Cirata Q4 FY25 Earnings Call - Record Bookings Signal Turnaround with New Platform and Cost Discipline

Stephen, CEO, Cirata: Hello, and thank you for joining us today. I’m really pleased to share an update on Cirata’s performance for the fourth quarter ending 31 December 2025, along with the highlights for the full financial year. This update accompanies our detailed trading update released this morning. FY25 represented a pivotal year for Cirata, delivering record bookings, a fundamentally transformed cost structure, and renewed strategic clarity. FY25 delivered $13.2 million in data integration bookings, our strongest performance since 2017, and an increase of over 180% year-on-year. As we noted in last year’s outlook, Q4 FY25 was especially strong, recording $9.8 million in data integration bookings, the highest quarterly total in our company’s history, and an increase of over 300% compared to the previous year. Two landmark contracts underscore this momentum. We secured our largest OEM contract ever, valued at $6.7 million, through our strategic partnership with IBM.

And secondly, we signed our largest direct contract at $3.1 million, a three-year agreement with a leading United States insurer. These achievements reflect not just financial progress, but deepening customer relationships and a growing confidence in the Cirata platform. Our land and expand strategy, which focuses on growth among existing customers, remains a core pillar of our strategy, and the data suggests that this element of the strategy is working well. Existing customers are increasing their usage as their data requirements evolve, while committing to longer-term contracts that enhance our revenue visibility and business stability. In Q3, we commercially launched Cirata Symphony, our data orchestration platform, developed over 24 months of direct customer collaboration, and informed by our strategic review, Project Lighthouse. Early market response since then has been encouraging, with positive lead generation trends. Symphony expands our addressable market and positions Cirata in the rapidly growing data orchestration category.

A further key action from our strategic review, Project Lighthouse, was the divestment of our DevOps assets for $3.4 million. This non-core, renewals-focused business required disproportionate management attention across disparate markets. The sales strengthened our balance sheet while sharpening our focus on data integration and data orchestration. Our go-to-market reorganization, combined with product innovation, creates a solid foundation for FY26 growth, and in particular should allow us to improve our scorecard on new customer wins. Growth without a stable foundation, however, is not sustainable. We’ve worked hard to bring our operating cost structure to realistic levels. Our cost-based exit in FY25 of $12-$13 million is now running at less than one-third of the peak, allowing us to demonstrate increased levels of operating leverage as we progress our plans. Looking ahead to FY26, management is targeting, firstly, an operating expense run rate of $12-$13 million.

Secondly, cash flow positive in the first quarter FY26. Thirdly, cash break-even for FY26 overall, subject to bookings timings. As we go forward through 2026, we consider the continued success of our expansion win strategy to be a critical component of our growth. The additional building blocks that combine to deliver future growth will be continued product development and continued customer and market validation, and ultimately, as the new sales team beds in and reaches maturity, new customer acquisition. Bringing these additional building blocks together gradually will be the primary focus of management as FY26 evolves. So, to conclude, FY25 delivered strong operational leverage with record bookings, the largest contracts in our history, the divestment of the DevOps business, and a much stronger foundation with a sustainable cost base. We enter FY26 focused, disciplined, and well-positioned to drive sustainable growth. Thank you for your continued support.

Scott, Interviewer/Analyst: Stephen, welcome back. Another busy year is behind you, and an exciting year is ahead. Headline numbers actually look good, but I guess the criticism is that Cirata is still to achieve new customer acquisition. What would your response be to that?

Stephen, CEO, Cirata: Yeah, I think, Scott, that’s a fair criticism, but only to a point. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my single biggest challenge after the issues of March 2023 was to rebuild the trust and the confidence of the existing customer base and our partner ecosystem. I think FY25 results suggest a great deal of progress, rehabilitating the company with all its stakeholders. As I’ve stated in my prepared remarks, leveraging our existing relationships is a foundation for growth, and particularly encouraging given all we’ve done strategically last year. In FY25, we saw strong bookings growth. We divested a business that was a drag on growth, and we reduced the cost base further to a fraction of the costs from the peak. In addition, the FCA closed its investigation into the company after two and a half years.

So, rebuilding the trust with customers, partners, and stakeholders has taken time, longer probably than I would have hoped. But without those close existing relationships, the progress we’ve made with our LDM product, Live Data Migrator, and now with the launch of the data orchestration platform would not have been possible. I think it’s tremendous to have that trust as it shows what the potential is that we have going forward. So, Scott, yeah, I make no apologies for pursuing a strategy of deepening relationships with our existing customers. That’s absolutely and always will be critical. The task now is to look at the other building blocks of our growth future and begin to get those into place. Continuing new product is one. Further customer and market validation is another.

As the new sales team that Dominic Akari has created gets settled and moves towards maturity, that’s where the new logo acquisition, the new customer acquisition will start to flow through.

Scott, Interviewer/Analyst: So, Stephen, congratulations on the closure of the DevOps divestment. Some were surprised at the sale of the DevOps business. Could you give a little bit more color as to why you thought this was necessary?

Stephen, CEO, Cirata: Yeah, valid question. I think DevOps fundamentally was a renewals business and ultimately a drag on growth. It involved different products from our core, and it also catered for different customers in a different market, different buyers within the customer base. So, the Lighthouse strategic review raised more questions than answers when we kind of reported back to investors back in April 2024. And it was clear to us that the company’s medium-term opportunity lay in its data integration opportunity ahead, building on data replication legacy, which sparked the development of our data orchestration platform, Cirata Symphony. Historically, the company was a loss-making company with revenues running significantly below the cost base. The company was subscale to compete in two different markets, and honestly, it made no sense to try to.

We understood that both management time and financial resources would need to be focused on the enterprise data opportunity ahead. This decision to sell the DevOps business gave the company much-needed focus, more cash on the balance sheet, and reduced overheads. So, Scott, yes, it was a big, difficult, but necessary decision and well-executed by my team.

Scott, Interviewer/Analyst: Talking of reduced overhead, cash costs have come down substantially since you took over the company. But it is worth noting data integration bookings numbers are hitting historic highs. Can we expect more of the same going forward?

Stephen, CEO, Cirata: Obviously, I’m not going to make predictions or guide into specific numbers beyond what we provided in our very clear FY26 outlook statement. But I’ve always said that the company needs to pay its way and prove its growth credentials. We now appear to be delivering a lot more with a lot less, which is encouraging, but we’re not out of the woods, and there’s always more to do. Our Q4 FY25 bookings were very strong. Our Q1 FY26 is targeting cash flow positive, which I believe to be the first time since the IPO back in 2012. So, we’re moving in the right direction, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer.

Scott, Interviewer/Analyst: So, on the subject of outlook, Stephen, you suggested that the business with a $12-$13 million cost base will break even and the business will be lumpy with new business second half weighted. Can you provide any additional color?

Stephen, CEO, Cirata: Yeah, there’s several factors going on, Scott, in our internal planning which support our statements today. Firstly, by its very nature, enterprise sales, particularly for a company of Cirata scale, are inherently lumpy. Secondly, the restructuring of the go-to-market team will need time to take full effect. Thirdly, it’s vitally important that Cirata Symphony’s launch is handled with precision. Use case development, proof of concepts, and pipeline build is a process, not a defined endpoint. Just as an aside, Scott, I made an early decision to report to the market on a quarterly basis. I believe only 8% of AIM companies choose to do this. This means I provide complete transparency to all our investors. They get to see almost in real time what’s working and what’s not.

I believe the best tech companies in the world use end-state planning over the long term with quarterly and monthly internal goals, and then they update investors on a quarterly basis. My priority is to maximize value for shareholders over the long term and present updates to investors both over the full year with important quarterly checkpoints.

Scott, Interviewer/Analyst: So, Stephen, lots of progress overall, but has the business turned a corner? Is the business fixed? Are there other things to worry about?

Stephen, CEO, Cirata: Wow, Scott, we’ve certainly made massive progress, but the honest answer is there’s always more to do. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. We made a lot of progress, but we must keep that momentum going and strive to do better every day. That’s a huge challenge, and I’ll always inevitably have a long to-do list. But there’s so many moving parts of building a great company, but building a great growth business from a broken business comes with some extra special challenges and issues. Our colleagues, frankly, have been through a lot to get us to this point. They are working at a pace now that they likely have never experienced before, and we expect more. You don’t punch out record bookings with a third of the historic cost base without some significant cultural change.

Product innovation is another area where we have made a great deal of progress, but we still have to go faster, and of course, the upgrade to the go-to-market, although necessary, is like changing the engines on a 747 mid-air just before coming into land, so, Scott, I spend a lot of time thinking about and planning solutions to these problems around people, product, customers, and balance sheet, and it’s a continual balancing act.

Scott, Interviewer/Analyst: So, Stephen, any closing messages for investors as you embark on a new financial year?

Stephen, CEO, Cirata: You know, I’m really proud that the team has achieved an awful lot in FY25. Record bookings at a cost base that puts us in touch with a self-sustaining growth business. We announced the launch of a new platform, Cirata Symphony, that dramatically shifts our growth profile. The sale of the DevOps business that gives us renewed business focus and the completion of the FCA investigation. And the final piece of a very complicated puzzle is a root and branch reorganization and restructuring of the go-to-market team by our Chief Revenue Officer, Dominic Akkari. So, we’ve closed out a very big year. I am encouraged, but not complacent. And there’s always much more work to do, but we’re stepping up to the task. We thank all our investors for their continued support.

Scott, Interviewer/Analyst: Stephen, thank you for the update today, and we look forward to speaking to you again soon.

Stephen, CEO, Cirata: Thank you.