kneat.com, inc.

Good day and welcome to the NEET first quarter 2024 earnings call. 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 this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star one again. For operator assistance throughout the call, please press star zero. And finally, I would like to advise all participants this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Katie Cater to begin the conference. Katie, over to you.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome everyone to NEET's earnings conference call for the first quarter of 2024. Today's call will be hosted by Eddie Ryan, NEET's CEO, and Hugh Cavanaugh, NEET's CFO. Please note the safe harbor statement on slide two and the forward-looking statements disclosure at the end of the earnings release, informing you that some comments made on today's call contain forward-looking information. This information by its nature is subject to risks and uncertainties, so actual results may differ materially from the views expressed today. For further information on these risks and uncertainties, please consult our relevant filings, which can be found on CDAR and on our website at www.neat.com forward slash investors. Also, during today's call, we may refer to certain supplementary financial measures as key performance indicators. We use both IFRS measures and supplementary financial measures as key performance indicators when planning, monitoring, and evaluating our performance. We believe that these non-IFRS measures provide additional insight into NEET's financial results, and certain investors may use this information to evaluate NEET's performance from period to period. I will now pass the call to Eddie Ryan, CEO of NEET.

Thank you, Katie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. Hugh and I will talk this morning about what we are seeing across the business. We'll discuss what we're seeing in our end markets, and we will talk about how we are building for the future. After that, we will take your questions. As you saw in the numbers we reported yesterday, 2024 is off to a solid start in our first three months, with annual recurring revenue up 57% over last year's first quarter, gross profit margin up to 74% from 67% in the first quarter of last year and operating expense growing at a fraction of last year's pace up 17% year over year versus 77% in quarter one, 2023. This strong top line growth on much lower expense growth highlights the expansion potential baked into our customer base and the returns accruing from earlier expenditure on resources. In the first quarter alone, our existing customers across North America, Europe, and Asia added substantially to their Neat GX license base. And we expect them to continue expanding. Many have sites and processes where they have not yet deployed Neat, and their goal is to harmonize these processes across all their sites and divisions. Standardizing on a single platform improves quality, efficiency, and time to market. And standardizing on the Neat platform appears to be emerging as best practice. As our existing customers scale NEET with confidence and place increasing trust in our platform, this compels other companies to embark on their digital validation journey with NEET. We announced two large strategic customer additions in January and February and added several other smaller customers in the quarter, putting us on pace to surpass last year's number of new customer additions. Our healthy pipeline gives us confidence that we will continue on that track. Based on our strong land and expand capability, and if history is our guide, these incoming customers are the expanders of tomorrow. So I'm pleased to report that we are executing to plan. We have the teams and processes in place to support the increase in customers and the activity we are expecting this year. And most importantly, the teams themselves are in better shape than ever. When I look at our win reports, the one thing I see again and again is the salesperson attributing the win to teamwork. The collaboration between sales, engineering, customer success, our contracts team, and others is core to our culture and a competitive advantage. I believe it contributes significantly to our success, and I'm glad to see it thriving. With that, I will pass it over to Hugh to go over the financials.

Thanks, Eddie. As I take you through the numbers, please keep in mind that all the numbers I will be discussing are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. As Eddie said, our results for the first quarter put us on a solid footing for the rest of 2024. Revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2024 was $10.8 million, up 35% from $8 million for the first quarter of 2023. $9.7 million of this was SAS license revenue, which grew 52% over the 6.4 million of SAS license revenue we did in Q1 of 2023. As has been the case for some time, the increase in revenue was primarily driven by expansion by our existing customers' use of GX. New customers since Q1 2023 also contributed to the growth albeit to a lesser degree. Revenue from professional services was approximately $1 million, about the same as Q1 of 2023, reflecting the increased contribution from our strategic partners in this area. Cost of revenues for the first quarter of 2024 was $2.8 million, on par with Q4 2023, and slightly higher than cost of revenues for Q1 of 2023 of $2.6 million. Gross profit for the three months ended March 31, 2024 was $7.9 million, 48% higher than $5.4 million in the first quarter of 2023. Gross margin reached another record at 74%. This is a material increase from the 67% gross margin recorded in last year's first quarter. The expansion of our gross margin reflects the services transition I mentioned above. So gross margin is starting to look more like that of a company that is pure SaaS. Operating expenses grew by 17% in the first quarter to $10.2 million versus $8.7 million in the first quarter of 2023. The largest contributors to this growth include R&D expense, net of capitalized R&D for Q1 of 2024 was $4 million, up 5% compared to $3.9 million in Q1 2023. And sales and marketing expense at $4 million in Q1 of 2024, up 36% versus $3 million in Q1 of 2023. We are pleased to see the leverage on the investments we made in 2022 and early 2023. We ended the quarter with a total annual recurring revenue ARR of $42.1 million, up 57% from $26.9 million at the end of last year's first quarter. ARR from SAS license fees was $41.8 million, up 59% from $26.3 million for SAS ARR at March 31, 2023. We shored up our balance sheet in February with an equity offering that added approximately $18.5 million to our cash balance. Together with the debt financing completed in 2023 and our wrapping of revenue alongside material gains in gross margin and a slower ramp in operating expenses, we feel confident in our cash position for this year and our momentum towards profitability. For your reference, we have filed our unaudited consolidated financial statements and MD&A on CDAR, and they are also available on our website. I will now turn the call over to the operator for your questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your first question comes from the line of Christian Segru from A Capital. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thanks. Not thanks. Well, thank you, but also congrats on another good ARR edition quarter. As we look out through the year and at the current pipeline, Would you say it's largely comprised of life sciences customers? A lot of the filings and the reports spoke to your focus there. Or is your pipeline starting to get more mixed across other verticals as well?

Hi, Christian. Thanks.

Eddie here. Yeah, so I would say, Christian, the mix is like, life sciences i mean that's our pipeline and everybody in there is part of our uh you know our tam that we believe is over 2 billion so it's life sciences which includes everything from pharma biotech uh device manufacturers the supply chain into those uh into those um regulated manufacturers and also on the distribution side we're all regulated to a similar or higher or similar degree So across the board there, Christian, life sciences, yes. There are obviously some consumer product goods companies as well. And I treat them as life sciences because we're applying to their regulated side of their business, which is the validation space.

Got it. I'll sneak in two more questions. The first of these two on the partner channel, there was some explicit commentary on how the partner channels matured or evolved even at the start of this year. Tony, what could you share on, I think there's a tiered system as well as more focus on the systems integrators. Does that help you get to market in a lower touch format? Does that help you get to new geographies? How is the structure of the team changed? What color could you provide around this evolving channel?

Yeah, that's a good question, Christian. So the partner channel is continue to evolve and we have partners in the different segments and some might be more focused on integration. Others are also, they've come up to a level where they can be resellers. So we have different, I guess, partner agreements now. Some are interested in being that more pure play integration channel, and others are interested in being resellers and integrators and follow-on support. In other words, managing the lifecycle of the customer. So, yeah, so there are different tiers and, you know, the goal is that the partners will be successful in the, you know, non-strategic customers from our perspective.

Great. And then my last question here might be more for Hugh. The gross margin is 74%. This is a little bit higher than what I was looking out for. Was there any benefit on the services side from utilization or otherwise, or You know, is this 74% steady state trend going forward, you know, driven by the software? And what could you say about any puts and takes in the quarter there?

Yeah, no, sure, sure. Thanks, Christian. Yes, I have to say we're very pleased with the 74%. It's tacking along the right way, thankfully. But yeah, I think there are a few nuances in there that it's probably worth being aware of. And it's probably most in terms of professional services, most to do with timing of when projects get completed and when they when they get recognized uh in revenue um you know we tend uh we expense our our professional services uh you know as as we as we incur the costs and then obviously um you know projects can finish one quarter or they may slip into the next and that that then impacts the the amount of revenue recognized in a particular quarter and that that certainly can impact the uh the gross margins you know to a small degree But also, there is also certainly efficiencies on the whole professional services side. And, you know, there's a lot of focus on, you know, as you mentioned, utilization and, you know, having that group focused on, you know, providing professional services as opposed to, you know, doing other stuff which, you know, which belonged in other areas. So, yeah, absolutely there's better utilization, but also to do with timing of projects.

Got it. Thanks for taking my question this morning, and I'll pass the line.

Thanks, Christian. Your next question comes from the line of Gavin Fairweather from Cormac. Your line is open.

Oh, hey, congrats on the results.

Hi, Gavin. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Gavin. Maybe just to start out, can we just check in on kind of the health of the pipeline entering Q2? And I think the MD&A letter referenced that it was pretty strong, but I am kind of cognizant that you're coming off a very strong Q4 for ARRAD and then a very strong addition in Q1 in what's normally kind of a slower seasonal period. So I'm wondering if maybe I pulled a little bit forward from Q2, Q3. So can you just touch on kind of that pipeline health as we're entering the next couple of quarters here?

Yeah, that's a good question, Gavin. And I'm very buoyant about our pipeline. It's stronger than it's ever been. And, you know, it's got customers like across all the life-size space there across our target market. It's got big and small and small strategic enterprise, etc., So, you know, you're right in saying that, you know, there could be a seasonal impact. We don't know that. We're off to a very good start. We do think there's more buoyancy in the market than there was last year. It's early days. You know, one quarter doesn't make a year. But we think it's a better, started out a better year this year. So, you know, we, you know, keep executing harder and faster. And, you know, our teams are, you know, evolving and coming up to higher standard and as we move forward and we put a lot of structure in place last year and we hired a lot of people in the last year and a half and all this is coming to bear and we see that in the pipeline. So I would be optimistic that we will continue to execute strongly.

Great to hear. And then obviously a lot of your big customers are continuing to expand. That's clear from the numbers. I guess I was I mean, two main verticals for expansion, you know, one is kind of site-driven with existing processes, and then one is with new processes. Can you just speak more fully to the new process part? How strong has that been recently? I guess that's more of a sales customer success function, probably, you know, harder to get over the line, but also really extends the runway with those customers as they add new use cases. So how strong has that been recently with your major customers?

Yeah, that's very good information. Gavin, and I think it's improving as we focus on it more and more, especially with the strong customer success function that we put in place in the last six to nine months. So I would say that our customers are purchasing the platform for all the validation processes, for harmonizing validation across all their sites. And that's for multiple use cases, and we're seeing them moving along with those use cases. to additional use cases from where they started. So there's a huge amount of upside in our customer base from that perspective, and they are moving along, and we believe it's getting stronger as we go along, and it's a result of technology, you know, being able to reach in there better, and also our customer success culture that we built over the last while. It's always been there, we've just made it stronger.

Great to hear. And then just lastly for me on the product, I can't remember if we're on 9.2 or 9.3. I think you had a release planned in Q2. Not sure if it's out yet. Can you just touch on the major functional changes in this release and kind of the initial reception from the ecosystem?

Yeah, so we're 9.2 is the number you're referring to there. And I suppose we're out with that now and customers are beginning to see that and beginning to move into it over the next few months. And we would say that the customers are very excited about what we're developing and the value we're delivering both in the short and longer term. So there's been a real positive response to us. We've got a lot of great technology in there. And that is, it's, you know, it's part of a very strong vision that we're building out in parallel with the customer intimacy from a day-to-day perspective. So, giving them what they need, but also building where we want our platform to be in the future. So, yeah, it's going very well from that perspective, Gavin.

Do you think that that's a catalyst for expansion? Because I think that I remember that a lot of your big customers, you know, hadn't yet moved on to 9.0 or 9.1 where you brought in kind of the entity management and some of the new kind of cloud native functionality. So, Do you think that some of your bigger customers now moving on to this newer data structure could be a catalyst for expansion?

Absolutely. Obviously, we're moving into the multi-tenant space now, and they'll be getting into a regular cadence of upgrading customers, and that's happening and going very well, and I'm really excited about what the R&D team have delivered here. So I expect, you know, just to be clear, the future is about expanding our existing customers, the huge opportunities we have there. And everything we do is about that. So it definitely will be a catalyst. But it won't happen overnight. It will happen as we go through the months and, you know, the half years and that.

Thanks a lot, Sabah. Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Your next question comes from the line of Tanvi Gabriel from Echelon. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Congratulations on the quarter.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thanks. So I'll be speaking on behalf of Rob Goff. And, you know, we were just wondering if you could perhaps elaborate on your capacity to increase your revenue, just given the current existing resources that you have available.

Yeah, thanks, Tanvi. So I think the key thing that we are seeing, and especially as we go forward, you can see that our revenues are increasing relatively, significantly relative to our costs. Our costs are staying steady. And I think that's a result of the team that we built over the last year and a half. And it's, you know, coming to, you know, really beginning to deliver over time and continues to do. So I think, you know, we strongly believe that, you know, We've said from the start of the year that our expenses aren't going to go up significantly in this year, in 24, and we continue to maintain that thought. So we will put in some strategic hours as we go along to build the future of the company, but we're very strong on the capability that we still have a lot of bandwidth in our team.

Right, okay. And in terms of your expansions within, you know, life sciences and markets, could you share perhaps any recent developments that you've noticed in the competitive dynamics within your RFPs?

Yeah. So not a lot has changed there. You know, today it's still, you know, down selection still consists of probably two companies. There are entrants coming into the marketplace and, you know, they all have different value propositions and, you know, you know, different levels of maturity associated with their product. I guess one of the things that we're really strong on is our maturity and how long we've been at this business and how today we're a leader in the validation space. And that doesn't happen overnight, you know, that these big, large companies take you and roll you out across all their sites. You have to be a very scalable, secure, easy to use platform that delivers value. And I guess, you know, we continue to articulate that value proposition to our customers and it's very well received and it's very proven in the marketplace. So, yeah, just to be sure, you know, 10B, there's definitely competitors and they come in different guises. But, you know, we still believe in our vision and what we have and constantly are focused on, you know, deep value for our customers.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Thanks, Tanvi. Your next question comes to the line of Justin Keywood from CIFL. Your line is open.

Thanks. Industry drivers, we've seen a record level of FDA approvals in 2023, and there's a record level of FDA submissions this year. Is that contributing to some of the strong growth we're seeing at at NEAT or is it just overall improvements in efficiency and digitizing operations? And then also, obviously, with the GLP-1 momentum continuing, is that a material contributor to NEAT as well?

Hi, Justin. These are all very strong factors, you know, drivers within our space. And All these new product approvals and all of that mean that down the line, these companies are going to be doing more validation of new facilities and ongoing operations of these new process lines and all of that. So anything that's bringing more products to the marketplace is good for validation. And there's a huge amount of that happening in not just, you know, big product category, but also in small product category and the likes of personalized medicines and that. So I'd be very, very buoyant about the industry and the future of the industry and the growth of the industry. And I think the bigger pharmaceutical companies are not as restricted by the potential macro environment out there. But I would also say that I think the macro is easing a little bit this year, but it's still a bit early to call. But yeah, for sure, these are big drivers for validation. Our goal is to help these companies. Our purpose is to help these companies to deliver their medicines. and the therapies that are patients to the highest quality and safety standard. That's a huge purpose, and these are delivering new medicines, and that's where we fit in, and that's where we want to continue to enhance our value.

Okay, and then just on the net retention rate, if there's a number in the quarter, I know it was quite high last year at 158% if there's a quarter number.

We don't want to... Sorry, Hugh, go ahead. Yeah, no, I was going to say, we don't release quarter numbers. So, yeah, I think the number in the last year may have been 138%, 158 the previous year. But, you know, while it's not disclosed publicly on a quarter, I mean, we still remain very, very confident in maintaining those numbers at that sort of level.

Thank you for taking my questions.

There are no further questions at this time, so I'd like to hand back to Eddie Ryan. We at NEET are ready.

With our leadership position and validation for life sciences, our unique data-centric software platform getting better all the time, our increasingly skilled sales force, and the traction we are seeing with our partner program, we feel good about the rest of this year. When we look back on all the progress we have made and how we have gotten better as we have grown, we are energized.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.