Penneo achieves 23% year-on-year ARR growth in Q1 2024
Company Announcement No. 14-2024
Copenhagen, 23 May 2024
Financial report for the period 1 January 2024 - 31 March 2024
Q1 2024 performance highlights
Strong new business performance and continued uplift from existing customers due to increased engagement, though negatively impacted by temporary downgrades, churn, and adverse currency fluctuations.
- ARR increased by 2.0M DKK compared to 3.3M DKK in Q1-2023
- ARR increase from Newbiz amounted to 3.5M DKK compared to 2.0M DKK in Q1-2023
- ARR increase from uplift amounted to 0.0M DKK compared to 2.0M DKK in Q1-2023
- ARR decrease from churn amounted to 1.5M DKK compared to 0.6M DKK in Q1-2023
- ARR from foreign markets increased by 1.1M DKK compared to 0.9M DKK in Q1-2023
- ARR amounted to 91.3M DKK at the end of Q1-2024 compared to 74.2M DKK at the end of Q1-2023 (23% year-on-year growth)
- ARR from foreign markets amounted to 27.8M DKK at the end of Q1-2024 compared to 20.5M DKK at the end of Q1-2023 (40% YoY growth)
- EBITDA improved to (3.7)M DKK up from (6.6)M DKK in Q1-2023
2024 Guidance
ARR
Penneo continues to assume growth in ARR and guides ARR at the level of 105-112M DKK at the end of 2024 corresponding to an ARR growth rate of 18-25%.
The outlook is based on currency exchange rates at the end of 2023.
EBITDA
Penneo continues to assume an EBITDA at a level between 5M DKK to 10M DKK.
Business summary
In Q1-2024, the company continued its growth pattern ending with a year-on-year ARR growth of 23%. EBITDA in Q1 2024 has improved compared to Q1 2023, aligning with expectations.
Despite the typically quieter first quarter, Penneo experienced continued strong momentum in New Business. Growth in this area surged to 3.5M DKK, up from 2.0M DKK in Q1 2023, continuing the strong momentum from Q4 last year.
In addition, Penneo saw a continued uplift from existing customers due to increased engagement. However, the uplift was impacted by a few specific but temporary downgrades and by adverse currency effects resulting in a historically low total ARR from uplifts. In addition, the overall churn was also influenced by the departure of a larger client. Despite these obstacles, the total Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) reached 91.3M DKK.
In Q1-2024, fluctuations in currency exchange rates comparing the NOK and SEK to the DKK negatively impacted the Q1-2024 ARR by 0.4M DKK, indicating that currency fluctuations concealed a slightly more positive ARR development. Penneo reports its ARR using the currency exchange rates at the end of each quarter. In a constant currency rate scenario, Penneo would have achieved a total ARR of 91.8M DKK compared to the reported result of 91.3M DKK .
The share of new business ARR from foreign markets continued to grow and now accounts for 35% YoY of our total new business ARR in Q1-2024. This growth is driven by Belgium where 67 new clients were acquired in the first quarter of the year compared to 29 the previous year. Penneo continues to prepare for international expansion by planning a roll-out of the highly requested KYC product in Belgium and preparing to enter the German market in H2 2024.
At the end of Q1-2024, Penneo’s cash position was 34.0M DKK. As we move forward, our approach is to invest the cash that is available and continuously ensure that we have a clear path to a cash positive position given the cash available. At the end of 2024, we expect to reach a position where our ARR will exceed our overall cost base, positioning us to achieve at least a cash neutral status on a yearly basis by 2025 according to our current projections.
