Earnings call transcript: WithSecure Oyj Q1 2025 sees modest revenue growth

WithSecure Oyj reported its first-quarter 2025 earnings, highlighting a modest growth in revenue and strategic shifts towards European cybersecurity solutions. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains impressive gross profit margins of nearly 80% and operates with a moderate debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39. Despite a slight dip in stock price, the company remains focused on long-term growth and innovation.

Key Takeaways

• Revenue reached €203 million, with a net revenue retention rate of 103%.
• Stock price decreased by 0.22%, closing at €0.902.
• New product launches include Exposure Management and ElementsMDR.
• Strategic divestment of Malaysian entity to focus on European markets.
• Emphasis on AI-driven security solutions for Salesforce.

Company Performance

WithSecure Oyj’s performance in Q1 2025 was marked by steady revenue growth and strategic realignments. The company’s focus on European digital sovereignty and mid-market segments is in response to increasing demand for localized cybersecurity solutions amid geopolitical tensions. Key competitors in the European market include Bitdefender and ESET.

Financial Highlights

• Total Revenue: €203 million
• Net Revenue Retention: 103%
• Elements Cloud ARR Growth: 8%
• Managed Services ARR: -8% decline
• EBITDA for Elements: €900,000
• Cloud Protection for Salesforce ARR Growth: 70%

Market Reaction

The market reacted with a slight decrease in WithSecure Oyj’s stock price, which fell by 0.22% in pre-market trading. While the stock has shown resilience with a 19.15% year-to-date return, InvestingPro analysis suggests the company may be undervalued at current levels. The stock is currently trading near its 52-week low of €0.698, indicating cautious investor sentiment despite the company’s strategic initiatives and new product launches. InvestingPro subscribers have access to detailed valuation metrics and 12+ additional exclusive insights about WithSecure.

Outlook & Guidance

WithSecure Oyj projects a 10-20% growth target for its Elements Cloud Products and Services. While currently not profitable, InvestingPro analysts predict the company will turn profitable this year. The company aims for an EBITDA target of 37% and expects Cloud Protection for Salesforce to grow by 20-35%. With a healthy Altman Z-Score of 3.8 indicating financial stability, the strategic focus remains on becoming a "Rule of 30+" company by 2027, prioritizing growth over immediate profitability. Discover comprehensive analysis and growth projections in WithSecure’s Pro Research Report, available exclusively to InvestingPro subscribers.

Executive Commentary

CEO Antti Gorskell emphasized the company’s commitment to European digital sovereignty, stating, "We approach being European from the position of responsibility." He also highlighted the focus on growth, saying, "We want to invest in growth and use cash to accelerate it."

Risks and Challenges

• Geopolitical tensions could impact market dynamics and demand for cybersecurity solutions.
• The transition to a fully European-based operation may present operational challenges.
• Competition from established players like Microsoft could pressure market share.
• Economic uncertainties in Europe could affect mid-market and SMB spending on cybersecurity.
• The rapid pace of technological change necessitates continuous innovation.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about WithSecure Oyj’s European positioning and the impact of geopolitical factors. The company addressed concerns regarding cash flow and outlined its partner channel consolidation strategy, emphasizing a focus on mid-market partners. Additionally, discussions on AI development highlighted efficiency initiatives and future growth potential.

Full transcript - WithSecure Oyj (WITH) Q1 2025:

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Very good afternoon. We are WitSecure. Welcome to this quarter one twenty twenty five results release. My name is Laura Witte. I am the Investor Relations Director of WitSecure.

Today, we will have our CEO, Antti, who will present highlights of the strategy execution in the first quarter, and he will especially go through what it means to be a European cybersecurity company in today’s world and also what has happened with our partner network. After Antti, our CFO, Tom, will present the highlights in numbers and talk more about the outlook and midterm targets. We’ve had grand difficulties in updating our web site this morning, so apologies if you had to wait for the material to update. Our IT has promised to fix the problem during today, so both the interim report and this presentation will become available. We will have Q and A session at the webcast, you can put them through the link all the time.

I will take them up with the presenters at the end. So with this, welcome and welcome to the President and CEO of WitSecure, Antti Gorskell.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So thank you, Laura. So I would like to today go through our first quarter results from ’25, how we got started with the with our strategy execution this year. And we have continued our ARR growth with Elements, and we reached a fairly high ARR growth of 70% for cloud protection for Salesforce in the quarter. And like Laura promised, I would like to talk first a little bit about our strategy execution. So this has been a quarter to remember from the world political landscape point of view.

And so what we have seen happening in the quarter, it has intensified all these tariffs and continued war in Ukraine. They have intensified the discussion around European digital sovereignty and cybersecurity being a key part of that one. And when we talk with the partners and distributors, this clearly has been on the top of the agenda. And we also made a deal with a distributor in Asia Pacific, and we divested our Malaysian entity. That partner becomes a strategic distributor for WitSecure, providing European alternative for Asia, and they have a clear growth orientation in doing so.

But more importantly as well, WidSecure will be a truly European company post the transaction. All our data will be handled in Europe. All our products are developed in Europe and all our services are delivered from Europe. These are the requirements customers are having in today’s world. And so we believe this is a good thing for WidSecure as we move on.

So you probably remember from our Investor Day when we shared our partner strategy, this 2x2 matrix. And we want to focus on the partners serving the mid market. And we work directly with partners in our focus and we also consolidate some of the smaller partners under strategic distributors. So that has been our plan. So what we have done this quarter, I start with the distribution.

So we have progressed with the distribution consolidation here in Finland. We have launched distribution partnership with Ingram Micro in The U. K. So that was made public. So we have continued strengthening our distribution in France, and we have introduced new portfolio elements there.

We have agreed to launch a distribution approach to Austria during Q2. And also the whole Asia Pacific topic we have done during Q1. So the key thing for us is that we are not only consolidating our existing smaller partners to these distis, but we become meaningful for these strategic distributors. And they, of course, start onboarding new partners as they go forward and we get wider opportunity for the WidSecure portfolio. So that’s the whole thinking here why we are doing things.

The second part on the new partner agreement. So we said we want to have a top five partner approach for our key regions. So we have progressed with that one. And during quarter one, we have signed deals here in Finland that are yet to be announced. In The UK, a couple of them.

So we are working with many companies over there. So we have been sharing some of these names in LinkedIn. And generally, The UK, we are rebuilding our motion more from direct business to channel business, and that’s what we are doing in The U. K. Then interesting market for us has been Netherlands during Q1.

So we signed earlier with a company called Escrow deal to go with this mid market playbook to the market. So they’re offering the full elements with all its core security services to their mid market clients. And we signed up a new one, Reliance. There have been some questions on that in the public. Reliance is a family office owned company, and the family office consolidates multiple MSPs, which are managed service providers, and they standardize their service on with Secure.

So these are great additions to our partner portfolio. And in our business, what we do with the partners that we have the right partners that who invest in us and we invest in them, that’s the driver for the growth. So we are very much with our strategy, revitalizing our channel, and that’s what we shared with you in Investor Day as well. So that’s on the what we have done in the commercial front. And just wanted to say to you that this consulting divestment is progressing as planned.

We are closing it. We are planning to close it this quarter, but also the Malaysian entity and the related deal plans to close this quarter. So when we look at then the financials, so we have continued on the growth trend. So it’s 8% year on year compared to where we started off twelve months ago. Our net revenue retention went up a little bit, EUR203 million.

And our ARR growth from the previous quarter end has been 4% from the reported number. We wanted to also come back to our promise in the Investor Day that we give a bit more granularity on the underlying growth trend with Elements. And so this is the organic growth what we are doing, and this is definitely not just replacement of legacy software to the new one. So we clearly see new customer acquisitions here behind the partners. We see new products like exposure management and ElementsMDR becoming meaningful.

And they are a key part of this new mid market playbook that what we have term we have coined. But we had some challenges. We had some challenges that we have talked with you earlier that some of the larger customers that have been using managed service, Those have moved over to more this large company playbook in The U. K. And then we reported a decline of eight percent in the managed service.

So we wanted to give this visibility for you so that you understand what’s the organic growth behind the numbers that leads to Elements Cloud ARR growth of 8%. Tom will talk more about this division, how these numbers stack up before he dives to the numbers. And then with the work we have done with the partners and the projects during the quarter, they have required some investments. So we had an expected level of adjusted EBITDA of EUR 900,000.0 for the first quarter. So that’s on the elements side of the house.

And so when we look at this cloud protection for Salesforce, so clearly what this tells me that the value proposition that we have in a way has been validated and is creating a pull in effect from the market. So we grew 70%. That was EUR 1,100,000.0 from the previous quarter in absolute terms. And we have won several new logos during the quarter. So we have two ninety customers at the quarter end.

And we also want to report this number of customers going forward so that you can get this average ARR per customer on in average in your calculations, if that’s of interest. And just to give a flavor, Salesforce has 150,000 customers. So we have sold two ninety of them. So we are not limited by the opportunity yet here. And so we are developing this as an independent business inside with Secure.

And why we keep this quote on the strategic review is that if we come to a solution where we need to accelerate this faster, then we consider these options. But so far, the growth rate has been quite satisfactory. 70 is quite decent for anybody to report. So that we are really happy with the progress here. And this meets all the rule of expectations with flying colors.

And it’s quite interesting to see how this is modeled as a stand alone business. We, by the way, made accidentally profit during first quarter. That’s not our plan. Our plan is to, of course, invest in the growth. And but I think but we made that one.

That was unintentional. And but maybe with this one, Tom, I would hand over to you. Thank you

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: very much, Antti. Good afternoon from my part as well. Tom Jansenmann, the CFO of Itsecure. So if we start a little bit about this, as Antti mentioned, we wanted to kind of give a little bit more color around our cloud ARR. And here you can see how it’s kind of divided up into different categories.

So we have this element software and code security services ARR that we mentioned as one bucket. And then we have our managed service business as a secondary. And that’s the way we give the information going forward in terms of our cloud ARR. Of course, we have some smaller revenue streams than in other products, and cloud protection for Salesforce have their own ARR. And we still, of course, in Q1 have this discontinued operations that you can see in our financial reporting still in this quarter.

But then if we look at shortly the numbers, still as said, the Elements Cloud ARR grew 8%. But within that, then this first category of with elements software and code security grew 14%. So that continues on a strong path. And notable also as Antti partially mentioned was that our new products that we launched in Sphere last year, exposure management and the elements MDR are really growing very quite nicely for us. And the time to revenue and meaningful revenue has been probably the shortest in a very long time in the company history.

So there we have managed to do some improvements also.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: Faster than incline protection?

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: Yes. So that’s good. Of course, in the managed services ARR, we have a decline of 8%. A lot of that has to do with large companies that has been also partially acquired at the acquisition that was done earlier some years ago, and they have moved on with the bigger large company strategy, so to say. The NRR was 103%, so it improved a little bit.

But of course, there’s work to be done there over the years and that over the year and we are something one of the focus areas also as part of our strategy execution this year and onwards. On premise declined very much as we have planned and also I’m sure those who have followed us knows that this is kind of what we expected. And our EBITDA then on the Elements company side was 900,000 in Q1. We have done a little bit of investments also in our sales and marketing and so on. So that of course for the time being is taking a little bit of EBITDA, but we’ll see that we continue on the path of scaling this company as we go forward.

Then on the cloud protection for Salesforce, really nice Q1, I would say. We kept the momentum. Q1 is always a bit tricky because also the sales force have their own year end in January. So it tends to slow things down, but we still kept them we’re able to keep a decent growth also looking at even Q4 and so on. And we continued win both new customers, but we also have nice expansion wins.

As we have previously said, this is a very much a land and expand product. And you can see it from the NRR as well, 133%, which is a number that we can be proud of. I think it compares to any SaaS company that’s a really good number, but also a demonstration of that. We usually go in with a smaller part and then the customer actually needs and wants a bigger protection within its company. And as said, we have approximately two ninety customers and with 150,000 customers in Salesforce, of course, we have we are not far yet in terms of winning our share there.

And as said, our focus is to grow and focus on growth in this area. We are not here to do a maximize the profit at this point. We want to invest in this and going forward. So but we did a slight small profit in Q1 and also, of course, requires investment, requires recruitments and so on. So that is to become more in the future than maybe we were managed to do in Q1.

Then our overall continuous operations. Here you can see the combined P and L. So I guess our two main highlights here maybe to point out that our OpEx is pretty much flat even though we have of course normal pay increases and those things last year. So we are continuing to look at how we can make sure that we scale the company and stay efficient. In some categories, we had to do a little bit more at this point in Q1, But overall, our overall EBITDA, of course, improved from the comparable period also quite nicely in terms of that.

Then a reminder to everybody, outlook for this year, which stays the same as before. Elements Cloud Products and Services ARR, we are estimating that to grow 10% to 20% this year. And the EBITDA for Elements company to be between 37%. And as we have said in the beginning of the year, we are treating cloud protection for Salesforce separately. So we are guiding that also separately.

It will become more and more an independent unit within our company. But the guidance for this year is that it will grow 20% to 35%. So from that perspective, we had a quite good Q1 start for the year. And the consulting business, as I said before, for those maybe who haven’t followed us the most, we are expecting that to be that deal to be closed in Q2. But yes, maybe just to mention that once the consulting is divested, then we are fully subscription software company in many ways.

So that also that changes kind of the way or the operation that the company has left. On our medium term financial targets, we are still very determined to reach a rule of 30 plus company in 2027. And as you know, this is a combination of revenue growth and EBITDA percentage of revenue and that is still in our very much determined to go ahead towards this goal over the next two years. So with that, I would maybe ask Laura to join us. And this time you can maybe go in the middle of us.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: Yes. That’s bold.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: This is a change

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: of protocol. Yes.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Right. Thank you. Both presenters and we are ready for the questions. So we will first take the questions in the room, please.

Arthur Rygola, Analyst, Inderes: Hi. It’s Arthur Rygola from Inderes. Maybe first about the Elements company revenue growth in Q1. If you look at the cloud based solutions, they grew roughly €1,300,000 And if you look at the decline in on premise revenue, it was like €1,000,000 So is the on premise, is there like permanently lost customers? Or is it mostly like on premise revenue moving to cloud business?

Or how is it going?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I would say predominantly churn. There is some transition on that one.

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: Anything? No, I think we and there is some churn, of course, because they want to stay on this sort of solution. And then of course, we also once they transition over time, they will bring more value to us as well. That is still the way that we expect that to go.

Arthur Rygola, Analyst, Inderes: So there is like revenue growth in cloud coming from new customers and expansions not only from the transition? Yes, correct.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think if anybody has that kind of view, it needs to be corrected.

Arthur Rygola, Analyst, Inderes: And then about managed services ARR development, it was like minus 8%, and we know that there is those some customer losses. So are you still expecting that negative trend to continue in the coming quarters?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So we said in the Investor Day that we have maybe €7,800,000 ARR in these large managed customers. So we have gone down in that number since the Investor Day. But I think that was the ARR amount that amounted for these top 10 customers, right, Tom?

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: Yes. So that of course, futures will see. We also may be good to mention that we are also winning new customers in that category, however, a bit smaller than the big ones.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So we have been winning, for instance, a lot in Germany and so forth.

Arthur Rygola, Analyst, Inderes: All right. Then now we know that you are profiling as an European alternative, and you mentioned that there is like increasing interest towards you because of the geopolitical situation. Do you have already some, for example, customer cases where this side has affected the customer purchasing decisions?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think it mainly impacts the partner selection. And for us, the partner selections are crucial. Who is the primary partner for the distributor? Who is the primary partner for the reseller? So it’s no secret there’s been a lot of competition from some of the American vendors in this field.

But I think some of that market is not behaving like it used to work two years ago. But nowadays, there’s increasing trend to really push from the channel this kind of more European solutions. And those have been the conversations what I’ve been having, for instance, during the first quarter. Of course, the results are not imminent. But I think once we get more into system more broadly, I think they should bear fruit.

That’s why I wanted to open up these two cases in Netherlands. I think they are clearly where companies are standardizing on us.

Arthur Rygola, Analyst, Inderes: Right. Then about cloud protection for Salesforce now. Like you mentioned, you’re not or you’re going to keep on investing in growth, but is it more like investments in sales or some new product development? Or where are those

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: is both. Of course, we have already invested slightly more in sales. We will do more. But we also are investing in product and Salesforce themselves are very much into the AI solutions, and we will play a role in that security as well. So it requires some product investments as well.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So for instance, the agent force, what Salesforce has is a key driver for them. Of course, we need to go alongside because agent for agentic AI to operate safely, it needs to be protected. And I think we want and can be part of that agent force security.

Arthur Rygola, Analyst, Inderes: Could you briefly remind us how’s the sales model for the cloud production for Salesforce going on? Is it direct sales or is there was like you can basically buy the product also from the platform?

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: Yes. From the what’s the market? Object exchange. Exchange, yes. And it’s also maybe to remind those who have maybe not followed us that much is this is from a go to market model totally different from elements.

This is direct sell to large customers who usually, as I said, take in to a part of the company or smaller part and then it expands.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: And you buy it from the App Store of Salesforce and then it’s transacted through there. And of course, there is marketing and sales work, but the actual transaction gets handled digitally.

Arthur Rygola, Analyst, Inderes: All right. And last question from me. The divestment of that Malaysian entity, is there like any meaningful impact on your numbers going forward?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think so we report it as a press release because it’s more or less cost neutral so that we will initially start buying back the services and we have a transition period to replace some of the people in the Europe base. So that we are not modeling cost saving at this point of time on that one. But nor we are modeling the upside yet with the distributor work. So I think the more the important strategic part is that we become European based company and that drives the strategic narrative to the channel in Europe, but also the fact that we have now a distributor in APAC that gets to use the capabilities we have sold to them in Malaysia so that we can extend our reach without doing much ourselves. So that is quite scalable model.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: And maybe, Antti, there was some question on the forum about what kind of personnel we have in that Malaysian side. You could expand on that a bit.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So it has been a service center for finance and IT back office. That has been one part of it. I think there we likely to hire some new people, but we also look for a lot for automation with AI as we move further. But then the people who will remain, there are lot of support people. There are service people.

There are some R and D cyber people over there that the local partner can build then service capability on to serve their local markets. So I think it’s a good win win win for everybody, and we find a good solution for many of the employees as well with this structure.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: Walter Rossi from Danske Bank. I’ll start with cloud protection for Salesforce. What would you say you’re doing differently now compared to history? I think last two quarters, you’ve been able to show quite rapid growth. So what has changed in your operations there?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think at least when I started as an interim CEO, I tried to be very vocalist that there were in the beginning, we had some growth pains. And there were three deals that they turned away. They were quite significant. And we initially had a period where the churn and the new customer acquisition in a way compensated each other. So of course, that’s never good.

So I think we have a good setup now for customer success. We also can leverage a lot of the learnings to the Elements side from that one. And then it’s a quite focused sales execution and working together with Salesforce teams in the field. I think we have learned how to do it, and we have honed to both not only the product but also the way to do business in the Salesforce ecosystem, and it’s starting to pay off. Anything you want to add?

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: Yes. Maybe I think also to remember that this is a quite new solution. It’s still the unique solution, the relevant solution in this space. And we believe we have a very good position in this. So there is ups and downs in the beginning as always.

And Antti said, we have learned many things working with Salesforce, learning how to go to market better do better marketing and so on. So there’s many elements that has improved. Help serve enterprise customers. Yes. That’s two.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: Is it is it basically one product that you’re selling there? Or

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: It is a one product. It’s a one transaction, one product, quite simple, simple to buy. And so it’s basically if you are using Salesforce Service Cloud or Community Cloud, for instance, you often have a situation where you, as a Salesforce customer, when you are using it for customer service, you onboard your customers to that platform. So the shared responsibility model in Salesforce works that way that you, as a customer, you are responsible for the security of the data brought in by your respective customers. So the customers of Salesforce, they need security when there are malicious files or malicious network addresses being brought into the system.

Otherwise, there’s a liability for them towards Salesforce as well. And so it’s a quite all the cloud scalers work this way. And I think we are solving a problem that Salesforce intentionally doesn’t want to solve.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: All right. Thank you. Seems to be a working product. Is there any potential to maybe in the future broaden your product portfolio within Salesforce?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So that’s what Tom was indicating.

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: That’s what we’re doing. For instance, within the Salesforce ecosystem. This agent force is a big thing at the moment, a big investment for Salesforce. We are part of that as well protecting that. So there’s many and then we are doing other other things that we can protect within any ecosystem, but we are, of course, focusing this now for Salesforce.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: But I think within Salesforce, I think we would be expanding the scope and, of course, expanding the marketing and sales reach. And driving the accelerated growth is the focus here, and we do the necessary.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: All right. Then looking at the Nordic sales, I think they declined 8% in Q1. Can you open up what’s behind that? And because one would think that Nordics is one of your key markets.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So Tom have a comment on that?

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: Yes. I mean we have also seen a few churn items and smaller bigger customers that have scaled down somewhat our services. That’s kind of the main reason.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: That and then also that we also have had some of these legacy on premise customers in these regions. So I think it’s that’s also something to remember that in Finland and Dahar region, we have a lot of this on premise history. In some regions, they are more native cloud regions. So that’s so I got a little bit concerned on your question because I was still thinking through the ARR terms that, that didn’t happen. And but I think from a revenue point of view, I think this churn of the on premise is, of course, impacting Finland as well.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: Okay. One last question. You talk about the consolidation of the partner channel. I think your partner number was really high actually in the CMD. Can you tell in more concrete terms what has happened in that front?

How much have you been able to scale down the partner number maybe?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So I think the absolute because we strategic distribution model, we work with a two tier model. So that so instead of serving directly the partners from our end, we serve them we serve the disti who serves them. So I think our ambition, of course, is to have a wide partner channel so that there’s no rationale to reduce the number of partners. But we are more focusing on reducing the number of parties we engage directly with. And we don’t disclose those specific numbers, but I said that we have started the process in Finland, UK, France, Austria and now in Asia Pacific.

And it continues globally.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: All right. Thank you. That’s it from now.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Thanks, Ate and Walteri. So I’m starting to crack the questions on the webcast. There are quite a few questions on the Europe theme, so I might have to consolidate a little bit, but I hope we will get answers to all of them. So first of all, there’s Signe from the audience.

Can you elaborate on the significant interest you’re seeing given the geopolitical landscape? What kind of customers are coming to you? And how has this translated into the pipeline?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: Yeah. So not not quoting on the on the pipeline, but I would say, of course, we have conversations with the governments and and and public sector parties on generally on cybersecurity. So I think but that’s not our sort of primary focus currently. But we are considering that what should we do in public sector and then also these larger enterprises. So that’s a strategic question for us.

But I think if you look at the mid market scope, which is our primary, there, predominantly the demand comes from the channel partners who they work with. And so we start to move faster with those ones. And I just highlighted these two cases, this escrow and reliance from Netherlands, which are important flagship because they standardize on WidSecure, they provide the full security solution for the respective customers they have, and they call all in with Secure. I think we have had too few of such partners in the past, and that’s visible in our historical numbers. But I think that is the drive and the momentum and the change we want to do in the company.

But I think too early to comment on the specific numbers.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. And then Felix Hendriksson, our analyst, is also on the Europe theme. So I hope we answered the first part, but he asks, is there a specific customer group or an industry that particularly wants to look for European alternatives?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think it’s no secret that public sector is definitely looking for European solutions, and we see that one already now. So that discussion has intensified, and we have got inbound interest on that one. But I think it’s generally all this critical infrastructure. So I think the NIST two scope customers, why wouldn’t they be interested in this one? Because what kind of cybersecurity we, for instance, provide here in Finland, it’s part of the national resilience we have in the country.

And so we have things in our own hands. I think for me, this is a no brainer, but I think we have still work to do to convince all the customers to do so.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Actually, this leads me to another question from Felix. Can you provide an update on the NIST two as a demand driver for you?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So in NIST two, so we have now nine EU member states who have published the legislation. Finland published on April 8 the new Kuberturovalesuslaki, the Cybersecurity Act here in Finland. And I think we expect other member states to follow during this year.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Okay. I’m staying with Felix’s question. So in Q2 twenty twenty four, you had EUR 1,200,000.0 of marketing expenses related to Sphere. Should we expect a similar or a larger cost item for Q2 twenty twenty five?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So I say something about Sphere will be a big event for us in May. And this time, we will have a very focused activity with our top partners. So we last year, we had maybe 800 people. This year, we wanted to have it smaller. We will have the partners that matter.

We will have roughly 400 people in the room. And then we are going to organize local Sphere2U events then in the countries to do it more economically.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Great. Then, Antti, this definitely goes to you. When would you like cloud protection for Salesforce to turn profitable?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: Yes, I think it’s a tricky one because if you really want to follow this rule of 40, and if you look at SaaS company metrics and how you should do a valuation on a SaaS company, so it would not be in the best interest of the investors not to invest in growth and to start making profit because somebody else will do that. So that if you have a rule of 70 company like we start soon being in cloud protection, so that we should invest further in growth and use cash to accelerate it. And but I think but as long as we are in this rule of 40s pace, I think I wouldn’t start making profit. I would much rather want to grow it. But it’s a tricky question because it’s somebody else will take the growth if you don’t take it.

And I think that’s why this rule of 40 is such an important part of the SaaS thinking.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Thanks. All right. Then Jakob Durbanen, our analyst, asking, have you seen customers becoming more hesitant lately after the increased uncertainty regarding tariffs in the decision making? Or is the increased geopolitical tension supporting your sales pitch of being the European alternative?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think that was a good point. I actually forgot to mention it in the beginning. That so, of course, this is driving demand for European solutions. But I think at the same time, there is general uncertainty now. I think these tariffs and things like that, they are not good.

I think you all know that. So that I think they are introducing large elements of uncertainty to any purchase process. And I think I don’t think cybersecurity is exempt from that one. So I think it looks very foggy currently on that one, but I think that’s the thing that we need to navigate.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Then there’s Robert Mjertinen, who has a couple of questions here. Elements’ ARR growth at 8% year on year doesn’t outpace inflation, and NRR at 103% lags behind competitors like CrowdStrike, who are 110 and SentinelOne. Wizzikia’s market position is slipping into niche territory, while competitors scale globally even across EMEA. If the flywheel is reversing, as many fear, Wats Leadership Concrete plan to reverse this trajectory, not just maintain stability?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think our we laid out our strategy in the Investor Day. The first between in our part, we have a lot of historical partners at WidSecure, is to revitalize the partner channel and develop partnerships that are growth oriented. So I talked about the consolidation. I talked about the that we work with the partners whom we matter. We are the number one choice.

And we focus with them, we grow with them. I think that’s part of the flywheel. The other part of the flywheel, of course, is that we have got our products into the level that they address this minimum effective security that is needed against modern attackers. So we have been getting endorsement recently from AB test on that one. We have been doing well in the Mitra last year.

So I think we’re getting the pieces together. But it’s true that we have had a turnaround situation in the company so that we have rebuilt the offering, and we are rebuilding the channel. And that’s how we get to the flywheel that keeps us in the game and gets us with this European solution to where we want.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Robert continues. Despite the positive EBITDA, operating cash flow was minus 2.6%. Total cash flow fell to minus 4.4, and there’s over €23,000,000 in lease liabilities. Meanwhile, WidSecure is positioned as Europe’s cybersecurity leader, but where is the analyst validation or market visibility to support that claim?

The question continues. Is the company financing stability while hoping the European waste story fills the gaps? Or is there a real strategy to convert this positioning into measurable traction?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: Okay. Maybe you, Tom, comment first on the cash on the quarter one.

Tom Jansenmann, CFO, WitSecure: Sure. So Q1 is always, like, from a cash perspective, bit more heavy cash. So we usually pay some bonuses and so on from the past year. And we also, of course, have we have had two projects ongoing with divestments and so on in the first quarter plus that are discontinued operations. Consulting didn’t have a great Q1 even though it looks a bit better going forward.

So those all burnt some of our cash. And of course, once we close the divestment in second quarter, that will correct our cash balance quite significantly from where we are now. So and then ongoing, of course, we also have one element that has been in the history, burning cash away from our company.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: But in general, I think so as we are transforming the company into a kind of a pure play SaaS company, consulting is part of it. And I think we follow the yardsticks of the ARR growth, both on cloud protection of Salesforce, these elements cloud, elements software in particular. I think to me, those indicators are moving to the right direction. But we need time make sure that these carry the entire company and then some of legacy items are not any more relevant. But I think that’s the path we are in.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Thanks. And one more from Robert. At what point does leaning into global instability as the growth narrative crossed the line from strategic positioning into moral hazard? And how does Wizz Secure reconcile that with the European values it promotes around trust, sovereignty and security?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think the key thing what I’ve been talking with the partners is not to start bragging this as a great growth opportunity that the world is going like this. There’s nothing good about the situation of the world, in my view. But I see this as a responsibility. So I approach it from the point of responsibility that we do the right things, that we make sure that we are one of the actors that provides good cybersecurity for Europe. And then we make sure that we get the reach and support as many customers with that one.

I think that’s our moral duty and responsibility. And I agree with you. I take it very much from a position of morale and values.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Thank you. So, so far no more on the chat. So, Walter, you had something else.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: Hi. Yes, Walter Rossi, Danske Bank. A couple more questions. I don’t think you have disclosed the public sector exposure, but can you give any estimate on that? Is it onethree of your sales or

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: No, we I was maybe talking more publicly. If you refer to previous comment, I was talking more about that public sector parties getting contacting us about could we do more, and I think that’s what we are doing. So we are not disclosing any sector division in our but we do sell to public sector as well.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: But no estimate, no ballpark kind of guidance. Good try. It meaningful? Thank you, Valtteri. All right.

Fair enough. Still on the competitive situation today, historically or previously, we have been talking about tough competition you’ve been facing from The U. S. Giants. Is that situation still the same?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think on a competitive landscape, in Europe, there are maybe three European competitors. So we are Bitdefender, ESET and WidSecure. So we are, in a way, a good claim that you have a European operation. Isset is from Slovakia and Bitdefender from Romania. And so when I look at the European angle, those two come to my mind.

But of course, in the across the board in Europe, there’s a lot of Microsoft. And I think they continue to be all around. But also, they are a company like anybody else. And so that think at least a trend what I’m seeing is that there’s a new demand coming in and people are interested in what we are talking about the mid market playbook and the integrated products and service approach. Think we are not doing that bad on that one.

So I would I don’t want to call out competitors, but I think these, I would like to do. But I also want to say is that something is that mid market and SMB, they don’t buy these CrowdStrike and Palo Alto. So it’s good that some of the investors, you are following them, but that’s not our comparison point. And we don’t see those people in these smaller to midsized segments.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: All right. A follow-up on that. What’s your current understanding of the pricing situation or positioning against Microsoft, for example? How do you price yourself against them?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: So our approach is that we have both products and services. Microsoft typically provides licenses only, and then they do bundling of different solutions together, whether we like it or not, whether it’s fair or not. I think there was a question on the ethics. I would challenge that ethic. But then the key thing with Microsoft is, of course, what customers need to consider, what does it cost to run a service on that one.

And I don’t think we are doing that badly when we look the whole with secure proposition against that mix.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: All right. Thank you.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right.

Arthur Rygola, Analyst, Inderes: One more question from me. Peppier from AI development, we know that you launched Luminen AI agent, was it almost one year ago? Anything other on that AI front from yourself?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: Yes. I think we are absolutely continuing on the development of the AI. So I see AI key part of running the company business operations. I think you could see that some part of this deal, what we did in Malaysia is part of that because this give us opportunity as well to relook how we run our processes with AI agents. And that’s definitely one part we are doing.

And that’s usually a big experimentative journey in any company that you need to do because you have when you start with the brownfield, it’s a one approach, so you need to experiment and learn what works. And then you can take some of the greenfield solutions with that one. I think same thing with the products. With the AI front, we continue to further develop the scope of our Luminen, and we will have broader use cases absolutely with that one. We will talk about Luminen as well at Sphere.

And so but I think that’s the, in a way, elements. Elements is an AI agent itself, and of course, that is more intensifying as we go forward. And the third thing is, of course, positioning cloud protection for our sales force together with the agent force that how do we make Salesforce agentic AI secure. I think it’s a key consideration. But I think we are progressing in many fronts with AI.

And but it’s both for the offering, but definitely for the efficiency. Every company should do things with AI for the efficiency.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: No more questions in the room, I think. And the chat has gone silent as well. So I think we are ready to wrap up. Any final words of wisdom?

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: Yes. So thank you so much for joining today. This quarter was very much about continued execution of our strategy. We progressed nicely with the partner channel. This European topic surfaced quite a lot because of what was happening in the world itself.

We approach being European from the position of responsibility, and we work with our partners to make sure that we have a digital sovereignty in Europe, and we are happy that we can be part of that journey in Europe.

Laura Witte, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Thanks for being with us today, and see you next time.

Antti Gorskell, President and CEO, WitSecure: Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye.

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