NerdWallet, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the NerdWallet, Inc. first quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Caitlin McNamee. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Welcome to the NerdWallet Q1 2025 earnings call. Joining us today are co-founder and chief executive officer Tim Chen and chief financial officer John Lee. Our press release and shareholder letter are available on our Investor Relations website and a replay of this update will also be available following the conclusion of today's call. We intend to use our Investor Relations website as a means of disclosing certain material information and complying with disclosure obligations under SEC Regulation FD from time to time. As a reminder, today's call is being webcast live and recorded. Before we begin today's remarks and question and answer session, I would like to remind you that certain statements made during this call may relate to future events and expectations and, as such, constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results and performance may differ from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties, including the risk factors discussed in reports filed or to be filed with the SEC. We urge you to consider these risk factors and remind you that we undertake no obligation to update the information provided on this call to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. You should be aware that these statements should not be considered a guarantee of future performance. Furthermore, during this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release, except where we are unable without reasonable efforts to calculate certain reconciling items with confidence. With that, I will now turn it over to Tim Chan, our co-founder and CEO. Tim?

Thanks, Caitlin. In Q1, NerdWallet grew revenue 29% year-over-year to $209 million, while delivering $9 million in non-GAAP operating income. These results build off many of the dynamics we've discussed with you over the past several quarters. We continue to see particular strength in our insurance business, as the end market normalizes and as the improvements we've made to our shopping experiences enable us to take share cycle over cycle. Additionally, banking has continued to perform well, with products like high-yield savings accounts showing durable demand three years removed from a zero interest rate environment. At the same time, this quarter we saw some green shoots in other areas of the business that have been challenged, such as personal loans, where we saw a return to growth after declining 51% year-over-year in Q4-24, and mortgages, where our acquisition of next-door lending contributed significantly to our 23% year-over-year increase in revenue, even as mortgage rates remained elevated. With all that said, we know questions have arisen about evolving trade policy and its potential implications across many industries, including ours. Based on what we know today, we do not expect tariffs to have a material first-order impact on our business, and we currently see minimal second-order effects. However, in a scenario with sustained inflation, a material spike in unemployment, or material decline in business competence, we'd expect to be impacted as consumers and financial institutions go into a risk-off mode. Through this period of uncertainty, we remain focused on serving our consumers and relentlessly improving our operational efficiency while investing opportunistically to further our vision. Last quarter, we decided to retire our official MUU disclosure. While every KPI has some value, we no longer believe MUUs are the most relevant metric to understand our business, as MUU growth has been inversely correlated with revenue for some time now. Internally, our focus is on the quality of relationships we're building, especially through vertical integration, rather than the sheer number of users. That said, as we noted last quarter, we still expect MUs to decline year-over-year in the near term, and this continued in Q1. However, after search engines significantly increased the presence of AI-enhanced search modules in the second half of 2024, we are beginning to see more stability that, if sustained, suggests we are in a position to rebaseline and return to growth in early 2026. As a reminder, our business is cyclical, and over time, headwinds and tailwinds will offset each other, So our priority is growing from cycle to cycle. We have seen this most recently in insurance, but it's also true of our overall business. We are taking share in a growing market with a 25% five-year CAGR versus the U.S. financial services digital ad spend markets, 16%. While it can be tempting to over-index to short-term dynamics, whether positive or negative, we're focused instead on relentlessly improving NerdWatt through the cycle. By relentless improvement, we mean that we are focused on enhancing our core business with new capabilities and experiences that create more direct, engaged relationships with consumers and SMBs, in turn making it a no-brainer for them to shop with NerdLog. In Q1, examples included progress across our three growth pillars. Land and expand refers to efforts to increase the breadth and depth of the guidance we provide, whether in new categories, new audiences, or new geographies. This quarter, we invested in expanding our footprint in the travel rewards category, as well as diversifying our top of funnel with new organic channels. Specifically, we began publishing our new Travel Nerd newsletter and leveraging our previous success with the Smart Money podcast, launching our new Smart Travel podcast, which debuted at number one on Apple podcast places and travel chart. Vertical integration, our second pillar, is an area where we are particularly focused. Vertical integration is the process by which we pair NerdWallet's brand and reach with best-in-class shopping experiences, enabling us to better serve consumers through some of life's most stressful financial decisions, while improving monetization and capturing more down-funnel unit economics. In Q1, we made further progress integrating next-door lending, building on the launch of our NerdWallet Mortgage Expert Experience in January. This new offering allows shoppers who prefer a do-it-for-me approach to connect directly with one of our mortgage experts for a concierge level experience while finding a great rate on mortgages. Registration and data-driven engagement encompasses efforts to build other experiences and programs that encourage users to come back to NerdWallet for all their financial questions. We ended Q1 with a cumulative registered user base of over 26 million and saw another quarter of 2x year-over-year growth in our CRM channel. which allows us to re-engage these members with personalized offers and smart nudges. With that, I will hand it over to John, who joined us as CFO in mid-March, to speak to our financial results and outlook.