It's good. Good. A couple of questions back on the Tesla situation. So are with the ad supported subscribers, are you yet monetizing any of that advertising? Are you up and running with that?

We are just touching, this all just happened, right? Okay. December 4th, we launched the paid service. You know, shocking all we signed it, an amazing amount of subscribers, right? We then said, we've got to take a little bit of risk here, which will definitely put some of the paid subscribers because we can get it free day one, you may not sign for this. We knew we'd take a little bit of risk in it. I couldn't believe in my wildest dreams, Sean, that we would sign, you know, 450,000 and be adding still today, we're still adding like five to 8,000 a day of ad supported subscribers. So we signed this partnership with DAX, the biggest programmatic advertising company, right in the world, right? We signed the deal. I think we announced it 30 days ago. We're just in the beginning of it. Advertising takes 90 to 120 days minimum to really kick in. But if you listen today, if you have a Tesla car, you'll start to see ads hitting, right? There's still some technology things that are just coming into play, right? And I'm hoping that Tesla is going to relaunch and re-alert, right? When they upgrade this software the next time, they're going to tell all these far owners again, that they have an opportunity, right, for paid and free. As they do that, right, we'll be building more and more of that traffic and audience and understanding of that traffic and audience and usage to be able to lock in those advertisers. And I fully expect in six to nine months, I can't imagine we're not going to be $3 a month on the ad supported. And I can't imagine we won't be way higher than $3 a month on the paid side. And then, you know, Spotify just came out and they were asked, you know, they were asked just recently, why do they have an ad supported? Right? And their answer was because 60% of those within a 24 month period convert to long term subscribers. Right? I'm not expecting 60%. But if we could have 20, 30% of them convert to long term subscribers, right, we're going to be building back that base strongly, right? We're going to be building back that guaranteed revenues. And then our advertising is really going to start to take off and hopefully explodes into, you know, second, third, fourth quarter of this year.

Okay. Believe it or not, what I was kind of getting at with the question is, this might sound a little surprising, is why isn't the gross margin actually lower? Because aren't you paying the record labels for the music that these listeners are listening to and not really getting revenue for it? Like how are those costs recorded? And why isn't that actually more out of whack?

I mean, to be honest with you, you're not even seeing that yet, right? That just started with 30 days into that. Right? So yes, there is some element, right? Every day you add another ad supported until you drive those revenues, you're absolutely going to have some costs, right? It's not a giant cost, but you're going to have some cost before that advertising comes in and pays for it. But you're not really seeing that yet.

Okay. So you wouldn't expect to see that margin pressure that interim period. Like I was bracing myself for actually a worse gross margin performance in Flacker because you're paying out the record companies, but not getting the revenue yet for these new subscribers. So are you just not paying very much to the record labels at this time?

No, it's not that. I remember the ad supported only launched 30 days ago. So you only have 30 days of it, right? So you're not really getting that in last quarter.

Okay. Last question. How close are we to seeing revenue from sources other than Slack or in podcast? You talked a lot about that and I know you made a lot of progress. So press releases about coffee, but like how close are we to that being needle moving?

I don't know about needle moving, but exciting, right? Our publishing business grew another 100% right? We just got a number one song with scissor that would be a big payday for us. You don't have to get to giant revenues to have huge value, right? Publishing itself, or as you know, you know better than anybody, you guys own part of Renaissance, right? These are 12 to 25 times EBITDA numbers. So we see really exciting stuff happening with our publishing business. Our product business, we just launched our coffee. Coffee has a couple of days ago. We sold out in the first day. I would say this is our year to have some transformative moves. Do I think it's going to be dynamic? Is it going to take our revenues? Is it going to take it up $10 million, $20 million? No. But is it going to be on a trajectory, right? We have those kind of abilities over the next two to three years? Absolutely. Great. Thank you. And then on our television side, yeah, we didn't talk about this on the call, but we sold our second show. We sold Varnum down to a major streaming platform. So that's three that are sold now. And those three that are sold, I mean, if you really hit those, a television show and just going back, you know, my career, I had the movie 300 in spite of it, Chronicles, right? And just the royalty fees on those, those were tens and tens of millions of dollars, just pure profit with no risk, right? We have no risk in these deals. If they hit his television shows, they're going to be extraordinary, you know, bottom line increases for us.

I can't wait to see Varnum down. I can't wait. It'll be good. All right. Thanks, man. Me too.

And as a reminder, it is star one, if you would like to ask a question. And with no further questions at this time, I will turn the call back to Mr. Robert Ellen for closing remarks.

So thank you everyone. Thank you for joining. Again, this is a transformative time for the company, complicated time, but exciting time. And, you know, as I've said probably a few times on this call, I mean, I never in my wildest dreams, Aaron never in his wildest dreams, no one in our madness, you know, management team, all of our Slack and radio guys have been doing this for, you know, the better part. Some of them been here as much as, as two decades, a minute, the company and have seen some amazing, you know, B2B partnerships, but nobody's ever seen 40% conversion. This is a telltale sign of how much our product is like, right? There's a reason that we've been award winning. We're going to struggle a little bit. We're going to fight through this. We survived COVID, lost all of our live business, came out bigger and stronger than ever. We're going to do the same thing here. And yeah, I can, you know, confidently tell you that if you're looking at 12 months, this is the first time the company has had an opportunity to be a multi-billion dollar company over the next two to three years. And yeah, these B2B deals, we have 70 of them in the pipeline. We're landing them. They're starting to come in. We've announced five of them so far. You keep landing these B2B deals and, you know, every one of my companies from Digital Turbine to Vigesco to Trinsic, every one of them were built on the backs of B2B deals. And I say this totally humbly. I've never had a stock didn't go to $25 or better. A few have gone to a hundred dollars or better. We never know when they really take off when lightning strikes, but this is a different market out there. This is a different world out there. We got a lot of work to do, but I could tell you confidently, this is the first time that I see, you know, a multi-billion dollar company over the next 24 to 36 months. If we stay focused, we keep executing, we fight through the difficult times. And I just want to thank everyone for joining and thanks for staying with us. And we'll continue to fight here and you'll see us in the market buying back stock very shortly. Thank you.

And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call and we thank you for your participation. You may.