Envirosuite Limited (EVS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everyone, to Envirosuite's First Half FY '23 Results Presentation. Really excited to be here, and we're doing it from our new office now in Melbourne. Today, I'm joined here with Justin, who's going to be talking through the financials part of it. So, we want to make this really reflective of what we've achieved at a company level and give you some of the key highlights, financial and also about product and customer, in line with our overarching strategy. We have a disclaimer, which is a standard part and then coming through. So, the order of today, we're going to start with me going through some of the key highlights, getting to the product suite update, and then Justin will take the financials. And then at the end, we're going to open that up for Q&A. So, raise your hand at the end of it and we will come to you and go through some of those questions. So, let's start with some of the key metrics, which you may have already seen up on the ASX today. We're incredibly excited to present these results today because they reflect a lot of hard work in the company over the last 12 months. So starting out, really strong on the annual recurring revenue position, AUD 56.9 million, representing a 16% increase. We now have 436 client sites around the world, reflecting 11% increase. Statutory revenue is up to AUD 27.6 million. Gross profit is now hit through the 50% mark and we've now achieved 51.4%. And if you look at the transition the company has gone through over the last couple of years, it is an amazing result and we're still continuing to improve that underlying path. And really importantly, is our adjusted EBITDA position of a loss of only AUD 0.5 million, which represents a significant improvement as you'll see. So, the graphs are all pointing in the right direction. The trends are all pointing in the right direction. And what we'll do today is talk you through how we've got there and a little bit on the outlook as well moving forward. So, for those of you who may be new to the Envirosuite story, I want to start and give some context to who we are and what we do. For those who are familiar with the story, I think it's a good reminder. So, Envirosuite is very much a purpose-driven company. We do believe in this term, environmental intelligence. And we also believe it's the key to improving the well-being of people and planet, but also driving prosperity. Our customers, our government and industry, but importantly, we understand the impact to environment and community, and it's that intersection that we operate in, which is incredibly important. So as a business, we're structured into 3 different product suites; aviation, omnis and water. We operate in 3 geographic regions; EMEA, Asia Pacific and the Americas. And we have employees of around 270 but actually clients representing 46 countries. This is a true success story from an Australian company where we've been able to branch out from here to Australia to all parts of the world. So, our platforms are really important business and to government all around the world. And what we're seeing is a really strong drivers that are out there. On one side, you have the ESG drivers which are becoming more and more relevant, not only to industry but to government. There is a heightened concern for the environment in our planet. There are social movements that are coming up and there's environmental justice policy in certain countries around the world, which is driving this awareness. And importantly, there's tightening industry regulations and operating constraints. Now for companies that are operating in this, how do they navigate this environment. They've also got on the other side, business drivers. There is a demand, certainly in mining and aviation as we see that in water. There is a strong demand there. Their businesses, they rely on capital to fund future growth. And so they've got to make sure they're doing the right things. And of course, the shareholders demanding profitability. And it's this part here where we're really driving not only the compliance, the regulatory part but an operational improvement. So, Envirosuite not only protect our current -- customers' current operations, but really importantly, unlock future productivity. So, we are an incredibly advanced organization. We are the leaders in environmental intelligence technology provider in the world. Our difference on the left-hand side of this, we have science, which is deeply built into our software platforms. We have a strong commitment to customers. We are driving a strong ingenuity and innovation engine with inside our company. We're also attacking the ESG and the UN SDGs advancing, so we understand society's requirements, which puts us at the forefront of our leading environmental intelligence position. We collaborate, we innovate. Our core value is within our software that we're able to actually extract out to our customers all around the world. As we touched on before, we're structured into 3 different product suites. First of all, EVS Water, our newest business. This is a digital twin technology for water. We look focused on 2 key segments within this. So, one is our Plant Optimiser, which is looking at improving the way the desalination and drinking water plants all around the world are operating, providing a strong return on investment. Our other product in that is SeweX, which is tackling the sewer network. And it's actually attacking a problem that has -- is totally unique. And so we're the first mover in that path. With Omnis, it's a broad horizontal cloud-based platform, which has got a strong scientific understanding about what's happening with our environmental parameters. We're taking noise, we're taking vibration. We're taking air quality, water quality, dust and odor into this platform and not only understanding what's happening in real time, but the power of predictive modeling, which will help our customers understand what's going to happen tomorrow, so that they can plan more efficiently to how to operate. In Aviation, we are global leaders in our understanding noise and the impact that planes has on the airport traffic and the communities around it. We're also broadening that out now to tackle the community engagement and the important part around climate change. So importantly, we are driving at the forefront of environmental intelligence for our customers and driving a strong real-time and predictive capability, which is totally unique in the world. So, some of the key highlights that I want to reflect on. FY '23 in the first half has been an exceptionally strong part for our business and it positions us incredibly well for the second half and for future years. So, if you look at our growth in ARR of 16.3%, it's a strong growth. Statutory revenue of AUD 27.6 million, of which 87.6% of that is recurring. What we have seen is strong growth in our Aviation part, which is 13.7% up on this time last year. And our fastest growth region is once again in the Americas, which is up 22.3%. Importantly, we said at the full year that we were on our path to profitability. And with an adjusted EBITDA profitability of AUD 0.5 million loss, we're well and truly on that track. This demonstrates a 75% improvement. Importantly as well, we actually had a positive result in the months of November and December. Gross margin exceeded 50%. That's something that we said that we would do. And once again, we've demonstrated that we have the strong financial understanding of the business to now exceed 50% and we will set new challenges as we continue to grow. Our operating leverage is important as we move through. We actually have got the footprint to be able to add significant ARR without a significant cost base. AUD 11.9 million cash at bank, which is great and importantly, no debt. Moving into our customers. Some of the key points on here is we have continued to focus on site acquisition, adding another 20 sites, so 11.5% since this time last year. Again, strong growth in the Americas, which is consistent with how we've been focused on our key market segments. We've also had good strong uplift within our current customers as well, providing additional modules and importantly, growing at our customer base. This is central to our land, expand and scale business model. And we've got partnership opportunities with SGS and also with GHD, which we're continuing to build through. Our diversification is important. As we've gone through with our 3 different businesses, Aviation is our largest, then Omnis, and Water is our newest. Well, we have demonstrated growth in all 3 regions and in all 3 product suites, which is a great result for the company. So, let's get into some of the key numbers here. So, starting on the left, AUD 24.2 million recurring revenue, which is up 11.9%. AUD 21.7 million now coming on ARR coming from the Americas, continued growth there, really strong customer traction. We've got a strong sales and marketing team, which is operating in the Americas but importantly, a strong value proposition, which is resonating highly with customers from Canada all the way through to South America. Aviation is a great success story, now up to AUD 36.4 million in ARR and you'll see that growth curve. We weathered the storm through COVID. We've supported our customers and now we're starting to see some strong signals that this business is going to continue to grow. Omnis, at now AUD 19.4 million is a strong growth business, 17.3% PCP. And our Water business going from effectively launch this time last year up to now AUD 1.1 million ARR. APAC and EMEA has also represented growth, 13% in APAC and 12.2% in EMEA. So, I wanted to touch a little bit here on this slide, just to talk about our 3 businesses and the strength of our customers. I think it's great validation when you can go in with confidence with your product and sell into some of the world's largest and most important customers in the segments that we serve. It's strong validation that the product has a product market fit and it also provides strong reference. And what we have seen over the last 12 months is continued validation with our current customers, very low churn, good strong upsell opportunities and then using those references to drive growth. Our Aviation business is world-class. We are #1 both from market share as well as the technology capability, and it's something that we continue to pride ourselves in. We will continue to innovate. And now our strategy is to continuing to grow. We want deeper solutions with our customers and we want to help them certainly within climate change initiatives, which we're starting to see. The other part there is Green Aviation and Advanced Air Mobility. We've got a case study later on around Air Navigation Service Provider in ANSP, and we'll touch on that. But you can see from some of the logos on the bottom, how strong a validation this is. Most of the major customers around major airports around the world are our customers. In Omnis, we are future proof in the industrial sector. This is a broad brush horizontal platform, but we're focused on 4 key sectors; mining, industrial, waste and wastewater. This does provide highly accurate and predictive insights for operators and governments and users all around the world to understand what is the impact to the environment and the impact of the community whilst maintaining operational improvement. Customers are not just buying us for compliance, they're actually buying this now to driving a significant improvement on their ROI. We have got deep engagement with communities and we see those as continued growth opportunity for us as well. BHP, Teck, Saputo, TATA, BINGO, some of the key customers that we now have using our platform and continuing to grow and engage with us, not only on meaningful revenue opportunities, but also on what can we do. How do we help them stay ahead. From an EVS Water perspective, very exciting technology and having a strong impact on one of the scarcest commodity resource items that we have on the world today. And we've got a use case there with Hong Kong that we will touch on. So, let's touch into Aviation. You'll see there the growth from AUD 31.8 million to AUD 36.4 million over the last 2-year period. That is a fantastic result. We had AUD 4.1 million over the last 12 months. It's a fantastic result and really shows that our customers are coming back and they're talking to us. We supported them through a tough period of time. But as you may have experienced, if you recently traveled, planes are flying, people are moving. And so that gives us strong indication that the outlook is going to be very, very strong. What is important for us at this point, though, is the early adoption for carbon emissions and modeling solutions. And so this is showcasing the strong driver that the aviation sector has to address. The impact on -- of GHD for aviation from planes flying and coming in is an important part for our industry and government to solve around the world. And what this is providing because we have got these deep, meaningful relationships with customers is an ability to help them evolve and tackle this big topic. We have got increased confidence in airports and we're seeing that from invest coming through. And our pipeline for the next 12 months is strong, not only for one-time project revenue, but importantly, for our important ARR business model. They are also asking us to drive this environmentally sustainable aviation solutions. Community pressure is driving airports to modernize their solutions. There's no doubt about that. COVID has had another driver around this community engagement piece for airports around the world and we're seeing not only here in Australia but around the world, the power of the communities with airports and we're working with our airports to be proactive in how they tackle them. So here is a case study and we mentioned this in our Q2 sales update. At this point in time, we still can't mention the customer name, but that will shortly be -- shouldn't be able to do that. And we'll do a joint release on that one. But this is important, this is groundbreaking. And importantly, what we're doing with this customer, we're able to take to other ANSP, so Air Navigation Service Providers all around the world. The core of this, there are certain KPIs, which the customer is wanting to address to help improve the traffic. So, this is the whole efficiency of a plane coming down to land to taking off from the runway from going into boarding and then leaving. So, there are certain KPIs that are being set within this ANSP. They've come to us to say, well, you've got the technology that helps tackle this. So, they're going to be using our software solutions to actually understand what is the impact and in how to refine and how do we improve that. This is incredibly strong solution for us because we know that we have got that technology leadership position and the value is immense. So, we will continue to work with this particular ANSP, but importantly, we're going to take this proactively now into the marketplace to drive that product adoption. Moving to Omnis. From June '21 of AUD 14.6 million, up to AUD 19.4 million, really strong. In the last 12 months, we've had a 17% increase. Excited to see what Omnis is doing and how it's working with all the customers all around the world in the different sectors that we are focused on. As we've mentioned recently, we did add 2 key parts of the functionality into the platform recently, which is deeper noise management and vibration into the platform. Now this is enabling our customers to add additional modules and capability and understanding what they're doing. So, we have seen in the last 12 months, adoption of this technology with our current base as well as in opening up the opportunity for new exciting customers to come on to our platform. I was recently in Europe and we met with SGS, and we're both excited about what this alliance will do. And we're both focused on making sure that this is a successful engagement with their SGS affiliate and their customers around the world. So, our pipeline is strong for the second half and beyond that. We're seeing incredibly strong demand and that ESG side at the front part of it is a key contributor to why this is happening, but also the operational improvement. There's no doubt that the natural resources are actually driving that demand as well. And we'll continue to focus on mining and industrial as one of the key focus areas. But momentum is continuing. We're really excited not only what the capability of the platform can do but what our sales and marketing team and [ trying ] to engage around the world. Our example on case study for this one, which is highly replicable, albeit the focus area is somewhat unique, and it's a global semiconductor manufacturer. But the problem emanates from odor. And here, you have a manufacturing facility and it's a high-tech manufacturing facility, and they do and have been contributing to an odor issue in the different regions. They came to us to say, how do we tackle this? We can't stop production. We want to be able to understand how we maximize our production but limit the impact to the communities. So, we engaged with them on the first site, we're now up to 4 sites, and we're working through with them to see how they change their production capability. So, this is an important part. We're not trying to suppress the industry. We're actually working with our industry customers to understand how we can accelerate their operational drivers whilst addressing the environmental parameters and community engagement piece. So, now we're able to predict with 72 hours accuracy about what they should be doing with their plant and using our software to do that. This is actually driving a strong ROI for our customers and strong communicator to us around what they're already doing moving forward as well. Lastly, on Water. This time last year, we just released our water product into the market. We've done a capital raise in December in '20 -- and if you look at that -- sorry, '21 December '21. If you look at what we've been able to achieve in that time, it's a significant product development. The Plant Optimiser now is a product that is achieving and exceeding our customers' expectations. The first line here of 23.3% dosage. Next page is going to be a case study on that. But that's a strong dosage savings, really addressing the strong return on investment. We're invited back to the customer recently to talk about future plans, both for them and for us about driving that through. Our continued investment into SeweX is exciting for us. We've seen some really strong product adoption in this, but also really importantly, acceleration now and the scalability. And one of the key parts we're focused being a product-led organization is building the product that customers use that they get value out of and importantly, for the [ unometrics ] of the business are scalable. And so we're focused working on our key customers around the world to drive that scalability. But we've got strong positive engagement from our customers around here and certainly, a strong pipeline to support that outlook. We recently appointed Sada into our Global Growth Director. He will be based in the Middle East. Already he has been [indiscernible] and drive some significant benefits to the business. So, we're excited to work with Sada in the coming months and quarters to drive that product adoption. And we'll continue to collaborate with our customers through. So, the case study here is Hong Kong Water Supplies Department. And so this is a company, WSD, which is providing drinking water. They had what they call a few colored events. And so this is providing inorganic ions into the water. And so there were certain issues not only with water quality, but the cost to produce that water quality. So, our solution came in to maintain or improve the water quality whilst addressing the chemical dosage and the energy required. Importantly, we're able to put this in, in a relatively short space of time, but more importantly, provide value to the customer, exceeding their expectations on the savings from our chemical dosage. Importantly though, the drinking water has improved and that's the key part. So, not only are we making sure it meets the compliance, we're actually improving on that and saving them on those ROI drivers. So, strong customer validation and we've been able to use that to actually drive additional discussions with future customers around the world. So at this point, I'm now going to hand over to Justin to go through some of the financials.

Thanks, Jason, and good morning. Moving into our financial results for the half year. Presenting on our income statement, we're showing it on an EBITDA basis, consistent with how we've reported historically. Importantly, the growth in our recurring revenue of just under 12%. Solid improvement on where we were on the 6-month quarterly basis -- 6-month PCP basis. And as we'll talk to later, good line of sight of recurring revenue that is signed but yet to be implemented. On our non-recurring revenue, we had a really solid Q2 for around non-recurring revenue coming off a bit of a slow start in Q1, but we anticipate and expect that the run rate in Q2 to continue into the second half of FY '23. So, good line of sight there in terms of projects that are coming on board. As we said, we've got good growth in ARR, and I'll capture some of those comments shortly. Gross profit and the gross margin, achieving over 50%, but at 51.4% is a real reflection on growth within the business and also the product mix that we have as we transition into some of these higher-margin products in Omnis and in Water. It's also fair to say that the effort that we're undertaking in terms of cost management in our cost of sales line continues to be a focus of the organization and certainly the team in our procurement side. Moving on to our OpEx and total operating expense for the year. Again, very tight management of our cost base to ensure that we put the right cost and the right resources in the right regions. I'll talk a little bit about our leverage in that shortly. But we're certainly seeing that control and management of OpEx aligning in with our strategy of transition to adjusted EBITDA profitability. What's extremely important for us on our pathway to profitability is being able to demonstrate where we've gone over the 6 monthly periods and achieving adjusted EBITDA of just under AUD 0.5 million is a true reflection of the effort across the company from sales to cost management and to implementation. I'll talk to our impact of the adjustments that get us to the adjusted EBITDA shortly. Sorry, Okay. Now moving on to -- moving on to our metrics by product. Some of the things to pull out here is our revenue per site or ARR per site, it has improved across all our -- across all products and again, demonstrates our land, expand and scale strategy where we're seeing on so within the customer base. But also, we're seeing the improvement in revenue from new customers or higher or larger opportunities coming through in that regard. Our churn, talking on that. In terms of Aviation, slight uptick there from what we've experienced historically. Main mover in this half year period is one customer within APAC that has decided to take their monitoring internal. So again, we haven't lost out to an alternative provider. Within Omnis, I've spoken to our churn rates in Omnis, and there's a number of factors that impact that, albeit it's relatively low. However, the points there that have impacted churn include customers where projects have come to end of life, where -- and also in some projects where they had decided to run the project internally. So, we're comfortable and understanding of where the churn is going from. More importantly, we're not seeing churn as being significantly impacted by the competitive environment. Okay. Speaking before about our annual recurring revenue reconciliation and what we have in the pipeline for implementation. We're sitting there at AUD 6.7 million of ARR that is contracted and we are pending start on that. Clearly, it's a focus of all parties in this from our hardware and instrumentation team through to our field services for implementation. We continue to make inroads on our implementation time frames. But more importantly, the fact that we've got AUD 6.7 million for conversion into both revenue and ultimately cash is a great metric for us to present. On the awaiting renewals, we do run that renewal process very strongly and very conservatively. And again, we ensure that customers have been contacted in advance of the renewal process. And we have every confidence that these renewal contracts will shift into renewed contracts and again into cash. We spoke -- I spoke earlier regarding where we -- or how we're looking in terms of our operating leverage. So, this is where we look at for sales and marketing and G&A. We look at our OpEx as a percentage of the total revenue for the 6 months. As we can see, we're very stable in the sales and marketing and G&A. Certainly, under the general and administrative, being able to leverage our growth by -- or through our Philippines Center of Excellence enables us to really cost effectively manage that cost base. For those, again, who maybe new, we opened out our Philippines office at the beginning of the half and we're now sitting at just under 25 people on site. So, delighted with how that transition is progressing. In terms of R&D, cash spend, again, the way we measure this is a combination of what the expenses along with what we've capitalized on to the balance sheet. So, looking at a combined impact. Of course, we fully anticipated that the spend would increase. Recalling at the end of FY -- or first half '22, so December last year, we just completed our cap raise to support our water development business. And of course, Jason has spoken through some of the exciting developments that we've had there in the product in terms of water, most notably, certainly from my perspective, is our ability to transition our customers from a contract into revenue much, much quicker. And on the Omnis side, we've spoken at length about the single pane of glass development in terms of what the platform is able to offer. So that spend has, as I said, coming in anticipation of where we expect and as a company that prides itself on product and product development, we are continuing to meet the requirements of both our customers and what we foresee the industry requires, as outlined in our product road maps. In terms of our cash flow and improvements that we've got there, one of the highlights on the finance side certainly is where we -- how we're tracking to our operating activities cash flow. What we're seeing here is a strong management of cash in that regard. And in -- for the half year to December '22, we've actually seen on an adjusted basis, that has actually shifted into a positive territory of AUD 1.3 million. This -- we've got a more detailed reconciliation that you can refer to at the back of the pack, but I'll cover it when we talk about our adjusted EBITDA reconciliation. But suffice to say, our turnaround in this regard is a great effort and a great result and comes about through a number of initiatives that the company has undertaken. As I said before, we've got the capitalized development costs. Again, they come in under our investing activities and we continue to put effort and time into identifying or recording our projects and capitalizing the costs associated with that, which is a combination of our internal teams and to a certain extent, third-party providers. Putting those 2 together, we're seeing again significant improvement in our adjusted operating cash flow or, if you like, that trend into free cash flows. So again, transporting in the right direction. As Jason mentioned earlier, we finished the year with cash just under AUD 12 million, at AUD 11.9 million. We're in a strong position with cash and cash equivalents and of course, have no debt. We mentioned before about our improvement in adjusted EBITDA. Just want to take you through some of the activities and line items here. To many of you, these adjustments are familiar. I did just want to touch base on one, which is that significant AUD 1.5 million restructure cost savings. Outlined in our other documents, you'll see that the Envirosuite undertook a broad global review of supplies and of our personnel, our headcount and look to see where we could otherwise streamline or consolidate roles globally. That restructure was completed in February '23. And what we've done for the purpose of our adjusted EBITDA result for the half is we've done -- we've determined the impact of that adjustment as if the cost savings had been effective from the 1st of July. Now these cost savings that we talk about, they are roles that we don't see them having an impact or they're not going to be having an impact on sales or sales-related activities in any of our 3 regions and represented the headcount reduction of around 5%. Again, a difficult piece for us as an organization to undertake and complete. And we are confident that with the revised headcount that we've got going forward that we are set up and established for success into H2 and beyond. Clearly, we can also look into leverage where we can, our locations of labor, whether they be in other markets, for example, in Chile, where we've got success there with our modeling team and also within Philippines, as I mentioned before. So, the adjusted EBITDA position of AUD 485 million is a great result. And as I've said, we're confident that these cost savings will be ongoing within the business as we transition going forward. Notably, as Jason mentioned, our monthly results for November and December, we achieved adjusted EBITDA positive outcomes. And again, excited for seeing that to continue, albeit as we note, I mentioned earlier that we had a very successful and strong Q2 in terms of our project revenue. And we anticipate that, that Q2 non-recurring or project revenue run rate will continue into H2. In summary, we talk about pathway to profitability. We've spoken about this at our earlier briefings. I think from what we're talking about for adjusted EBITDA and the cost savings that we've now embedded within the business across our combined supplier and headcount, we anticipate that, that trend will continue. When we look at our operating activities and the cash flow impact there, again, as we transition our expectation is on a longer-term perspective that we would expect free cash flow to transition on a period of around 5 to 7 months post operating activity -- sorry, post adjusted EBITDA coming into profitability. So, we see that lag represented by the cost impact of our capitalized development costs. As mentioned earlier, our region in the Americas, again, very strong growth there in terms of what we're experiencing in ARR. And also pointing out that we've also continued to have strong growth within each of our regions, including APAC and EMEA. But we see the Americas as being a significant opportunity for us to expand our footprint there. On the product side, we're highlighting here aviation. And of course, aviation represents one of the more significant revenue streams for the business of over 60%. And so we're seeing that growth in aviation, certainly in the ARR side as being a real contributor to some of our revenue growth as we push into H2 and beyond. From a cost management and an approach that we take, it is certainly a significant focus of the executive and of the company more globally. And we're all pursuing the strategic objective of being -- or transitioning into adjusted EBITDA positive during FY '23. And Jason, I'll hand back to you.

Thank you, Justin. And really good numbers. And I think as a company, we're very proud of those numbers. And certainly from the invest, as you can see that we've continued to build the business out, invest in the sales and marketing and product to make sure that we're looking at the future and capturing value that's out there as well as in driving the right financial parameters. So, I think that's a really good achievement from -- internally from us and your team as well as the broader regional team and product team. So, excellent work on that. If we look now at our strategy that we set about 18 months ago, we had 4 key pillars around this growth, product and customer and scale. And internally, we're driving through not only some transformational parts within the business, but day-to-day operational parts. We got lined up and we're driving this term, OKRs, objectives and key results with inside the company. But if you look at the linking strategy to results, I wanted to bring this slide up just to say this is top of mind for us. This is top of mind as a company and we're driving continuously towards improving each one of these metrics. So, on the growth side, our key metric here is ARR, and that's the number that's really important for us as a business. So, to achieve AUD 56.9 million with a strong outlook for the second half. And beyond that, we think this is a great position to be in, the first half. Product, we have continued to innovate into our products. And this is not only our capability and features, but also new modules and carbon emissions, which is coming through and solving and unique problem to SeweX, which effectively didn't exist as a product at all 12 months ago are now being rolled out into North America, into Europe and also here into Australia. But the product mix is important fabric to the company as well. And so achieving that 51.4% gross profit is an incredibly important milestone for us, but one that will continue to work through what is the right product offering to improve that gross profit. From a customer part, validation, not just of sites, but the quality of the sites that we're adding in. So, 436 client sites around the world are using our technology. And that's an incredibly proud part that I am and also for our staff that we should be happy that we're solving those problems all around the sites. The customer quality, the low churn, that engagement piece is the backbone and cornerstone of why this is such a valuable company. And then scale, the last part there. Everything we're doing is driving to make sure that this is scalable and repeatable, which then gets us the result here around that adjusted EBITDA loss of AUD 0.5 million. We now have got the right structure to position us moving forward. We'll continue to make the right decisions around the company, around [indiscernible] strategy, around the way that the product and development team are aligned, how we work with the regions, how we work with our customers and underline what is that IP that we continue to build out and innovative. So, that scale part is incredibly important. So, thank you very much for joining us today on this presentation. It was honestly a great honor to be in this position and to continue to build the company out in the direction that we've taken. So, we'll happily take some questions now.

[Operator Instructions] We've had one question come in, in writing, Jason, which I'll just pose now. Considering that it's been just over a year with -- since you launched water, are you now -- where are you now relative to where you started that journey? And are you as optimistic about the outlook as you were when you launched water?

Yes. Great question. So look, water, let's [ get into ] 2 parts of that. So Plant Optimiser, as we demonstrated on that case study with Hong Kong, in that desalination and drinking water, very strong value proposition. And what we're able to do is demonstrate to our customers that path of connect up to the data sources, prove out the value in the part and then drive those operational improvements, which is driving strong ROI. So from that perspective, absolutely categorically, I think Plant Optimiser is well positioned. And the pipeline of discussions that we're now having with customers around the world is strong. Now coming back to our core strategy around our land, expand and scale, we are focused on getting those reference customers in the first 12, 18 months that we know that we can scale out that we can use as references. So, the pipeline of those opportunities is strong and we'll continue to build out those references. Going now to SeweX from Water Corp. to SA Water to Kalamazoo and Evocra in the U.S. into Paris. These are parts -- when you bring a new early product to market, you've got to go through the validation. You've got on seeing a different regional path. So from that aspect, again, we're really delighted with the way that we're engaging with the customers, we're probably more excited about what they expect out of the product and where it can go to in the future and a significant problem that they can tackle. So, with a very small sales team and let's be very mindful of that, we haven't -- we have controlled the allocation of resources into that water team. But we are now having incredibly strong discussions with utilities and private organizations around the world. So yes, we see that the outlook is strong. I think the important part is the impact that this product will have to the water industry.

We'll go to Chris Savage.

I guess the thing that stood out for me in the result was that adjusted positive EBITDA in November and December. And you obviously reiterated that the objective is to transition to a sustainable positive EBITDA during FY '23. So, are we at the point now where each month, this half, it will be positive? Or are we still fluctuating a bit between positive and negative?

Thanks, Chris. Good question. As we -- as I've highlighted, we do have or we did have a very strong Q2 for our recurring revenue coming off a slower, if you like, Q1. While we do have line of sight on where we're anticipating these non-recurring projects to unfold over the second half, there are elements, if you like, in terms of timing that may impact that. So, we're watching Q3 unfold as we talk now to see where that's looking to land for Q2 -- sorry, for Q3. I think it would be fair to say that come the end of Q3 and when we go with our sales results there, we'll provide another update at that point in time.

And Justin, you did mention free cash flow positive will sort of lag by 5 to 6 months. I think you said, so I'm guessing or thinking that the cash balance will come down from AUD 12 million at 31 December to some level at 30 June. So, where is the bottom in the cash? I'm guessing it's somewhere between [ AUD 5 million and AUD 10 million ]. Is that about right?

Well, Chris, we have got our forecast going out for a number of months. One might say years. The strategy at this point remains that we won't need to go back to capital markets for a future cap rate based on current strategy.

And just lastly, there was -- when we had the Q2 update [ rather than month ], Jason, you did mention there are a few things that perhaps slipped or there was timing that sort of pushed things into Jan-Feb, have we seen some of those projects or tenders come through in the last sort of few weeks?

Yes. So, the start to Q3 has been quite strong, Chris, and we'll continue to see that. The procurement process is the procurement process and the part, that's one side. But yes, a lot of those have come through continuing to build through. So, good strong second half.

We'll go over to Ross Barrows now.

Just a first -- just one question to kick off, I guess. It's a general question, but can you comment on what kind of rate of change you're seeing in terms of customer engagement? And maybe how much of that is the world normalizing and business getting back to normal as opposed to the differentiated products and services that you offer?

Yes. So certainly, from an aviation perspective, what we are seeing is, is a stronger discussion now happening, I guess, on 2 parts, right? So, one is the confidence to invest into the airport infrastructure, then that's either through private or government coming into it to address not on the community pressures, but the green agenda that is incredibly strong within that. The second part is, I guess, now this airspace management and we are seeing now some much stronger engagement, let's say, to start saying, well, now that we know that we're going to come back to even higher than pre-pandemic levels, 3% higher. What do we need to do with that airspace change. So, the discussion probably moved up a level now and I think that's our technology leadership position as well as in the macro [ guidance ]. In mining and industrial, Ross, it is definitely very strong, and we've got interest all around the world at the moment for this solution. And we have -- previously, we were probably operating in the existing infrastructure, now companies are coming to us in the planning stage, so that's bringing that problem statement much further forward. And so we're also getting references and that's somewhat of the early start of that viral effect moving through.

Just a quick one, potentially for Justin. So Slide 21, when you're looking at that ARR chart that you've got, you're showing the annualized first half and then you're showing the AUD 56.9 million. The AUD 6.7 million that you show there of new sites, one pending start, can you just clarify and remind I guess the time frame in which you expect that to convert into ARR, so pending yes, but what's the reasonable, the average time frame that it actually converts into ARR?

Look, with the sites pending, pending going live, number of factors that impact that. In some cases, it's customer driven. So, a customer may put our solution or have that solution in place for a facility that is in progress, being built. And in some instances, the customer is up and ready to go. Case in point would be Melbourne Airport, for example, with some of the work that they are undertaking for the third runway base level testing, for example. So, we're seeing that coming on quite quickly and under -- certainly under a 3-month time frame. Some of the investments that we made on our water product, what we were looking at there is our ability to bring that product into our customer much quicker based on information that the customer may have for the purpose of our loading it on to platform. So, them having their model. But significant inroads being made there where we had recent example of that being done in under 4 weeks. So, we're seeing a varying nature of time frames. On the aviation piece, clearly a little bit longer because of the need to put our monitors, have them installed and located in the right part of the airport, so -- and surround. So, we're saying that, that could be a position of -- that could be a 4-month lag. But where we can, we certainly shorten that in line with customer expectations. So, Ross, it does vary a little bit. But certainly, on the water side, what we're really excited about as a SaaS-only solution, the ability to bring that online quicker is certainly proving to be successful.

Let's go to [ George ].

Congratulations again. Just wanted to sort of understand the growth in the Aviation business and the way it sounds like the clients are engaging with you guys, which might be a bit different than what it was previously. Are you sort of sensing that like the addressable market that's growing relative to how you've previously seen it as the customers sort of might -- you might be getting a different customer base or they might be sort of engaging with you in a different way for a longer period of their journey. And if that's the case, then how are you guys thinking about the growth profile of that business? Because obviously, the -- it had previously been flatter growth relative to Omnis and Water, but it's been a good half.

Yes. Look, good question, George. So absolutely, the [indiscernible] does change and it evolves it gets bigger. And I think what you'll do is you'll continue to see rapid evolution in the aviation sector around the airspace change. You look at the [indiscernible] that we've spoken about, you look at the industrial drones coming in, you look at the airspace management, there's lots of areas of change coming through here. So, that's something we'll continue to evaluate and monitor and provide the right update at the right time. In relation to the overall confidence, yes, you're right, that has picked up, and we do not see that slowing down, that will continue to grow through. So, we're very happy with where aviation now has come back to since COVID has effectively been moved on in relation to the aviation sector.

And then my only other question was sort of just thinking about the cost base of the business and where you're investing. I mean, I would have thought that there might have been a little bit of over-investment in water relative to its current revenue as an investment for growth, which might be sort of affecting the profitability of the business a little bit. So, is that correct? Or is most of the sort of R&D that sits in water getting capitalized and that sort of the base of the business that sort of set and now it's just sales growth. I guess, just trying to understand the leverage in the business and the 2 more established businesses versus the water.

Yes. So, I'll go first and then maybe you jump in. So look, we set out a strategy on water to build a product that would get market traction and with -- in relative terms, still a small product and development team and certainly a small sales and marketing team in that one. But we wanted to get certain milestones, certain reference customers in that one. So, I would say we've been very controlled with the allocation of headcount. The priorities that we set, the realistic time line of what we can do within that road map and trying to push the boundaries as much as you can. Let's be honest, this is a groundbreaking technology. So no, I think we've controlled it in line with the levers that we've got from aviation and on this, which obviously represents 98% of the company. But you'll start to see, I think, more pull through. And importantly, that revenue can turn on quickly, as Justin was talking about all of the service for water, for high gross margin and the positive impact that then has to the business in the coming halves.

Yes, okay, because that doesn't really affect the cost base when you see that pull-through starting to come through up or down.

The only comment that I'd add to that is certainly the focus on water is going to -- will certainly continue. And what we see is the -- our expected gross margin on that particular product set has been particularly high. So, we're confident that the investment that we're making now in getting that streamlined product to market is going to be very important. I think it's also worth noting that we've also made investment in Omnis and what that is a platform can contribute to both what customer needs are today and also as we talk with our sales team and think through what the market requirements are, what that product road map looks like as we move forward in terms of our addressable personas that we're focusing on.

We'll take one last question, that's come from John. He is asking [indiscernible] companies that are taking solutions in-house. You mentioned a company that's gone in-house. And how concerned are you? How prevalent is that? And how does that work exactly?

Let me go -- so look, this is incredibly rare. And it's part of an Asian country, that's happening to -- so we don't see this as an early indicator. We only differentiated service offering broadly speaking. So, don't see that as an issue.

Very good, sorry about that. We managed to finally get it on mute. That brings us to a close, Jason, perhaps some concluding comments, and then we'll wrap it up.

Yes. Thanks. Look, I think the first half results are fantastic and absolutely sets us up for a strong second half and moving forward, as Justin said, we've got cash in the bank, we can execute to the plan and move forward. So, I think from our customers, we thank our customers, first and foremost, for trusting us and investing into us and paving the future forward. I thank the staff around the world for all of the additional effort that they've gone to. I think it's an incredibly exciting part of time to be in Envirosuite. And then the transformation that we've gone through over the last 2 years gives us this confidence and this ability and then we've earned that not only through the customer acquisition but through the financial parts that we have got the right platform, we've got the right company to really move forward and certainly to investors, thank you for joining today. And as always, follow us, reach out, have a look on social media, look at us on LinkedIn. We certainly do send a lot of information around new customers and what we're doing around the world. But it's been a really good result. So, thank you very much for tuning in and we look forward to giving you future updates from the Q3 sales update and also the full year later on.

One last comment. This -- as you're all aware, the presentation has been recorded and will be made available later today via our website. So, if you or any of your colleagues have missed, feel free to download and watch it. We'll be watching the number of downloads from that site. So, thanks very much.

Thank you.