kneat.com, inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the NEET Third Quarter 225 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in 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 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Katie Keda, IR Lead. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome everyone to NEET's earnings conference call for the third quarter of 2025. Today's call will be hosted by Eddie Ryan, NEET's CEO, and Dave O'Reilly, 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 uncertainty, 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, www.neat.com forward slash investors. Also during the call, we may refer to certain supplementary financial measures as key performance indicators. Management uses both IFRS measures and supplementary financial measures as key performance indicators when planning, monitoring, and evaluating the company's performance. Management believes that these non-IFRS measures provide additional insight into our financial results, and certain investors may use this information to evaluate our performance from period to period. For your reference, we have filed our unaudited consolidated financial statements in MD&A on CDAR, and they are also available on our website. I will now pass the call to Eddie Ryan, CEO of Neat.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. I will take you through an overview of the quarter and the year so far, what we are seeing and what we are planning. Then Dave will share a high level recap of the financials. After that, we will open the call for your questions. The third quarter of 2025 reaffirmed Leet's resilience as the market leader in digital validation. We continue on an expansion journey with our existing customers and continue to sign new logos at a strong pace. As a result, our SAS revenue grew 33% year over year, well ahead of the average for companies our size. This demonstrates the continued demand for our platform, even in a more complex investment environment for the life sciences industry, who also have to deal with uncertainty around trade, pricing, and funding. While these dynamics are extending buying cycles somewhat, customers ultimately continue to invest in their digitalization journey. As such, our sales team continue to manage a robust pipeline into quarter four and beyond. Neat wins because it delivers compelling value for its customers. Our validation workflow platform, NeatGX, is configurable and absolutely no coding is needed. It supports all validation workflows and it meets strict data integrity requirements. That NEET has been able to address what our customers need to do, the way they want to do it, has earned NEET our excellent reputation as the leader in digital validation. This market leadership was underscored this past quarter by the software review and comparison platform G2. Its fall report on pharma and biotech software awarded NEET a satisfaction score of 98 out of 100, a full 20 points higher than the second-ranked company's score of 78. We strive to expand this competitive lead by making the platform better all the time. Our engineering team continues to innovate in line with customers' needs and our strategic vision. Our AI strategy is unlocking new possibilities for speed, intelligence, and insight, while maintaining the highest standards of compliance and integrity. Recent advancements include AI capabilities that enhance usability and global reach, with upcoming near-term solutions designed to streamline content creation, content review, and data-driven decision-making. Based on the significant opportunities that lie ahead, we will continue to invest strategically in R&D and go-to-market, in parallel with our focus on profitability in the year ahead. I will now hand it off to Dave, who will address the financials in more detail.

As I take you through the numbers for the third quarter, just a reminder that the figures are all in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise noted. I'm pleased to report that NEET's healthy growth continued in the third quarter, with annual recurring revenue up 37%, total revenue up 26%, and gross profit up 25%. Starting with revenue, for the quarter ended September 30, 2025, revenue came in at $16.1 million, up 26% from $12.8 million for the third quarter of 2024. $15.2 million of that was SAS license revenue for growth acceleration to 33% over the $11.5 million of SAS license revenue in Q3 of 2024. Revenue from services of $0.9 million in the quarter compared with prior year services revenue of $1.2 million. This decline indicates partners are stepping up to do more in services allowing us to focus on our software. These Q3 results take us to $46.3 million in total revenue for the first nine months of 2025, which is up 31% over last year. SAS license revenue of $43.2 million for the first nine months was up 35% year over year. Cost of revenue in the third quarter of 2025 was $3.9 million, up 31% from $3 million in the same quarter a year ago. Gross profit for the quarter was $12.2 million, 25% higher than the $9.8 million in Q3 of last year. Gross margin for the period was 76%, compared with 77% for the same period last year. For the first nine months, cost of revenue was $11.5 million, up 31% from the prior year comparable period. Gross profit for the first nine months of 2025 grew 32% over last year's first nine months to $34.8 million, bringing gross margin for the nine-month period ended September 30th to 75%, which is even with the same period in 2024. Operating expenses grew 43% in the third quarter of 2025 to $14.3 million, versus $10 million in Q3 of 2024. R&D expense growth was 47% year-on-year, net of capitalized R&D. Sales and marketing expenses were up 45% year-over-year, and G&A expenses were up 32% year-over-year. Looking at operating expenses year-to-date through September 30th, total operating expenses grew 34% over the first nine months of 2025 to $42.3 million, compared to $31.5 million for the first nine months of last year. R&D expense net of capitalized R&D grew 27% to $16.1 million for the first nine months. Sales and marketing expense grew 38% to $17.0 million for the comparable period last year. and G&A expenses were $9.1 million, up 42% compared with the first nine months of 2024. We ended a quarter with total annual recurring revenue, or ARR, of $68.6 million, up 37% from $49.9 million as of September 30th, 2024. And our cash position as of September 30th, 2025 was $59.8 million. So all in, a solid quarter that sets up for a strong finish to 2025. And with that, I will turn the call over to our operator for your questions.

Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from the line of Doug Taylor of Kennecor Genuity. Your line is now open.

Thank you, good morning or good afternoon, and congratulations on another quarter for new customer signings, a strong quarter. I'd like to start by asking you about both the macroeconomic headwinds that you referenced in your prepared remarks and in your disclosure, and also the reference to some increased competition that you talk about in your materials. I just wanted to unpack those a little bit. First, starting with the macroeconomic, the challenges you speak about as it relates to tariffs and trade uncertainty. I mean, can we talk about the directionality of that in this quarter? Is that improving or getting more challenging? And perhaps you can speak to the pipeline for expansions as you discuss that with some of your installed base.

Hi, Doug.

Good question.

Yeah, so... Speaking to the pipeline, first of all, I guess today we're ahead of where we finished last year from a new company customer perspective. So that speaks to our competitive strengths that I'm really proud of in the marketplace today. Looking back over the last nine months and looking at the macros, I would say there's definitely been an impact there around know, customer budgets and uncertainty from that perspective and where they do their investments and all of that. I believe from recent information that, you know, that it's beginning to stabilize from that perspective, especially around the tariff side of things. And there's a lot of optimism, especially stateside in the U.S. around new spending and additional spending and new facilities and expansions. And of course, a lot of those customers that are in that space are our customers. So I expect we'll benefit from that as we go forward as well in the coming years. So while it's not huge, the macro, it has had an impact. And we have seen some, you know, deals moving out a little bit, still there in the pipeline, still working on them, not closed out or anything like that. So, yeah. And, you know, we have a very robust pipeline ahead. We have a very robust on the pipeline ahead as well.

And so just to maybe go one step further with that, would you say that those macro and the deal slippage, I mean, it clearly doesn't appear to be related to new customer signings, so is that more about expansion plans? And maybe you could tie in your recent changes to some of your pricing models around delayed you know, growth in the initial deal signings in relation to that?

Yeah, so the initial deal signings, I think you're referring to the incentives around the ARR, which is the leading indicator. I would say that has, you know, Dave can talk a bit on that as well, but that has come down and it remains, you know, similar to what we would have, you know, would have messaged to the marketplace over the last number of months. in the single mid-digit type territory from that perspective. So what was the question on the macros again, Doug?

Well, I think I got the answer I was looking for there. So let me just circle back then on the competition comments you made in your disclosure overnight here. I believe you're referring to Viva, maybe some new market entrants or perhaps uh valgenesis i mean maybe you could expand on why why you included that what you're seeing you know and whether that's impacting it doesn't seem to be new customer signings but is there a pricing impact uh is it impacting expansion plans to any significant degree no not to any degree um you know there is uh definitely new entrants coming into the marketplace uh viva is looking to you know

get traction with its technology. But by and large, it needs to still be winning all the key deals. There is a bit maybe, you know, competition has the ability to slow deals down a little bit, but they still need to still be winning them in general. So nothing significant there, but yeah, for sure, something that I would be concerned about or not concerned about or would be vigilant about into the future.

Okay. I appreciate that extra color. I'll pass the line. Thanks.

Thanks, Tucker. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Erin Kyle of CIBC. Your line is now open.

Hi. Good morning, and thanks for taking the questions. I just wanted to follow up on one of the questions that Doug asked there, just on expansion. I believe last quarter you mentioned the deferral of some expansions out of the quarter, and AR growth of 37% while strong, it was still below our expectations for the quarter. So maybe can you just comment on whether you've seen more deferrals in customer expansions or just what you're seeing in that context?

Yeah, I think I missed the first part of your question, Erin, but I can speak to the latter part anyway, at least. So, as I said, we would have seen, if we look back over the nine months, we would have seen some slowdown in budgeting and that type of thing, but it's nothing significant. The customers continue to expand and we're working, you know, we typically end the year with stronger expansions and I'm optimistic that will happen again this year. We don't know the end of the year yet. So, yeah, there's nothing unusual there. You know, just... We have to continue to expand our customers, and they are on that journey with us. It just deals moving on from quarter to quarter. It can be lumpy.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, the first part of my question there was just whether there were any deferrals out of Q3 specifically.

Deferrals out of Q3. Dave, do you have an answer to that?

It's more so have any deals that were due to close in Q3, have they moved into Q4? I think the answer to that is yes.

Yeah, that's true. Correct, Davian. There would have been some deals that would have moved into Q4. Yeah, into Q4. Okay.

Thank you. And then I just wanted to also follow up on any FX impact on ARR and revenue in the quarter. If you can quantify that, that would be helpful.

I'll step in on that one. So from a quarter-over-quarter perspective on ARR, we have a tailwind of approximately $1 million on our ARR, but the impact on revenue is a lot less. In the quarter, the revenue impact is a tailwind of about $130,000. Thank you.

That's helpful. I'll pass the line.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Gavin Fairweather of CoreMarketLine is now open.

Oh, hey, good morning. Good afternoon. Maybe just to start on the product. I know a big initiative has been to build in agile processes and workflows into the product. Curious if you're starting to see some adoption in your existing customers on those approaches and how you think about that as a driver for 2026 expansions.

Yeah, we think it's very important going forward, and especially when we're bringing on other technologies, Gavin, around AI and all of that, to have a very robust, agile, data-centric platform underpinning it all. And that journey continues, and that is something that will take a number of releases, and I would say we're going to see the customers, early customers are using it and giving feedback on it, and there's iterations on it, but

it's coming through very strong at the moment and we're really excited about what it's achieving it's helpful and then maybe just on the gt report and related to competition i mean really nice to see you know you ranking so well compared to to some of your peers you know but you did kind of call out increased competition in the mdna but so it it kind of begs the question do you think that your technological edge with all the r&d you're you're doing is is widening or do you think that it's stable or shrinking? How would you characterize where your platform sits versus competition?

I think we sit in a very good place, Gavin, and I think the plans we have and what we're bringing through on the platform are also going to be very, very innovative and it's going to put further distance between us and the competition. Notwithstanding that competition have their own journeys and they're working on their things. One of the key things about Neet is, I keep reiterating, Neet's a platform. On that platform, you can configure multiple workflows. And if you look at all feedback from the marketplace, including the G2, all you're going to see is happy customers, people who love using Neet, easy to use, easy to set it up, easy to get the business value. And everyone actually articulates that business value to us all. It's a huge competitive advantage, the fact that users love using Neet and that it's really a strong market product fit. So, yeah, I'd be very upbeat about what we're doing. It's hard to see it in real time, but it takes time for it to materialize. But I believe what we're doing is very positive and very powerful as we go forward and we'll continue to reinforce our leadership position.

Appreciate that. And then lastly for me, just on the sales and marketing expense line, it is up a decent amount year over year. So can you just discuss where you're investing more in terms of the team and the marketing spend? And how should we think about the timelines to productivity on that increased spend and driving some additional ARR growth?

Yeah, so on the sales and marketing front, we would be expanding from sales account managers would be responsible for expanding existing customers, sales directors. and sales support functions, including internal salespeople. So that's where the investment is going there. And that is continuing to give return. And we see more of this going into 26. The other thing to say is R&D. And from that perspective, we would put in strategic hires. And we have a strong journey ongoing around AI and doubling down on that data and agile capabilities of the platform. So there's a lot of work ongoing there, along with addressing ongoing customer requests for features as we go along. So when we talk about these additional things like the data centricity, we've also got to keep the product working very well for other areas of the business. There's multiple products in our platform, as you know. So I'm going to look back at the numbers for sales and marketing And R&D, you know, we're tacking down relative to revenue, and we expect that to continue through 26 as we focus in on profitability and cash flow break even later in 26.

Thanks so much. Congrats on the results. I'll pass the line.

Thanks, Gavin. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Justin Keywood of Steele. Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks for taking my call. Just on the margins, the adjusted EBITDA was up quite substantially year over year, and assuming the growth continues into 2026, that could suggest substantial operating leverage, assuming OPEX moderates. I'm just wondering if we're able to get some bookends on what the margin profile could be going into next year. Thanks, Julian.

I'll give you a high level. Yes, you know, the adjusted EBITDA margin has improved. We expect it to continue to improve. You know, where we see that going is to a kind of typical SaaS type company profitability, you know, late 20s, early 30s type range. And, you know, that kind of coincides with our overall view of breakeven from a cash flow perspective on a full year basis.

Just to clarify, did I hear 20% to 30% adjusted EBITDA margins could be a target for next year?

The next 18 months, I would say.

18 months, okay. Okay, still very healthy expansion. That's helpful. And then just on capital allocation, obviously the balance sheet remains in very strong shape, net cash position. Are you able to outline the capital allocation priorities, be it M&A, share buybacks, or other uses?

Thanks, Justin. There's no plans to spend any of that balance sheet right now. As I said, the goal right now is to continue on and target profitability for next year. And as we go into the new year, we're constantly looking at our options and all of that. But right now, we believe a strong balance sheet is a very positive thing, especially when you're dealing with the large customers and large partners that we are dealing with. But there's nothing on the short-term horizon. But there's always a discussion around these things.

Understood. Nice to see the results. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. Again, as a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. And I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'll now turn it back to Eddie Ryan, CEO, for closing remarks.

Thank you. NEAT was founded with a single mission, to help life sciences develop, manufacture, and deliver therapies to their patients to the highest safety standard. While we have come a long way since our founding, we are still in the early innings, and our customers remind us of this every day. We are energized by their enthusiasm, and we are grateful for your support as we continue on our journey. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.