Veritone Q3 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 8, 2021

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Veritone Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results Call. My name is Daisy, and I will be coordinating today's call. You will have the opportunity to register a question at the end of the presentation. I will now hand over to your host, Brian Aljaz from Veritone to begin. Brian, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon, and welcome to Veritone's Q3 of 2021 conference call. I am Brian Alger, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Capital Markets. After the market closed today, Veritone issued a press release announcing the results for the Q3 ended September 30, 2021. The press release and other supplemental information available at the Investors section of our website. Joining me for today's call are Veritone's Chairman and CEO, Chad Steelberg President, Brian Steelberg and CFO, Mike Zmesher.

Speaker 1

Following their remarks, we will open up the call for questions. Please note that certain information discussed on the call today will include forward looking statements about future events and Veritone's business strategy Future financial and operating performance, including its expected net revenues and non GAAP net income and loss for the Q4 and full year of 2021, respectively. These forward looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause the actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by those statements. Certain of these risks and assumptions are discussed in Veritone's SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 10 ks. These forward looking statements are based on assumptions as of today, November 9, 2021, and Veritone undertakes no obligation to revise or update them.

Speaker 1

During this call, the actual and forecasted financial measures we will be discussing Other than revenue, we'll be presented on a non GAAP basis, unless noted otherwise. Reconciliations of these measures to the corresponding GAAP measures Are included in the press release we issued today. These non GAAP measures include a breakout of our results between core operations and corporate. Core operations consists of our consolidated software products and services, including recently acquired PandaLogic and managed services that include our Content licensing and advertising services and their supporting operations, including direct cost of sales as well as operating expenses General and administrative functions such as executive, finance, legal, people operations, fixed overhead expenses, including facilities and information technology expenses, Other income or expenses and taxes and other expenses that support the entire company, including public company driven costs. As we will discuss on this call, we have realigned our organization to focus on 2 distinct customer groups, commercial enterprise and government and regulated industries.

Speaker 1

Commercial enterprise, which today consists of customers in the commercial sector, including our media and entertainment customers, advertising customers, Content licensing customers and customers through Pentalogic that are not from government or regulated industries. Government and regulated industries also known as GRI, Which today consists of customers in the government and regulated industry sectors, including our state, local and federal government, legal, compliance and energy customers. Across the Commercial Enterprise and Government and Regulated Industries Businesses, we separate revenue into 2 categories, software products and services And managed services. Software products and services consist of the revenues generated from our aiWARE platform and through Panalogic Software Product Solutions, Any related support and maintenance services and any related professional services associated with the deployment and or implementation of such solutions. Managed services consist of revenues generated from our advertising agency and related services and our content licensing services.

Speaker 1

Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link in the Investors section of the company's website atwww.veritone.com. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Chad Stilbert.

Speaker 2

Chad? Thank you, Brian, and thanks, everyone, for joining us on today's call. Looks like we have many new investors that have joined us for the first time. Welcome. I'm delighted to report that Veritone's trend of raising the bar continues.

Speaker 2

Our top line revenue grew 44% year on year, Making Q3 our 6th consecutive record quarter. Moreover, we are raising the midpoint of our full year 2021 revenue guidance To $104,300,000 which represents over 80% growth versus 2020. We remain steadfast in our mission To create a better world through the power of artificial intelligence, one that is dynamic, transparent, innovative And SAFE, powered by our proven AI platform, Aiware, the first AI operating system. With our ever expanding AI solutions Enrich partner ecosystem. Our customers are solving their current and future challenges with confidence, knowing that Veritone is there to help streamline processes Through intelligent automation, enhanced decision support and optimized outcomes.

Speaker 2

We are very excited to Close the recent acquisition and integration with Pandologic. The impact to the overall business is transformative. By entering this new market, Corporate Intelligence, we increased our customer penetration into the Fortune 100 and broadened our international footprint. Including PANDO Logic, our combined headcount is approaching 500, growing over 50% since the beginning of 2021 And more importantly, increasing our engineering and product capabilities. We also augmented our top line with the addition of Pandalogic's pro form a revenues Of over $50,000,000 in 2021 and operating margins greater than 50%.

Speaker 2

In addition to strengthening our financial position, Pandologic perfectly fits our culture and aligns with our strategic objectives. We are aggressively integrating aiWARE into Pandologic's applications And are already seeing the fruits of our labor. As a company, Veritone's go to market strategy continues to mature. With the addition of PANDO Logic and the technological advances in aiWARE, we are now capturing more enterprise opportunities across an increasing number of businesses. With a mature technology platform and multiple proven applications, We are aligning our business to focus on the customer and more broadly deliver the full potential of AI.

Speaker 2

As Ryan and Mike will detail later in the call, in Q3, we realigned our organization to focus on 2 distinct markets,

Speaker 3

Each with a

Speaker 2

unique customer base and go to market strategy, commercial enterprise and government and regulated industries. With that, I would like to now hand the call over to Ryan, our President and Co Founder, to discuss our operational achievements in greater detail. Over to you, Ryan.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Chad, and good afternoon, everyone. We again achieved record results in Q3. Our performance for the quarter year to date reflects the maturing platform and business Strategy. Accordingly, we have recast our revenue breakdown to more accurately reflect the business we are managing today. We sell a combination of products and managed services into multiple end markets in commercial enterprise and government and regulated industries.

Speaker 3

Our recasting of the revenue aligns our reporting with the customers we serve and the way we go to market. Veritone has And always will lead with our software and technology. However, as the aiWARE platform and our suite of products matures, The way that we engage with our customers has also matured. In the early days, we talked about our land and expand customer strategy. Our goal was to get a foothold and then use our technology to compel customers to expand how much of one product they use across their company.

Speaker 3

Today, we have a much more comprehensive suite of products in managed services, so we are having much more comprehensive and strategic conversations with our customers. Increasingly, we are engaging in whole enterprise conversations. So now what started with a single application or use case Has evolved to conversations and contracts that leverage the full potential of aiWARE. Whether it is with legacy broadcast customers Our newly engaged public safety agency customers, Veritone is now leveraging the power of our platform, ecosystem of partners and broad suite of applications. Commercial enterprise currently accounts for the vast majority of Veritone's revenues.

Speaker 3

Yet we believe that GRI will grow in scope and size, albeit with different deal sizes and sales cycles. Over the course of the quarter, we achieved a number of notable milestones with our commercial enterprise customers. We renewed all material Q3 contracts, supporting strong customer retention, which remains well above 90%. We expanded our international footprint by signing Bauer Media in the UK and MediaWorks in New Zealand, as well as by Our licensing agreement with CBS News globally. Regarding our new voice as a service offering marvel.ai, We won Mythical as a customer and integrated with Panda Logic's Wade and Wendy's conversational AI framework.

Speaker 3

I'm excited to state that marvel.ai has just been awarded the NAB Product of the Year. Referencing our recent relationship with Steve Cohen backed Recur to create non fungible tokens or NFTs, we have also unveiled an expanded opportunity with our longtime customer, the PAC-twelve conference to make their content available as NFTs. This agreement highlights the extensibility of the aiWARE platform And the strength of our content and media ecosystem and we are replicating it with other digital influencers, content owners, brands and networks. In addition, strength with existing customers and a more focused enterprise sales approach led to expanded contracts with media companies Such as Odysee, Iheart, Viacom and others in the Q3. Bringing the PANDO IQ solution into the equation is expected to drive further revenue growth From our top tier list of customers.

Speaker 3

PanoiQ, an AI enabled recruitment and talent acquisition platform, is solving one of today's most notable challenges, Job recruitment and hiring. We have all been reading and hearing about the labor challenges facing transportation, hospitality And logistics companies, as well as countless restaurants and small businesses across the U. S. And more broadly around the world. PandoIQ uses AI to match job opportunities with the right job seekers.

Speaker 3

Many of the largest trucking companies in the U. S. Are our clients As are a number of large quick service restaurant chains, not to mention the world's largest e commerce and logistics company, Amazon. Every day, PANDO IQ illustrates how AI is being used for solving these acute and systemic labor challenges, having delivered millions of applicants globally. We have also had strong success with our managed services.

Speaker 3

Average growth billings per client grew 18% year on year, Well ahead of industry peers. Increasingly, we are leveraging the ecosystem of media partners through the unique technology and Scale that Veritone and Aiware brings to bear. Bringing brands, broadcasters and content owners together, Veritone is unlocking new revenue streams for our clients With NFTs and marvel.ai being prominent proof points. Moreover, the strength that we have established in the U. S.

Speaker 3

Is extending internationally with new content licensing and brand opportunities leveraging the aiWARE technology. Shifting focus to GRI. All year, but particularly this past quarter, we have made considerable progress with our customers in federal and state governments, Public safety agencies, legal and energy. On the state and local level, a significant surge in the number of agencies are licensing our products And increasingly, it is our breadth of offerings made available through aiWARE that is closing the deals for us. With Redact, Illuminate, Identify and most recently, Contact, our public safety customers are realizing the value of the platform, its applications And the activation of a shared intelligent data lake.

Speaker 3

Earlier today, we co hosted a transparency panel with Microsoft That included police chiefs from Massachusetts, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado and California. Veritone Solutions are enabling the Department of Justice And law enforcement agencies all across the country to more accurately and quickly communicate and provide transparency into the interactions that they have with their communities That they serve. I encourage everyone to view this important webinar now hosted on our website. Our success with the DOJ Is driving accelerating adoption of aiWARE solutions by our legal customers. As the legal system gathers and processes an ever We see a mouth of unstructured information.

Speaker 3

Veritone's Aiware platform and the illuminate and redact products are providing all constituents The necessary scale and cognition required to sift through the mountains of evidence being created. Increasingly, Veritone's managed service providers partners, Including Epic, ProServe and Exact Data Discovery are pre buying licenses on behalf of their legal customers. Speaking of the DOJ, we cannot overstate the significance of our authorization to operate, or ATO. Extending beyond our initial award with the 94 EO USA U. S.

Speaker 3

Attorneys Offices, we are now FedRAMP authorized across all 59 agencies In the DOJ, we are the 1st platform provider to have such authorization in multiple cloud environments, AWS and Azure in our case. Already, we have had active engagements with multiple divisions of the DOJ under this newly awarded ATO, including the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Prisons, the DEA and others. Already through our channel partners, we have seen Veritone's scope of work dramatically expand, While at the same time accelerating the adoption of AI across multiple branches of the federal government. In addition to our work with the DOJ, We are actively engaged with other departments of both the U. S.

Speaker 3

And other foreign governments that are leveraging the unique scale and flexibility of aiWARE. On the energy front, we have made significant progress with our lead customer. We have delivered and implemented our forecaster and controller software As well as have implemented and delivered our battery optimization software for this initial solar array, which represents less than 5% of our customers' solar production. As such, this large grid operator is able to accurately predict the energy production of its solar array, control the distribution of that production And finally, Guaranty Resilience, utilizing our battery optimization solution. This effectively removes this customer's needs To run expensive diesel backup reserve systems, which with its current solar footprint costs over $20,000,000 a year.

Speaker 3

The success and performance of our solutions on the initial solar array has led our customer to seek an expanded engagement of a multi year enterprise wide license. Similar to our government customers, we have found regulated industries to have elongated and often unpredictable sales cycles. The trade off of course is that these businesses are incredibly sticky and broad in scope. We remain very committed to our energy focus And technology development in this area. Based on the current engagements and pipeline of projects, we are more confident than ever that GRI will become a significant revenue contributor Driving our future growth.

Speaker 3

As we look to finish 2021, we see Veritone position stronger than ever. As a recognized leader in the AI machine learning ecosystem, Veritone is poised to further accelerate its growth and extend AI into all industries across the globe. And now I will hand it over to Mike Symetra, our CFO. Mike?

Speaker 4

Thank you, Ryan. I am excited to report our financial progress, Including our recent addition of Panda Logic in late Q3 2021. For the 6th consecutive quarter, we posted record results And our KPIs along with top and bottom line beat our Q3 2021 guidance. During my prepared remarks, I will discuss Our Q3 2021 organizational realignment and resulting changes to our financial reporting and KPI drivers Our year over year performance on a GAAP and pro form a basis, the PandaLogic impact and annual 2021 guidance, Which we raised again, highlighting revenue scaling and exceeding $100,000,000 for the first time and equally as important Q4 2021 Being our 1st projected quarter with positive non GAAP net income. First, I'll discuss our organizational realignment and new reporting format and metrics.

Speaker 4

We are presenting revenue in 2 distinct customer groups, each with a unique focus and go to market strategy. 1, commercial enterprise and 2, government and regulated industries or GRI. Additionally, we show revenue in 2 categories: 1, software, product and services and 2, managed services. We are also now reporting new customer driven metrics around our consolidated software, product and services and on a pro form a basis as if we owned PanelLogic since January 1, 2020. This includes a quarterly breakdown of total ending customers, average annual revenue per customer or AAR and gross retention, which is our best Proxy for customer churn.

Speaker 4

Now to Q3 2021 performance. On a GAAP basis, Revenue was a record $22,700,000 up $6,900,000 or 44 percent from Q3 of 2020, Driven largely by software products and services, which increased $5,700,000 or 169 percent To a record $9,000,000 in revenue and secondarily from managed services, which increased $1,300,000 or 10%. The increase in software products and services was driven largely from the acquisition of PandaLogic and organic growth for legacy Veritone software products and services revenue. We closed the Panda Logic transaction on September 14, 2021, which contributed approximately $4,000,000 during Q3. All organic software products and services increased over 40% year over year.

Speaker 4

On a pro form a basis, Q3 revenue was $35,500,000 increasing $9,000,000 or 34% from Q3 2020 revenue of $26,500,000 Driving this pro form a increase was software products and services, which increased $7,700,000 or 54 percent to $21,900,000 The year on year improvement was driven by software customer growth of 34% And an outstanding 90% growth in average annual revenue or AAR to $208,000 in Q3 2021. Driving this increase in pro form a AAR was Amazon, which began to significantly ramp services with CandleLogic in Q4 2020. Overall, our revenue pipeline has never been stronger. Our partner driven channel strategy continues to deliver results With new bookings of $3,300,000 in Q3 2021, an increase of over 60% from pro form a Q3 2020. With Marvel International Expansion, the cross selling of PANDO Logic, the recent addition of the DOJ ATO announcement And significant progress on our energy initiatives.

Speaker 4

Our future pipeline across all customer groups has never been stronger, Particularly in GRI, where we expect to start realizing more significant growth in the near and long term. In Q3, we reported solid pro form a KPI results. New bookings were $3,300,000 up 61% from pro form a Q3 2020. Pro form a gross retention exceeded 90%, pro form a customers up 34% and pro form a software ARR eclipsing 200,000. In Managed Services, advertising gross billings per client increased to $615,000 up 18% over Q3 2020.

Speaker 4

Q3 twenty twenty one advertising revenue continued to outpace prior year, however, more approximating industry growth And the robust strength shown in the first half of twenty twenty one. Q3 twenty twenty one gross profit reached $16,800,000 Improving $5,600,000 or 50 percent from Q3 of 2020. Overall, Q3 gross margins increased to 74% Compared with 71% in Q3 of 2020 and up sequentially from 72.8% in Q2 2021. Software Products and Services gross margins benefited from the Tubi contribution from PandaLogic, which has historical gross margins in excess of 90%. As we continue to scale over the next 12 months to 24 months, including having Pandologic in our results for the entire period, We expect consolidated gross margins to exceed 80% as early as Q4 2021.

Speaker 4

Assuming we had Tantal Logic for the entire quarter, Our Q3 pro form a gross profit increased to $29,200,000 an increase of $7,500,000 or 35 percent versus Q3 2020 pro form a results. Overall, pro form a gross margins were flat year over year at 82%. Q3 non GAAP net loss was a record 2,300,000 A $2,000,000 or 46 percent improvement from Q3 of 2020, driven by increased core operations net income, Offset by relatively flat corporate year over year. In Q3, corporations posted a record non GAAP net income of $1,900,000 Compared with $400,000 in Q3 2020, the $1,500,000 year over year improvement was principally driven by the acquisition of Panda Logic, Which drove improvements in gross profit and operating margin, offset by greater investments in Q3 2021 across engineering, product sales And marketing to drive current and future year plan results. On a pro form a basis, we have generated non GAAP net $2,600,000 in Q3 2021 versus $3,200,000 in Q3 2020.

Speaker 4

Driving the year over year change was improved revenue and gross profit Offset by increased investments in OpEx, namely sales and engineering organically and at Pannalogic to fund growth. Turning to our balance sheet. At September 30, 2021, we held cash and restricted cash of $73,500,000 Compared to $115,700,000 at December 31, 2020. The decrease reflects $47,600,000 in investing activities, Including the Cando Logic acquisition, coupled with net cash used by operations of $3,500,000 offset by net cash provided by financing activities of 9,000,000 Net cash outflows from operating activities of $3,500,000 consists of net positive changes in our working capital of 10,200,000 Firstly associated with the growth and timing of payments in our managed services and software products and services, which was offset by our $9,900,000 non GAAP net loss And other cash uses. As a reminder, approximately $57,000,000 of our reported cash is essentially held for payment to 3rd parties from our managed services.

Speaker 4

And our working capital will continue to fluctuate depending on the timing and due dates of payments in any given period. Our unencumbered cash at the end of Q3 2021 was over $15,000,000 which is sufficient to operate the existing business for the foreseeable future As the PANDO Logic acquisition will generate substantial cash flows from operations beginning in Q4, 2021. We ended September 30, 2021 with 34,900,000 shares outstanding. Turning to Pangiologic. As a reminder, we closed the acquisition on September 14, 2021.

Speaker 4

Terms of the deal were $150,000,000 acquisition price, Payable with $50,000,000 in cash $35,000,000 in stock or 1,700,000 shares upon closing and the remaining $65,000,000 payable in cash and stock based On Panda Logic meeting financial targets in 2021 2022. Immediately accretive to Veritone, PANDO Logic has a pro form a run rate in 2021 to exceed $50,000,000 of revenue with greater than 90% gross margin and over 50% operating margin. Please note, Panda Logic does have seasonality in its business with Q3 and Q4 having greater concentrations of revenue versus Q1 and Q2 And consistent with hiring patterns of its customers, most notably its largest customer Amazon. Turning to financial guidance. Given our continued high visibility and confidence in our revenue pipeline, including a full quarter of Pandalogic, we expect Q4 revenue to be between $43,800,000 $45,300,000 representing a 165% increase year over year at the midpoint And sequentially up 96% from our strongest quarter ever in Q3 2021.

Speaker 4

And we are excited to guide for quarterly non GAAP net income For the first time and expect Q4 to be between $8,500,000 $10,000,000 representing over $13,000,000 Improvement year over year from Q4 2020. We plan to continue to invest responsibly in resources in key areas to help accelerate our growth throughout and heading into 2022. With this, we are forecasting our core operations to be significantly more profitable In Q4 2021 and our corporate overhead non GAAP net loss to be relatively consistent with Q3 2021. For full year 2021, including the impact of PANDO Logic, we expect consolidated revenue to be between $103,000,000 And $105,500,000 representing a year over year increase of over 80% at the midpoint and expect our combined software product Services revenue growth to be over 2 50 percent year over year. We expect the full year non GAAP net loss to be between $1,500,000 and breakeven, Representing over 96% improvement year over year at the midpoint.

Speaker 4

Before I close, I'd like to invite you to our Virtual Analyst Day and Tech Demo On Friday, November 19. Similar to our May event, but abbreviated to 1.5 hours, we will showcase new technology, the depth of our team And customer use cases and testimonials. Also, we will be speaking at the following investor conferences: The Stifel Midwest 1 on 1 Conference this Thursday, November 11 the Needham Conference on November 17 The ROTH Conference on November 18th the UBS Conference, December 6 through 8th and finally, the ROTH Deer Valley Conference, December 8th That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open up the call for questions.

Operator

Thank you very much. Our first question comes from Darren Aftahi from ROTH Capital Partners. Darren, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the nice Quarter and a good outlook. 2 if I may, just with the labor market, what's going on? I'm just kind of curious since you've bought and closed PANDO, How have things kind of changed and what kind of do you see as the prospects for kind of cross selling PANDO into your Legacy Veritone base. And then second question is kind of big picture.

Speaker 5

As you look into 2022, you've got a lot of things that are Fairly material catalyst. I'm just kind of curious if you kind of speak to which ones you think will gain the most kind of traction or fruit Amongst energy, federal government, TandaLogic and then Marvel AI. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Hi, Darren. Well, thank you for taking my questions. Brian, why don't you take the first one and then part of the second and then I'll follow-up.

Speaker 3

Okay, great. I think the labor market obviously Despite it being a very challenging time for many corporations, it obviously puts Veritone with PANDO in a very strategic position to really grow that business. And while we're doing that, and obviously to our benefit, we are going to be significantly in benefiting those respective clients of ours. So Obviously, we're seeing increased demand in increased revenue hence from that increased demand through Panel IQ. And we do expect that to continue for the foreseeable future.

Speaker 3

Just again, we think the labor market is going to be tight. And it's not just For, I would say, short term quick service type of restaurants and logistics type of employees. But we do see the systemic problem going to persist well through 2022 and beyond. So bodes very well for what we're doing. In terms of cross selling, I'm really excited to state that this has been a very well thought out and kind of strategically onboarded opportunity.

Speaker 3

Yes, Pentalogic is still subject to a contracted earn out, as we've disclosed before. But we've already done some great work in terms of co marketing, cross selling And doing that mapping. So we are very optimistic that we will start to see penetration of PANDO IQ technology Enabled with aiWARE, sold and deployed across the breadth of our customer base. The good news is everybody is in need of hiring quality talent. And I think we're not only looking forward to that in 2022, but we're active upon that now.

Speaker 3

In terms of other catalysts, I'll let Chad have his own remarks, but I'll speak to just the demand that we're seeing really in M and E, which has been exciting. We're going to talk a lot about, as I did on The prepared remarks earlier today about government legal and compliance, but meeting entertainment and our sort of commitment to that industry as we sort of Sprint here to now this new metaverse ecosystem. We're ahead of the curve. We have lots of major customers. We've already sort of prepared their content through Obviously, indexing and hosting on aiWARE.

Speaker 3

And we obviously have some early proof points such as the Fairly good sized deals for NFTs that we've already facilitated through aiWARE as well as marvel.ai, which we're extremely bullish about. And so, yes, I think Marvel AI will be a material contributor to revenue in 2022. And I think we'll have a very wide Distribution of service deployment of Marvel that spans from audiobooks to commercial productions to theatrical productions And localization, both domestically and internationally. Chad, do you want to add anything on the energy or GLC front?

Speaker 2

Yes. I mean going back to the first question Darren, I think the COVID effect that we all kind of have witnessed in terms of accelerating the adoption technology in the enterprise in terms of global communication and collaboration over the Internet, which obviously has manifested itself And things like Zoom and other technologies. I think you're seeing in the hiring markets as well, right? You have this COVID effect that's driving mass Challenges in the global supply chain and hiring front. And our AI solutions and services are Directly tailoring and solving that problem in a very unique way.

Speaker 2

And I believe that will become a systemic part of our society and the enterprise businesses even well past This current crunch that we're seeing, which leaves us in a really nice position to transform the corporate intelligence market starting with talent acquisition, but expanding with Obviously, our Aiware platform. And then looking forward into 2022 beyond just the obvious that Ryan kind of mentioned in the 2 categories, Yes. GRI, we've been investing and continue to invest heavily in that sector and are seeing just spectacular progress in laying that Foundation, both in the energy side as well as in the government sector. So stay tuned. One of these days, you're going to see that market really explode for us and become A massive part of our business.

Speaker 2

2022, we're crossing our fingers that that will be the year.

Speaker 4

Thank

Speaker 3

you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Pat Walravens from JMP Securities. Pat, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you. And congratulations you guys. Nice to see the business cranking on so many different fronts. I think what

Speaker 3

I would love to hear is just sort

Speaker 4

of the steps You've taken in terms of integrating, PANDO and the steps you Still have to take, so that would be sort of part 1. And then part 2,

Speaker 3

you definitely piqued my curiosity with the comment And the press release about the metaverse and the opportunity that presents. So if one of you want to expand a little bit on that,

Speaker 4

Sorry, Chad.

Speaker 2

Brian, why don't you take the PANDO integration first, what we've done so far and then kind of what's left on the roadmap going forward? And then we can both tag team on the metaverse.

Speaker 3

Yes. And I'll address it with Mike as well. There's I'll say a technical side of integration. So think like everything, we wanted to first make sure that we had good institutional controls of data and systems. And so I think check the box there, Mike and our team have done a good job and our integration team about making sure we just have full access and visibility to financials, metrics, numbers and I'll say all system processes.

Speaker 3

And so that's Six numbers and I'll say all system processes. So that's sort of been completed. That will be an ongoing effort as we look to consolidate On a common HR based platform and other systems over time, but I would say we're definitely well ahead of schedule. More importantly, they're part of our Weekly management meetings already. So we do already just in some of this is important anecdotal, but for example, they are part of our weekly all staff Kind of worldwide calls now, we're actively co engaged both on the marketing side and sales front, as I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 3

And that specifically means account mapping, right, really looking at how we can accelerate not just their existing pipeline, but how do we obviously accelerate taking PanoiQ and they're valuable services to our customer base. Some ongoing things obviously are, as we talked a little bit, it's not hindering any of our Projected growth. But again, we do have to take into account the earn out. And obviously, the actions and sort of processes that we put in place Need to obviously make sure they align with providing Panda's ability to have an ability to achieve those earnouts. The good news is we're almost perfectly aligned.

Speaker 3

So again, whether it's the fruits of our labors or their labors to hit collective new logo counts and numbers, we both benefit. So I would give it a very high marks internal score on how we've been doing so far in terms of integration and I expect that to follow suit here in the future. On the Meta Mike, is there anything else you wanted to add regarding integration on a technical basis?

Speaker 4

No, that's perfect. Okay.

Speaker 3

Ryan, I think it'd

Speaker 2

be worth touching on the Wade and Wendy integration into Marvel AI and how that Plays into the metaverse as well.

Speaker 3

Yes. And I'd say one of our kind of new novel integrations representations that we've Even above just starting to do some, I'd say, low level cognitive work through aiWARE is the integration of marvel.ai with PandaLogic's wait and Wendy conversational AI framework. And so we're really excited about that. And wait and Wendy, Which is a service offering of Panda iQ provides a very powerful, very intelligent conversation AI chatbot Type of environment and service for Panda when they're engaging through their customers' talent acquisition needs. We've added a very powerful, almost seamlessly hyper realistic voice element to that.

Speaker 3

And we can and that voice can be In different dialects, different languages. And so we can really add a human element and a continuity aspect To talent acquisitions and onboarding through an integration of marvel.ai voices with Wade and Wendy. And I think that's a good team of just one of the many things that I think again we are in a very good position to be a great technical provider and a technical partner To all of our media and entertainment customers and other organizations as they're evaluating not just the digital transformation world, that we I'd say we're dealing with yesterday, But looking forward, an almost seamless means of looking into the metaverse. And just one simple example is, Imagine now just one of our big media partners like an ESPN or CBS News having all of their content in effect ready for seamless integration with The metaverse, right, where that content is being offline through, I'll say, more traditional means of distribution like OTT or linear television. But And a concrete example is, I think I might have mentioned it to you actually a couple of quarters ago I'm sorry, quarter ago was, For example, the CBS News footage of the March on Washington with Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement And that whole experience being accessible with inside the game of Fortnite, is one example.

Speaker 3

So I think we're in a great position. Aiware makes this all possible because we've already indexed and sort of packaged all the content ready for activation, again, whether that's distribution, NFT production or whatnot.

Speaker 4

So, yes, we're very excited about it.

Speaker 2

Yes. And I think the metaverse by definition is a lot bigger than The new Meta company, AKA Facebook, by definition, it's a multiverse of that's Going to be moving content and information both into the digital realm and then obviously the digital realm interfacing back with us in our physical selves. And I think aiWARE is perfectly positioned with our Automate Studio and our ability to set up those pipelines For that digital transformation integration with the metaverse. So our APIs and heavy lifting that we've been doing over the years is really going to pay spades for us and our partners To capitalize on the metaverse, in all ways.

Speaker 4

All right, great. Thank you both to that perspective.

Operator

Thank you very much, Pat. Our next question comes from Brad Reback from Stifel. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks very much. Guys, just high level, I know you haven't Spoken at 22 yet, but trying to get us all on the same page. Any thoughts on how we should think about revenue growth and the starting point there?

Speaker 4

Yes, I'll take this one. So what I can tell you Brad is I think you have to look at us on a pro form a basis And pro form a year over year, if you take the midpoint of our guidance, we'll be growing just north of 30%. But what we've always said is we're going to be a +40 percent grower as sort of our baseline target. So I think if you use that as a Proxy for 2022, you're going to be in the ballpark, at least to start off the gate.

Speaker 5

That's great. That's great. And then just one real sort of tactical question. What should we be using for the share count for 4Q given that you flipped over to profitability?

Speaker 4

Yes, that's a great question. So we've got 34,900,000 shares outstanding and there's roughly about 10,000,000 shares Common stock equivalents that are outstanding. So that's what I would use on a fully diluted basis.

Speaker 5

That's great. Thanks very much guys.

Speaker 4

Yes. Thanks, Brad.

Operator

Our next question is from Nick Mattiachi Chi from Craig Hallum. Nick, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi. This is Nick on for Chad Bennett. Thanks for taking our questions. So I'm curious, if you could speak about where aiWARE is getting traction in commercial enterprises outside of the media and entertainment vertical? And then, also if you could just give any color on how much the media entertainment vertical is of that aiWARE commercial business Today and where do you see opportunity outside of media and entertainment?

Speaker 2

Ryan, why don't you take this one?

Speaker 3

Yes. So I mean we since kind of we're announcing our new alignment and sort of define it as commercial and government legal and compliance regulated industries, Today, Media and Entertainment still dominates and makes up the lion's share of commercial. And so but we do expect that to expand into really All different types of industries here quickly. You can kind of say that Panda Logic is kind of an interesting foyer where we're already doing the integration of AI with And through PANDO IQ, so by default, we're kind of already in kind of a wide array of hospitality, quick service restaurants and others. And that's going to be a major focus of ours just because of obviously the scale and market leverage we have already with Pano IQ through Pano IQ, their service offering.

Speaker 3

But I expect us to be in really all industries, FinTech, from healthcare, Auto and other areas. So I don't think we're limited today, candidly, post close of Tando, and we kind of see ourselves in really almost every vertical. But on a legacy basis, as you guys are aware, media and entertainment historically has dominated commercial, But I think that will kind of broaden itself out and be more diversified through 2022.

Speaker 6

Got it. And I believe I saw that the founder of the company you guys acquired that I think eventually became the energy product left the company. Just curious if this has any impact on the product roadmap for you guys' energy products? Thank you.

Speaker 3

I don't think yes. I mean are you talking about our own internal energy solution?

Speaker 4

Correct.

Speaker 3

Yes. No, Chad was the Founder and Chief Architect of that product. I think you're referring to Doctor. Wolf Cohn, who was A data scientist as part of that. So no, we don't expect and by the way, he's still actively engaged with the company on a consulting basis.

Speaker 3

So we don't expect any disruption, but to be clear, I think Chad and our own engineering team sort of have led and will continue to lead that effort.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thanks. Thank

Operator

So I'll hand back over to Chad for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator, and thanks everyone for joining us on today's call. I'm very pleased with Veritone's performance this past quarter. We appreciate your time today and the opportunity to share the exciting progress we are making towards our mission of making the world better through artificial intelligence. Until next time. Goodbye.

Operator

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your line, and have a lovely day.

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Earnings Conference Call
Veritone Q3 2021
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