Research Solutions, Inc

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Research Solutions Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and 0. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Beisler, Investor Relations. Please, John, go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Research Solutions second quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call. On the call today are Roy W. Olivier, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bill Northern, Chief Financial Officer. After the market closed this afternoon, the company issued a press release announcing its results for the second quarter of fiscal 2023. The release is available on the company's website at researchsolutions.com. Before Ryan and Bill begin their prepared remarks, I would like to remind you that some of the statements made today will be forward-looking and made under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied due to a variety of factors. We refer you to Research Solutions' recent filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact the company's future operating results and financial condition. Also on today's call, management will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors. Reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures are included in the earnings press release issued this afternoon. Finally, I would like to remind everyone this call is recorded and made available for replay via a link on the company's website. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Roy.

Thank you, John, and thanks to everyone joining us today. As I review and think about our Q2 results, I'm generally happy with the 30 plus percent year over year growth in our platform revenue and the continued growth in our transaction revenue and the cash flow and EBITDA performance versus the same period last year. We are experiencing some headwinds in terms of net ARR growth in what we call new, new bookings, which is defined as a new platform and a new transaction customer. While our net renewal rates continue to be over 110%, we have seen some increase in churn and smaller customers related to the general economic conditions and uncertainty. The overall net ARR growth is behind where I'd like it to be, but it is a big improvement over Q1 in terms of our new bookings. Transaction revenue growth was strong for the second consecutive quarter, and does not include any revenue from the FIS acquisition, which will start to show up in Q3's results. We're very proud of the $1 million in EBITDA improvement and the $1.3 million in cash flow improvement in the first half of 2023 versus the same period in 2022. I will provide some more detailed comments about the state of the business after Bill walks you through the results in more detail.