Pureprofile Ltd (PPL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
February 26, 2025
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
George Kopsiaftis
executiveWe progress today. This morning from Pureprofile, we have the CEO, Martin Filz. Good morning, Martin.
Martin Filz
executiveGood morning, George. Good morning, everybody.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveAnd the CFO, Melinda Sheppard. Good morning, Melinda.
Melinda Sheppard
executiveGood morning, George. Good morning, everyone.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveThe format for today is for Martin and Melinda to walk you through the presentation that was released to the ASX this morning. That presentation should take probably around 20 to 25 minutes. This will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please click on the Q&A tab in the ribbon below and type your question into the box provided. This briefing is being recorded, and a copy will be made available on the Pureprofile website. From my end, that completes the housekeeping for today, and I'd now like to hand it over to Martin and Mel to get us started.
Martin Filz
executiveGreat. Thank you very much, George. And as I said, welcome, everybody. It's -- I'm pleased to have another great set of results for Pureprofile. And I think slightly differently because it wasn't long ago that we had the unaudited half results. I think this time, let's jump straight to Mel. Let's talk about the financials and the new news with the audited numbers. I'm going to hand over to Mel.
Melinda Sheppard
executiveThank you, Martin. So I do have the beautiful pleasure of going through our audited results with you. And in particular, the communicating our NPAT growth, which we were absolutely thrilled with generating an NPAT of $1.6 million for half 1 FY '25, and that was compared to a very nominal, our maiden profit in half 1 FY '24 of $41,000. So we're really pleased and very proud of our team for generating such an amazing result for the half. So we did talk about when we communicated in January, our preliminary results, our revenue results. So we obviously had an amazing first half of the year off a slightly softer half 1 in FY '24 that many of you that have been following us since that period of time may remember, particularly with our Australian business. So if we just sort of walk through those numbers again. So we generated $29.2 million worth of revenue, which was 22% up year-on-year. We had a very, very strong Q2 in this financial year with 30% revenue growth. We also had EBITDA of $3.3 million, which is 38% up. And that's actually compared to 6% growth in FY '24. So a real uplift in our growth for the half. Our EBITDA margin improved by 1 percentage point on the same prior period. And then if we look at our individual business units, so we look at our ANZ business, which includes platform, had growth of 16% versus actually it was flat in the first half of FY '24 on FY '23. Our Rest of World business that's been growing very strongly over the last couple of years where we've really been placing our investment, key pillar of our corporate strategy was up 30%, and that was compared to 22% growth on the prior year. And then our platform revenue of $6.1 million at 39% was compared to 104% growth. So we're starting to -- that growth is starting to slow down as the quantum of the platform revenue starts to get bigger. So we had revenue growth across all regions and including the U.S., Southeast Asia and India. So they are small markets that -- or small quantums of revenue in those markets, but they're growing strongly. And as I said, ANZ had a really soft quarter the prior year. And that what we've really seen in this half is the growth has really picked up again, and that's predominantly due to our i-Link acquisition that obviously contributed some revenue during that period. And then we also saw a strengthening in the market, which is fantastic. I do want to point out in the first half of the year that we did have a foreign currency gain of about $462,000. And that obviously is due to the fact that we are exposed to foreign currency variations. To give you context, we typically will invoice about 45% of our revenue in currencies outside of Australian dollars. The second biggest currency we deal with outside of the AUD is the U.S. dollar. And that means that we also have cash balances in foreign currencies. In fact, 45% of our cash balance is in currencies outside of Australian dollars. We really -- we do a really great job in managing that. We make sure that we match our expenses to our revenue as much as we can in the same currency. We take opportunities to convert currency when the exchange rate is favorable. And so from that perspective, we do everything we can to make sure that we can maximize any return on foreign currency and mitigate any downside risk from that perspective. But we were positively impacted in the half due to foreign currency gain. There are a couple of other little one-off expenses in the half as well. So we did actually have one key client in -- actually in India that had contributed a bad debt expense of about $200,000 that we took up in the half, a very small one of about $30,000 as well. And then we had a little bit of additional auditing costs related to the i-Link acquisition. So all in all, a fantastic half. So pleased to be able to share finally with you our profit number for the half. Just quickly, you've seen this slide. If you looked at our update that we did in January, again, just showing the consistent momentum that we've had over the last 4 years now and that the 4-year compound annual growth rate across all the different business units, pretty much broadly in line with how the half was. So really pleasing, just continue to see the momentum from that perspective. Just wanted to here again, just explain the uplift in the profit. So we have spent a number of years investing and reinvesting back in the business to really grow our business from a global perspective, investing outside of Australia, making targeted investments in technology and in people outside of Australia, and that's really helped us deliver this result. We've made investments in automation, and that's a really important part of our corporate strategy. We need to continue to automate our business. We need to make sure that our business continues to become more efficient. One of our key metrics that we measure is our head count costs over our revenue, and we really focus on lots of different initiatives that we can put in place in our business to make sure that we can continue to grow that operating leverage that you've seen in this half, really important. But you can see where we've come from here, too. So if I look at the same quarter back in FY '21, that was a loss -- a net NPAT loss of $3.7 million. And so if we look 4 years later, we're now making a profit. And so we're really proud of that. We've worked really hard over the last couple of years to continue to grow our top line business, make sure that we continue to make measured investments in the business. We're not investing too far ahead of the curve, and we're making sure that we can deliver that bottom line uplift. And then you can see EBIT (sic) [ EBITDA ] has gone from $1.3 million to $3.3 million over the same period. Also for the half as well, we did have lower finance expenses. We had a small income tax credit and lower share-based payments. So they significantly come down over the last couple of years. And there are a few plans that are still listing, and these are related to plans that were put in place quite a few years ago. There have been no new LTI plans put in place for the business for the last couple of years. I go to the next slide. This is just a bit of a reconciliation to EBIT -- EBITDA, sorry, to the profit or the NPAT number. So you can see here effectively all those points that I just pointed out around financing costs coming down. We did have some restructuring and acquisition costs in the prior year. Amortization expense, which does include some amortization for the i-Link assets that were put on the balance sheet at the time of completion from the 1st of July this financial year. You can see share-based payment expense coming down and a small income tax credit from that perspective. And just a snapshot of the balance sheet. You can look at the interim statements as well if you want to have a look at this in more detail and having a look at a lot of the different disclosures. So we're really pleased with our cash balance also at $5.1 million. To give you context, in the same period, I know we are comparing it here to 30 June 2024, it was $5.2 million. The 31st of December 2023, our cash balance was $4.5 million. Obviously, during that 12-month period, we've made the initial payment towards the i-Link acquisition of $625,000. And then over the last 12 months as well, in addition to the interest on our borrowings, we've also paid $100,000 off the principal of that loan as well. A couple of other key things to point out. Intangibles include -- they've jumped up to $7.5 million because they include the assets from the i-Link acquisition. That's no new capitalization, and I will get to a slide about that. Trade and other payables also has jumped up a bit, and that's because it includes the second payment, which we made on the 1st of March for the i-Link acquisition as well. So that's sitting there, that consideration is sitting there in that little in the $13.8 million amount there. And that's sort of really the key highlights. Everything else is as you would expect. We've been growing our revenue. So you're obviously going to see your trade payables or trade receivables picking up and then obviously, the revenue -- the cost that's attached to that revenue bouncing up as well. If I go to the next slide. And as I said, capital expenditure for those of you that have been following us for quite some time, effectively, this -- we've had pretty much a flat investment over the last couple of years. So we have been capitalizing the same amount. We haven't been investing any further. We're making sure that we prioritize what we spend our CapEx wallet on, and we're making sure that it's going towards initiatives that are going to help us continue to grow our business from a corporate governance perspective, our global, so growing our global revenue and particularly the investments that we made during this half were really related to some of our specialized applications with our hub, a number of API integrations and why they're important is really it helps us automate and that's a key function for our business, performance platform enhancements and then also a number of new Audience Builder integrations that we've done during the half as well. Cash flow, as I said, really pleased with the closing cash balance for the year. A really strong half for us that the EBITDA is really converting through to strong operating cash flows. The operating cash flows were $1 million higher than the same period last year. We're really pleased with that. We want to continue to see that theme within our cash flow. We want to continue to pay down our debt so that when it comes up for refinancing, that's a much smaller amount. And yes, one more final payment of the i-Link acquisition coming off from that perspective. And then just again, reiterating our financial guidance. We upgraded that when we put out the prelim results at the end of January. So as we signaled then, our revenue guidance for the full year is between a range of $57 million to $58 million. It was previously $55 million to $57 million. And then our EBITDA guidance is $5.2 million to $5.8 million, and that was previously implied at $5 million to $5.7 million. Effectively, the second half of the year is a continuation of what you've seen in the first half of the year. Just bearing in mind, Q3 is a seasonally softer month for us. We are still quite heavily exposed to the seasonality of our Australian business. So typically, January and February are a lower run rate revenue. You would expect to see the strong growth that you've seen in other months, but it's just a lot lower revenue from a lot of our Australian clients enjoying a lovely break over the January period as well. So that is it from me. And I'm going to head back just for Martin to go over some of our priorities for FY '25.
Martin Filz
executiveThank you very much, Mel. And when you see the numbers like that, it's just a great set of results that minus $3.7 million 4 years ago to plus $1.6 million NPAT now. And for me, it's -- it is that key point. You said it's a really disciplined approach to investments, ROI-based investment and consistency. And our consistency is my leadership team. It's the same leadership team that 4 years ago that I put together or was already at Pureprofile. And that is consistency of approach. The main leaders around the world, again, it's consistent, great clients that we have that we've grown into. And in addition to all of that, it's being focused on being global, technology-led to improved margins and being disciplined about being a data and insights company. And so we're seeing that consistency and that discipline now starting to absolutely pay off for the business. And I think we're seeing that tipping point of the leveraging now that high revenue growth and that margin that's flowing down into EBITDA and profit. So great result, great people, and it's the company that I knew that we could be and we're starting to be from 4 years ago. So what are we looking at the rest of the year? Well, 2 really main areas, continue to drive that growth and continue to improve the margins. So when I look at top line growth, it's especially those investments we made in for the U.K., U.S. and overseas markets to see that revenue and that growth start to pay off. And those resources, for those of you that remember that we added back in financial year '23 are now fully up to speed and bringing through clients and those clients, we've got maximum share of wallet. So that top line growth focus in those markets. And the margin expansion is coming from that automation piece that we may not be seeing all of that yet, but it's actually that focus, as Mel talked about those metrics about ROI, salary versus revenue, internal, external versus revenue, a focus on that. And so second half, no different really to the first half, focus on growth, focus on margins. And then the next slide to reiterate '26 and '27, it's the same strategy. It's -- we expect to see that international Rest of the World revenue really overtake ANZ. I think we're up to about 54% ANZ, 46% Rest of the World. That's from about 80-20 4 years ago. So that's the global expansion going into a larger addressable market, rolling out that great business that has made us #1 in Australia. So international revenue, we've seen consistent double growth for Rest of the World versus ANZ. That continues, right? You've just seen 16% versus 30%. So that's where the investment has gone. That's where the addressable market is. So we continue to see that happening. We've got a raft of new solutions coming to the market now in quarter 3. We're not going to see those really start to generate a difference till '26 and into '27, but that's where we come from that project expansion, platform revenue continued growth and that helps the margins, because if it's platform, it's at a higher EBITDA margin than if it's a managed service type business. So new solutions coming to market, we see those come through. And as I said, if we look at the right-hand side, improved margins, focus on continue that economies of scale, let's be really disciplined still on our ROI of dollars we spend and to start to absolutely track salaries, et cetera, as an example of that against revenue ratio. So those ratios, let's see those coming down and the whole business is behind that. And then externally, well, let's start to put our weight around a little bit more. So where we've got better buying power, where we've got more influence, let's see the external spend with suppliers start to come down as a ratio again against revenue. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as you grow the top line, the bottom lines grow if you continue to be disciplined, which we are absolutely going to be. And then final 2 points on this slide, continue to improve through technology, and we've talked about AI before and how AI -- we're not an AI company, but utilizing AI's business and rolling out that technology, be faster, match the quality, possibly be cheaper to grow that top line and you can grow that bottom line for the margin expansion. And then bottom left, icing on the cake. Icing on the cake is if another i-Link comes along, especially in U.S., U.K. that we're able to do potentially out of cash, icing on the cake. But we've proven organically, we can continue to grow, continue to grow into the larger addressable market, and that really is our focus for the business, top line, bottom line through the reasons I've given there. So delighted to see it paying off. These are great results again. And it's especially for all of our clients and all of our employees that hard work starting to come through the business. So delighted with those. And with that, I'm going to hand back to George, and we're open for any questions.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveGreat. Thanks, Martin. Thanks, Mel. Again, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please click on the Q&A box in the ribbon below and type your question there. The first question asks, half 1 saw 22% growth in revenue, how is momentum looking going into half 2?
Martin Filz
executiveYes. I'll talk about that a little bit, and then I'm sure Mel jump in. It's -- we've already given guidance. We're seeing continued growth levels, and we expect the year to -- if you look at guidance, the year says revenue growth will be consistent with half 1. And that's what we forecast by giving you guidance, upgraded guidance in January, and we're continuing to see that as a business. And what's really nice is again, that point where we have really low market share, U.S., U.K., Rest of the World. That makes us slightly insulated from any economic uncertainty in the world because we're eating in winning market share from competitors by doing high quality, high delivery really well into markets where we have low market share. So I'm able to say we continue to see that growth coming forward. And Mel, I don't know if you'd like to add anything.
Melinda Sheppard
executiveYes, that's right. I think just the only thing I'd add to that is, obviously, you can sort of figure out what we -- our view of what half 2 looks like. But the seasonality is a little bit different for the Q3 versus Q4. Q3, as I said, is still being impacted by the business being quite -- still quite ANZ centric. So we do see a much lower revenue run rate for the quarter, which then does impact the margin. So your margin for Q3 always dips back a little bit from what you'll see in the first half of the year. And then traditionally, seasonally, Q4 is one of our strongest quarters of the year. And as Martin said, we make investments throughout the year, and we start to really see those pay off in Q4 from that perspective. So then you'll see the margin bump up back up from that perspective. We have no new one-off investments that we'll be making in the second half of the year. So the cost base will be relatively consistent with what you've seen in the first half of the year. And I think that sort of gives guidance and helps sort of substantiate the guidance that we've put out there from that perspective. Whether or not we see another FX gain in the second half of the year, if the dollar -- the Aussie dollar weakens again against the U.S. dollar or the pound, we might get another kick from that. But I don't have a crystal ball around that. So we're not factoring in that either way.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveAll right. Great. There's actually a question here from [ Stella Wang ]. So I'll open the mic. Hi, Stella. Can you hear us? No, it doesn't seem to be working. All right. Well, I'll go back to the next question. Your EBITDA was $3.3 million for the half. Can we annualize that?
Melinda Sheppard
executiveAs I said, when I went through the slides, half 1 was positively impacted by a $462,000 or rounded up $0.5 million FX gain in the first half of the year. I would take that into consideration when you're thinking about annualizing for the full year. I think there's enough guidance there to kind of figure out what we believe will -- the second half will look like. That's why we've given that upgraded guidance. We think that's a more accurate view of where we believe the second half will end up.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveAll right. Great. Thank you. Rest of World growth, 30%. Is this growth rate expected to continue?
Martin Filz
executiveYes. Again, good question. And the simple answer is, as far as we can see, yes, that is. That's where we put our investment. That's where -- whether it's marketing dollars, running events across Europe, U.K. and in the U.S., there's a big event, for example, coming up in a few weeks in the U.S. that it's the first time we've attended and presented and had a presence at that. So that's where our investment dollars go, and they're paying off. And so as I said, that low market share, way bigger addressable market, for those of you that have been on these calls in the journey, 14x bigger U.K. market, 44x bigger U.S. market than Australia, and that's where we're seeing the growth, and that's where we put our money to. So I'm not seeing anything that today says that, that growth rate will slow down, and I'm not seeing anything that says that ratio of ANZ to Rest of the World growth rate slows down.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveAll right. Great. Thanks, Martin. Question around your cash. Where do you expect the cash to end up at the end of the fiscal year?
Melinda Sheppard
executiveI'll take that one. Thanks, George. So we've -- as I signaled in the second half of the year, we've got the second payment or the second and final payment of the i-Link acquisition. Due to that fact, obviously, that will impact our cash balances over the second half of the year. Look, we would conservatively expect that the cash balance would be slightly up on where we ended at the 31st of December.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveI'm just trying to get Stella again. Stella, are you there?
Unknown Analyst
analystCan you guys hear me?
George Kopsiaftis
executiveYes, we can.
Martin Filz
executiveWe can.
Unknown Analyst
analystOn my screen, the Q&A and chat were both disabled. Just 2 questions, please. Firstly, on the annuity revenue, it's now at $13.2 million, up from $10.4 million at June reporting. What's driving that? It's quite a bit of a step up.
Melinda Sheppard
executiveI'm happy to take that. So what we include in that annuity revenue is ongoing license fees. So that's where we have clients signed up to some of our technology platforms where they're paying ongoing license fees. But in addition to that, the other key portion of that annuity revenue is ongoing projects that we do for clients. So what we call them multi-period studies or tracker studies. They're kind of the holy grail of our industry because it's a lovely wonderful ongoing revenue stream where clients may be doing something such as NPS studies or brand awareness studies or ad effectiveness studies, and they might do it over a very long period of time, and it can be anywhere from 12 months to 5 years. So they're very sticky revenue. Once you get them, they typically stay with you. And we're very fortunate that we continue to win more of those types of studies. And once we get those studies on board, we make sure that we do a really great job of managing them as we do with everything. It's a key part of our value proposition is that we have a great sales team. We have a great operations team that really deliver well to our clients, and that makes our clients want to continue working with us. And so that's a key portion of it. So obviously, as the revenue grows, we bring more clients on board. Clients will give us more longer-term studies because they're used to the quality of the business and the work that we do for them. So that's the rationale for that. And we're very good at it too.
Unknown Analyst
analystYes, of course. It sounds like the second type, the ongoing projects are doing quite well lately. My second question is for a few months, you guys have flagged that supplying data to AI companies as direct clients is potentially a new revenue stream. So it's been a little bit. Just wondering if you want to give some examples of that? How is that going? Because last few months, you do hear talks in the AI world about running out of data for further enhancing large language model development. Just wondering how Pureprofile, how your offering would fit into that landscape?
Martin Filz
executiveYes, a really good question and really good point, Stella. And that's absolutely right. When you go into ChatGPT or DeepSeek or whatever you use as individuals, that -- those answers and that data has to come from somewhere. And first-party data, us having audiences around the world is a high-quality, high delivery point of reference and point of information and training for those large language models, those OpenAI, Gemini, et cetera, which are the companies that run those. And so for us, it's a natural transition to then say, well, hang on a second, I've got audiences. And I already am answering insights type questions. How can I transition those audiences to actually also do training for LLMs and it's a brand-new revenue stream. And so a couple of the releases, one particularly that we have coming out in this quarter, it will actually be in March, is one of our first steps to dip a toe in the water of actually being able to introduce our data sets and our accurate high-quality data sets to LLMs. And so it's a release we got coming out in March. We will then start to have those conversations. And that's why I've talked about new solutions being potentially an impact in '26, '27. We're not going to see a sudden jump. We -- we're 25 years old this year in being in the data and insights space, but we're new to working with the LLM. So we need to introduce ourselves, build our brand, let them try things out, have the high trust of quality. And so I'm not expecting a sudden jump into these new solutions. We're unknown in that space. But I feel that it's a natural step for us. And as an example, I look at other companies who are today working in that LLM space. And fundamentally, their businesses aren't any different to us. They have people around the world who can answer questions for LLM training. We do exactly the same thing. We just happen to historically have had those people answer surveys or share data. Let's have a slight switch. So I'm excited about that. I would rather everybody doesn't ask me every single quarter how is the LLM training revenues going. But thanks for that, Stella. I would like that. But let's just -- let's evolve that and grow that in the market rather than expectations of a sudden jump. But yes, it's a new vertical, new set of clients for us.
Unknown Analyst
analystCan I just clarify, it's not data labeling you're talking about, it's answering questions and obviously, you get more details once it's launched.
Martin Filz
executiveThe ultimate plan is it's actually all of that, Stella. So it is data labeling that our audiences will be able to assist LLMs with, point one. So that's, I want 10,000 photographs of Golden Retrievers as an example, so that the engine is able to then give back images, et cetera, or descriptions of Golden Retrievers. So that's data labeling. The second thing, then I've got a real richness of data that I'm able to either already have from my audiences or ad hoc, actually LLMs could come to the audiences and enrich their own training data by asking further questions. Doesn't necessarily mean surveys, but actually means I've already got a data set, let me now understand electric vehicles in the data set. So that's second point. And then I think the third point is where our absolute focus run is all of that will be technology-led. So I want to see that just purely through technology, it's through automation. It then brings ease of use for the LLMs. It actually brings a higher margin for us and potentially, it disrupts the space a little bit. So all of that with our main focus on being technology-led company will be new technology solutions and peer-to-peer working rather than any managed service in that. So there's 3 points. But we'll talk about that more as we move through the solutions. Literally, I've got a core solution that comes out in March that enables me to start to think about how we work with LLMs. I then have a little bit of adaption to do. So it's early days, but I'm excited about it.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveIt seems like some people might be having a problem with the Q&A box. If you are and you'd like to ask a question, feel free to click on the raise hand and I'll open your mic. Finola Burke. Finola, would you like to ask your question?
Finola Burke
analystYes. Thanks so much, George. And congratulations, Martin and Mel and John, fantastic result. I had a couple of questions. Just I know it's probably difficult because you have integrated i-Link so well into the business. But I wondered if you could give a little bit of a sense of what its contribution was to revenue and EBITDA for the quarter -- sorry, for the half, I should say. And then Martin, you have touched on a little bit of this, but you've made a lot of investment into platform, and it is a much higher revenue -- much higher margin revenue stream for you. What are you seeing in terms of client -- existing client uptake? Or is it mostly new clients that are tracking to it? And do you anticipate that at some point, platform is going to become the largest part of the business?
Martin Filz
executiveYes, good -- 2 good questions. I think if we hold the i-Link one and Mel can perhaps do the i-Link one, and let me talk about platform for a second. I think automation is -- we've seen it in every industry. And it's generative AI and what AI has done is it's made automation simpler, and it's also made companies think about innovation more than they used to because I'm able to do things faster. And we're no different to that. And so for us, we've always had that technology up as our second pillar of our 3-pillar strategy, grow globally, technology and then data and insights. And so AI has just enabled us to accelerate that. It's always been a focus. And for us, as a company, and when I look forward and we talked about '26, '27, managed service still makes up a large part of our business. And you're not overnight going to replace that with technology and technology solutions. However, they do add a greater margin. It gives you scale, which you don't have through managed service. I can add more easily 10, 20, 100 clients than I can through managed service where I maybe need to add people. So it's a no-brainer. It's a higher EBITDA margin. It's a no-brainer. And what we're also seeing and why I started this conversation about generative AI, we as a company might be absolutely technology-led, but it doesn't matter if your clients aren't able to plug into you. And the other big benefit we're now seeing is our clients are accelerating their technology and their innovation. So actually, we're getting to the stage where clients are catching up to us and able to plug in directly to our data sources. And that's one of the reasons why we've seen that platform growth is we now have more clients who are working peer-to-peer with Pureprofile and suppliers working peer-to-peer with Pureprofile. And we are just going to see that start to grow. And then when I look at the new solutions that we're rolling out, the new solutions for Pureprofile 10 years ago would have been different processes or different solutions around managed service. All of the new products we're rolling out today are technology-led typically, it's annuity revenue and it doesn't touch the size when I think about people. And for us, that is a natural way to go. It's not a pivot. It's not a conscious way of reinventing the organization. It is a natural evolution because as one of our Board members says, the whole world is more technologized than it was, and we're just leaning into that. But yes, biggest driver is our clients have now caught up to the technology of Pureprofile, which is great to see.
Melinda Sheppard
executiveI'll answer the i-Link one. So we're not treating i-Link as a separate CGU in the accounts because it's predominantly been integrated into a Pureprofile, particularly the sales team are now part of the broader data and insights sales team within ANZ. What I can say is, I mean, we were upfront about the revenue that we inherited was around about $2.7 million. The business when we brought it on, there were lots of opportunities for us to improve the margin of that business. So for example, i-Link used to acquire quite a bit of third-party sample, which obviously is lower margin. We've been able to utilize our own Pureprofile panel and our own partner panels that we have to fulfill more of that revenue. So that's improved the gross margin for the revenue that i-Link was generating. And then we've also been able to consolidate some of the other expenses that we expected we'd get some synergies in. For example, some technology costs have been -- the duplication there have been removed. So without going into exact numbers, and it's very hard for us because we have integrated it fully into the business, we have seen that a portion of the -- obviously, the revenue uplift, particularly in Australia is related to the i-Link acquisition and then also a portion of the improvement in EBITDA margin is related to being able to improve the margin on that revenue as well, if that makes sense. We're thrilled. It's actually performed better than what we're expecting. We put -- when we did the acquisition, we put a range of scenarios to our Board regarding that. And we have seen, as I said, seen the opportunities for synergies being realized in 6 months, which we're thrilled with.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveAll right. There don't seem to be any other questions at this time, and it's just getting on 12:00. So Martin, I might just hand it back to you for any closing remarks you'd like to make.
Martin Filz
executiveYes. Look, it's -- thank you for all of your support. It's a great set of results. And the other thing, not only are we seeing that tipping point and that scale coming through to our NPAT result now, but where I'm also particularly excited and pleased is let's also start to see that hopefully now in our share price. And I understand CEOs are all common in saying we're undervalued. But for us, in the microcap world, it's about increasing volume. And we now have a new significant who's come on to the register and saw value in the business. And we just ran a roadshow. And as we do every quarter and every half, we see existing and new investors. And what was really different in this round of roadshow is we saw, I think, of all the meetings, 12 new funds and institutions that we've never seen before as Pureprofile. Now I've been doing this Pureprofile for 4 years and we're not seeing this funds. And I said to them at the end, as I do to everybody why. And they said, well, you're still under $100 million market cap, which microcaps are. Once you hit that magic number, more funds can invest. But you tick lots of boxes now. You tick the revenue growth box. You tick the EBIT -- EBITDA margin expansion growth. You tick the addressable market, good Australian story growing internationally and now you are NPAT positive. And you tick box for us. You might be small, but you tick boxes that those are the sorts of investments that we look at. And look, then it's not going to happen overnight. But we're now starting to be on the radar of new funds, new institutions. And so somebody a couple of years ago said to me just keep doing a great job, keep growing the business, keep improving the fundamentals and the market will eventually catch up. And I'm potentially starting to see that. So after everybody investing and supporting us, hopefully, we start to see that breakthrough now in our share price and in our volume as well. So I'll finish on that. Thank you for everybody for joining. We're not long away now till. We're 2/3 through quarter 3. So April, we'll release our quarter 3 numbers, and you'll all see that, and we'll update the markets again. So thank you to everybody.
George Kopsiaftis
executiveGreat. Thanks, Martin. Thanks, Mel. Thanks for everyone for dialing in. That now concludes the investor briefing, and you can now all disconnect. Thank you.
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