Huddlestock Fintech AS ($HUDL)

Hello, everyone. And welcome. My name is Leif Arnold Thomas. I'm the Group CEO of Huddlestock. And together with me today, I have Sabine Merky, who is the Group's CFO. I have Oyvind Hovland, who is the Chairman of the Board; and also Simon Lange, who is CEO of AVL and GIGA Broker. I will have this presentation done for 30 minutes, and we will try to keep it in 25 minutes so that we have also some time for some Q&A to the end of the meeting. And if you have questions, you have this button on top where we can type in your questions. So with that said, let's start. It's an honor for me to be able to be here today and present the Q1 results for 2026. And as I normally do, I'll do the same this time. I think it's natural to start with some highlights from the quarter we have left in the Q1. Actually, the focus is and has been, of course, to focus on commercial development. And during that quarter, we were able to sign up a new customer in Germany, Modern Finance Nation, who will launch the products in the autumn. Also building the ecosystem, we signed a strategic cooperation agreement with a company called XENIX. And XENIX are providing ETF data services, that will be available for our B2B customers. Also talking about the commercial activities and sales. After the quarter that was in May, we signed up 2 new LOIs, both of them with German companies. The 1 is a B2B company that are focusing on risk management and price protection solutions, which is a perfect fit to what we have to offer. And the other 1 is a company that really would like to come soon into the market using our white-label solution. And that's great since it was released and launched in April. So that went fast. Also, we are working with all our eco partners and we do have coordinated market communication with the experts in the quarter, which also is an example of how we are using the ecosystem and our partners to attract new customers and get also the message from our side and our value proposition, also what is out there in the market for interested parties. At the same time and in parallel, first with the Investment-as-a-Service area, we are now working hard on the consulting business. We have set some targets for 2028, where we have said that we were aimed for reaching NOK 100 million in top line and with an EBITDA margin of 20%. And we stand behind that objective still. And on the short term, we are also happy to see that our long-lasting financial services clients, that means big banks and big financial institutions have also renewed a contract with us during this quarter. So a lot of energy and a lot of good progress when it comes to commercial development in the first quarter. Huddlestock has a European ambition and strategy. And as you all know, we have our base in Germany. And Germany is a very interesting new market for us. It's big. There's a lot of things happening here. We see that now from '24 to '25, the market is growing significantly. And what is very interesting for us that provides innovative savings and investment solutions is that it is the younger ones who are driving the growth. So if we look at the market growth, very much of that is driven by younger people. And that's a perfect fit with our solutions. That is exactly meant for also the coming generation and investors that are looking for modern and innovative solutions. The German investors are conservative, and we see that ETF and mutual funds are a very important part of the products and the securities. They are asking for and investing in. At the same time, we see now that there are different government initiatives that also will drive the market. As we have seen in many other European markets as well, the government is now giving incentives for taking care of long-term savings and especially when it comes to retirement savings. And we expect that this will grow the market even more. And as in other markets, and that will happen here in Germany as well, is that the new money will very much come in from those tax wrapped incentive models driven by government. And then in this space, a big market, a growing market, a market that is growing basically and very much driven by young people, supported by the government, we find ourselves in a very good place with our white label solution that can meet demand for solution that is possible to provide to the end investors. So this is the background where we are. We have a platform, and it's built around our license we have to offer services. We connect our ecosystem partners together with our license. And together, we can provide a solution to our B2B customers, meaning that they are not -- it's not necessary for them to invest heavily in systems, to apply for the license, et cetera, et cetera, they can just come to us and have everything in place and we will organize everything for them. So in that sake, we will be in the middle of those [indiscernible] with our services, and we are attractive, and we see that also from the ecosystem partners, that they perceive and see also as an interesting partner because we can also make their products and services available for the customers. So this is a platform we are very happy to work around, and we see that there are strong incentives from all sites here to go it further. And that's also why Huddlestock is enlarged from the time to time when I presented. And as you can see here on the right-hand side, we have now put in at least 2 new signed LOIs as potential new B2B customers. So it grows. GIGA Brokers, that is one of the most exciting things we are working on. And in June, the solution is ready for release. And that is a big milestone for us because that means that the solution is then moving from a test environment to a live environment. And that is a shift where also all the responsibilities from our side is valid because then we are moving from test information, test use cases until real assets and real money. Doing that, we will, of course, then start to extend the user groups. And at some point, we'll gradually start also the launch phase. We are extremely proud of the platform. I must say that. I'm extremely proud of the platform. But with a platform with a lot of capabilities, it is also very, very important to have full control. This is a complex solution, and it's very important that when we go into a live environment, everything from technology, user experience, products, information from information providers, tax, et cetera, must work well together and make [indiscernible] And that is what will happen from June is that in a live environment and full control, we will start then to make sure that everything here are working fine. But that is a big milestone for us and demonstrates also how we are moving forward but with full control. Remember that we have the license and are under supervision from the German BaFin, and it is important for all parties here that everything is working smoothly. So with that said, perhaps I can ask you, Simon, to share a few of your perspectives.

Yes. Okay. Thank you very much, Leif. I'm Simon, the CEO of GIGA and AVL. I would like to briefly provide an update from GIGA's perspective regarding the joint project with Huddlestock. Over the past months, it has become increasingly clear to everyone involved that we are not building a traditional app or stand-alone brokerage solution. Together, we are establishing a modern European investment infrastructure with significant regulatory, logical and operational complexity. Projects of this scale naturally require strong foundations, close coordination and careful execution. Like many others involved, we would, of course, have preferred a more -- move even faster in certain areas. However, from GIGA's perspective, it has been extremely important to build the platform correctly from the beginning, together with Huddlestock and all involved partners. Our shared ambition is not simply to launch quickly but to establish a stable, skeletal and strategically important platform with long-term potential. As the project continues to mature, the strategic value of the partnership becomes increasingly clear to us. For GIGA, one of the most attractive aspects is gaining early access to a modern European investment architecture that combines regulated brokerage infrastructure, custody, and over time, also new opportunities with digital and tokenized assets. We believe this combination creates a highly compelling offering initially for the German market, but also with significant potential beyond Germany over time. At the same time, I fully understand that investors are eager to see progress and commercialization. Parts of our own family are already invested in Huddlestock as well. So we naturally follow the development closely ourselves and understand both the expectations and the level of engagement from the investors community. Leif; Robert, the CEO of Huddlestock, Germany; and I, remain in close and continuous dialogue with a strong share focus on strengthening the collaboration, optimizing the processes, and continuously increasing execution speed across the project. Over the coming months, we expect to move through a controlled rollout phase, including selected user onboarding, live operational testing, feedback collection and final product adjustments. From GIGA's current perspective, we are planning for a broader commercial market launch during September. We are very excited about the next phase of the project. But most importantly, we look forward to building a successful long-term business together with Huddlestock and creating strong results for both companies and their shareholders. Thank you very much. I hand over to you, Leif, back.

Thank you very much, Simon, for sharing these thoughts with us. Okay. Let's continue. In the Q4 reporting in February, we said that we were going to launch our white label solution in April. And so we did. We were doing that as in combination with the so-called 5B Conference in Berlin in mid of April. And it's therefore very good to see. I'm very, very proud of that, actually. But already now in May, we have the first LOI signed with a customer on that solution. Of course, it needs to turn out to a final agreement. But it's a strong signal about that our value proposition and our product in the market is something that is well received and it's something that the market wants. As I started to say in the summary of the Q1, we are working on the commercial side and in different channels. And that is from the LinkedIn and Web and social media area is, of course, about the personal networks from colleagues here in Germany. We are working through our ecosystem partners. And of course, the participation of different conferences is important as well. What is interesting, and I would just like to share it is that we have our idea of the typical main customers for our white label solution. But what we see when we talk to potential customers, we can see that the product is also usable for every areas. As for example, this LOI that I talked about earlier, whether the product easily can be used also when it comes to securing prices and risk protection, et cetera, then it's just about to use other instruments in the solution. And we also experienced that the barriers that come into this market are high. And especially then on the regulatory side, but also when it comes to time. And this market is moving fast. So to be able to use our solutions without all the time to apply for a license and the cost that comes with that, we feel that we are in a good position. Then back to our consulting business. And we confirm again that we are aiming for 2028 objectives that we presented last year, and that is a top line of NOK 100 million and with an EBITDA margin of 20%. We see and we work structurally with sales, both on the short-term sales with a more typical consulting business. But now also with the Cloud solution, where we take more responsibility for the deliveries and larger contracts, more long-term contracts, that is where we need to succeed in order to reach our goals. We also see that we are then in space, where we also need to do some improvements when it comes to certifications, et cetera. That is in place, and we already are in several very interesting processes with the potential customers, primarily outside the Nordics, which is, of course, spot on to also an important part of our strategy to grow outside the Nordics. To be able and to be ready to start to deliver, we have already also set up a structure based in Poland so that we can have access to and competence and capacity at an attractive cost when that comes -- that time comes. With government is over the years, especially when focused on system called Calypso, but also when it comes to the related hirings, it has been important for us to make sure that we also have competence on other large and well-known third-party treasury systems. So we are moving out or preparing out of the Nordics, we have done everything ready when it comes to capacity. And we are also now able to deliver on more treasury systems than historically. So we are confident that we are on the way to our ambitious targets for 2028. Then Sabine, I will give the word to you.

Well, yes, we've now left 2025, that has been a transitional year and had, as we all remember, a lot of different impacts on reported figures. So now looking at the figures, we can actually fully compare the first quarter in '26 through the last quarter in '25. And because already in the last quarter in '25, there were none of the divested units included any longer. And if we look at that the revenue, the NOK 11 million were completely in line with the loss that both quarters were in line with each order and the revenue here consists mainly of Visigon. When it comes to the cost side, we've now approached a more normalized and stable level. We have decreased both personnel and other operating costs by NOK 3 million compared between the quarters. And by that, we actually end up with an EBITDA that has improved by more than 30%. Going forward, we expect further cost reductions that will affect especially other operating expenses. And when we look at the non-operating items, so the depreciation of the net financial items, we now see also a leaner cost base after we reached a normalized level following the transactions from last year. So all-in-all, we can now see that we are definitely moving to a more sustainable cost base. Okay. I think we can go on to the cash. The cash flow development in the first quarter. We started the quarter with NOK 4.6 million in cash, as you can see here. And the cash burn from operations was mainly driven by group functions and our EIS division in Germany. So that means by the investment in the expansion of the EIS business. The investment activities are now down to a non-material level and completely in line with our asset-light model. When it comes to the net financing cash flows, they reflected the net borrowing on our loan facility in the period, so during the first quarter. And at quarter end, actually, we secured an additional facility of NOK 10 million in order to strengthen our liquidity going forward. And this gave us a total of almost NOK 14 million in available liquidity reserves now entering the second quarter. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Sabine. Then so to sum up and looking forward, we are working hard and continuously on the commercial expansion in Europe. Of course, the most important right now is to work closely together with GIGA and our other partners in that project to make sure that we have a successful release in June and then rather they can start the launch phase. We will continue with working on sales activities along the different areas I have mentioned, and we have still an ambition to make the business area in the EIS areas, cash positive within late 2026. On the consulting area, we will continue to work along the lines and the strategy to reach the target of 2028, which we confirm we are still aiming for, and we have good processes on that. And what is important from the consulting business is then to have new customers outside the Nordics, because they are both normally larger, but also that represent this new market for us. So we will continue to do whatever we can to improve utilization and be active in the market, to improve even more interest and be coming into sales processes and of course, to utilize our resources as good as possible at the same time. So that's the most important for me to say when we look forward. And with that said, we have come to the Q&A session.

The ones that will be able or not able that will be here to answer questions is myself, Sabine and Oyvind. So now I'll stop the sharing of the presentation. And ask you, Sabine, or Oyvind if there has come in some questions here.

I can actually not see any questions so far.

That's the same with you, Oyvind?

I will try to refresh, but no questions.

Okay. If -- then let me say, if there have been something going wrong here that makes these questions not being visible to us, please send them to us, and we will respond to you, because that's the idea that we will respond to your questions. And if no questions, then the message has been very clear. That's very good. But as I said, if you have then type any questions, and when we cannot see it, please send it to us.

Leif, there has come in a question now through the chat. Will all 65,000 customers for GIGA go-live in June? That is the question.

And the answer to that is, no. What will happen in June is that we will turn the solution from a test environment to a live environment. And we will, at that point, start to increase the number of users use the group of that system. And as I mentioned in my presentation, it's a lot of things that need to be worked good together. And we are in a live situation, and we need to make sure that we have full control of all these areas working well together. So it's in both the Huddlestock's interest and in the GIGA Broker's interest to make sure that the process is taking well care of and under full control. That is fully natural. And then from that point, we will gradually move to a launch phase. And then as Simon has said, they plan then to have a full public launch phase in September. But the launch will happen gradually. And also just to make it clear, these 65,000 customers of AVL, they will be introduced and we'll do marketing up on them to use the app and the new system, but they will not be onboarded, everybody that is not how it will be. But that will be a very good base for the customers onboarding on the GIGA Broker app.

There are no more questions so far.

Okay. Then I will again say thank you very much, everybody, for participating. Thank you very much for being shareholders in Huddlestock. I am excited about where we are and where we're heading. Thank you to Simon for sharing your perspectives from your side, and it's very good for me and hopefully also for the audience to see that both Huddlestock and GIGA are very well aligned when it comes to the path going forward. And if, as I said, any questions, send e-mail to me or reach out, and we will always answer them as good as possible. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. See you soon. Bye.