Latent View Analytics Ltd
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Latent View Analytics Ltd
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Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Latent View Analytics Limited Q3 FY '24 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Ms. Asha Gupta. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Manuja. Good evening and welcome to the Q3 FY '24 Earnings Call of Latent View Analytics Limited. The results and presentation have already been mailed to you, and you can also view them on the website, www.latentview.com. In case anyone does not have the copy of press release or presentation or you are not marked in the mailing list, please do write to us, and we will be happy to send you the same.
To take us through the results today and to answer your questions, we have the CEO of the company, Rajan Sethuraman, whom we will refer to as Rajan; and we have the CFO of the company, Rajan Venkatesan, whom we will be referring as Raj. This is just to avoid the confusion while doing the transcript. We will start the call with a brief update on the business, which will be given by Rajan, and then followed by financials given by Raj.
As usual, I would like to remind you that anything that is mentioned on the call that reflects any outlook for the future or which can be construed as forward-looking statements must be viewed in conjunction with the risks and uncertainties that we face. These risks and uncertainties are included but not limited to what we have mentioned in the prospectus filed with the SEBI and subsequent annual report that you can find on our website.
Having said that, I will now hand over the floor to Rajan. Over to you, Rajan.
Thank you, Asha, and welcome everybody for the quarter 3 earnings call and update. I thought I'll use the opportunity to give a few additional highlights about the quarter that has gone by, in addition to what you probably already see on the press release and the investor presentation.
We are particularly happy that this quarter continues to move us in the right direction from a growth trajectory as well as the margins improvement. Some of this is obviously on the back of slightly improving macroeconomic conditions in terms of a few more decisions being taken by our clients, especially with the existing stakeholders that we're already working with.
We are also starting to see the impact of some of the investments that we are making at the front end in terms of account mining as well as new business and sales. In fact, we were able to actually win 3 new accounts in Europe in this particular quarter, and while the engagements are small to begin with, they are with the right kind of enterprise customers that we have traditionally partnered with. And we believe that this actually sets the stage well for long-term partnership and growth with these accounts as well as potential growth in the region and the market itself. Of course, it is still early days in terms of Europe starting to pick up in a significant fashion, but we believe that the start provides the necessary impetus and momentum and that we'll be able to capitalize on this in the coming quarters.
In the U.S. as well, on the growth-related investments, we have continued to bring in full-time employees who have become part of our sales and business development team as well as advisors who have been helping us with the value propositions and solutions that we have been building and connecting us to potential buyers and clients in the marketplace. We added a couple of new advisors in Europe as well, specifically on the financial services side and on the consumer side, and we already are starting to see traction with their connections and expertise, helping us win some of the logos that I just mentioned. Overall, we feel that the year is starting to pan out better.
I mean I had mentioned in earlier conference calls that we are expecting the second half of the year to be better than the first half, and in some sense, that is playing out. We are expecting that the fourth quarter, and therefore, the second half of the year, will also continue on a similar trajectory and that we'll be able to end the year well.
Of particular note is that our pipeline build-out has happened at a fairly steady pace, and in comparison to where we were at the same time last year, our overall opportunity pipeline is more than double of what it used to be a year back. Of course, we are still at various stages in terms of discussions and closures, but we are energized by the fact that there are a lot more conversations and that some of the conversations are starting to proceed in the right direction.
The size of the deals and the velocity with which we are able to close the deals, I would say that the market is still, in some sense, getting decided. We have not had too many very large closures this year so far, but as I mentioned, the pipeline has at least a dozen such opportunities in that, and we are expecting that we might have a few good closures even before the end of this fiscal year. Of course, the impact of all of this will be felt more in the next year rather than in the current year.
We didn't have too many net employee additions. Of course, we did onboard a batch of campus joiners and we also completed the boot camp for an earlier batch in this quarter. We did have some attrition this year in this quarter, and the net impact was marginal in terms of employee strength, but on the back of all of this and the increasing revenues that we have had in this quarter, that meant that our utilization in this quarter has been much better, and that has also aided us in terms of the margin expansion that you see.
Our CFO, Raj will give you more highlights about the margin expansion and some of the other highlights that we have on the financial side, but I wanted to end this initial opening remarks by saying that in general, we feel that the momentum is more upbeat than what we witnessed in the first half of the year, and we are now gearing up and making some of the tweaks and adjustments not only on the front-end bandwidth but also in terms of how we shape the horizontal capabilities that we are building so that we are well prepared and set up for the growth that is expected in the remainder of the year and into the next fiscal.
So with that, I'll pass it on to Raj to touch up on the financial guidance.
Thank you, Rajan. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 earnings call. Just to summarize our quarterly performance, Rajan did speak about qualitatively some of the developments and the business updates for the quarter.
In terms of the financials, of course, we are pleased to report that our top line grew by about 6.4%, and we are happy that on a sequential basis, if you compare the growth rate that we clocked in Q1 versus Q2 versus Q3, we are continuing to see an upward trajectory in the sequential quarter growth. We are happy to report the third quarter in which we were able to report a fairly healthy sequentially quarter growth.
If you take the same metric on a year-on-year basis, we grew by about 14% compared to the last year in rupee terms. In constant currency terms, again, I would say our growth for the current quarter came in at close to about 6. 2% or 6.3%, so we grew at the same rate in constant currency terms as well.
As you guys would be aware, Q3 typically is seasonally a strong quarter for us, and that's been demonstrated several times in the past fiscals as well, and this quarter was no exception. A lot of this is also primarily driven by, I would say, a budget flush or clients looking to exhaust their budgets for the fiscal, but in this particular quarter, apart from growth that came in from existing accounts, what we also witnessed was we had 3 to 4 good, nice logo additions that came in, all of which contributed to the revenue growth in this particular quarter.
In terms of some of the other financial metrics, other income for the quarter came in at about INR 23 crores, a growth of almost 35.5% on a sequential basis. A lot of this growth in other income was primarily driven by a large ForEx gain that we recorded, owing to some intercompany loans that we had given. So excluding this, the other income growth for the current quarter would be lower by about INR 5.5 crores. So that's the amount of ForEx gain that we recorded in this particular quarter.
The EBITDA for the quarter came in at INR 36.8 crores, reflecting a growth of 19.4%. We were able to improve our EBITDA margins to 22.2%, up about 242 basis points on a sequential basis. A couple of factors that led to this margin expansion: one, Rajan already touched upon the fact that the utilization and the operational efficiency for this quarter was significantly better and we were able to deliver a higher level of revenue on pretty much the same level of employee base; but two, more importantly, what we are also beginning to see in, I would say, small measure is some of the work that we are delivering is on the back of the value proposition that we are creating. And therefore, the delivery effort in delivering some of these projects is significantly lower and the margins on some of these projects are much higher than the typical gross margins that you have on some of our services contracts.
So operational efficiencies were driven by better utilization, coupled with a small uptick or a decent uptick in value proposition-led services, meant that our gross margins were better for this quarter. That, coupled with the fact that our revenues increased whereas our overhead spends were pretty much in line with what we spent for the last quarter, meant that there was operating leverage kicking in, which both these factors led to the margin expansion that we spoke about.
Directionally, I would say that for the following quarter as well, we would expect to cross similar EBITDA margins. In fact, we would want to say that we would -- on the back of the current order book and the visibility that we have, our EBITDA margins are expected to be in the range of 22.5% to 23.5%. So it will be in that bracket for the following quarter, which is Q4.
Our PAT for the current quarter stood at about INR 46.5 crores, reflecting a growth of almost [ 37.1% ] on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The PAT, of course, benefited from higher operational as well as nonoperational income that was generated in the current quarter.
One other color that I would want to sort of emphasize on is, in this particular quarter, we did have an SEZ benefit that came out of an extension that we will be filing for the next 5 years, and therefore, there will be a certain amount of investment that will be earmarked for the SEZ that we operate out of, on the back of which we will be eligible for an extension in the direct tax benefit. And so that entire benefit was booked in the current quarter, which also means that our effective tax rate for this quarter was lower than the historical period that we reported. Our EPS without tax benefit would have actually stood at INR 2.21 against INR 2.27 that was reported.
For the 9 months, our revenue came in at INR 469 crores, reflecting a growth of 17.9% with an EBITDA of 20.4%.
In terms of the geographical split of revenues, U.S. continues to again be the dominant geography, contributing 95% of overall revenues.
Europe contributed about 2.2%. As we mentioned in the call earlier, we are continuing to see good traction in the European region. While some of the deal wins are fairly small, we believe that these are the right sort of logos that we would want to work with. And on the back of some of these projects that we will be delivering, we expect follow-on and continued work from these clients. In FY '24, we would ideally expect the contribution of Europe to go up from the current 2.2% levels, but we will be able to give a better outlook on the contribution from Europe as we get into FY '24.
Technology again continues to be the strongest vertical for us, contributing 71% of our overall revenues, followed by industrials. Industrials, in terms of, I would say, performance has been a bit of a standout vertical for us. Technology has always been the strongest vertical for us, but in this current fiscal, industrials has shown fairly good strength in, one, adding new customers and also growing some of the existing customers that we had, and therefore, that is the second largest vertical for us today. Consumer and retail came in at 8.6%, whereas financial services contributed about 7.6% over hear.
In terms of our balance sheet size, our balance sheet continues to be healthy. Our total fund balance, including the IPO money, stood at about INR 1,200 crores as of 31st December 2023.
During the quarter, we onboarded about 60 people from the campus hiring that we had done, and we closed the quarter with about 1,162 head count. As mentioned earlier, we will continue to invest in people. In fact, in the current quarter, we will be onboarding 2 more batches, most likely from the campus hires that we had done last year.
Lastly, I know this is a question that everyone would have. This will be on M&A specifically. The update from our side is that we continue to invest a fairly substantial amount of time in evaluating new prospects. We would also like to give an update at this point in time, we are in a fairly advanced stage of discussion with one of the prospects, and we are carrying out legal due diligence and working on some of the other closing matters for us to be able to conclude on this deal. As is customary in a process like this, we envisage that this process could take anywhere between 4 to 8 weeks to complete, post which we will be able to give a further update on the transaction itself.
With that, I would like to conclude our opening remarks and will hand it back to Asha for Q&A.
[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Mohit Jain from Anand Rathi.
Sir, congrats, good quarter. First is on 4Q outlook. So generally, it is weak for us over the last few years. So are we saying that given our order backlog, et cetera, 4Q is likely to be as strong as 3Q or 2Q?
Yes, Mohit, thanks. Firstly, yes, at this point in time, I would say that we should end the year well. Our quarter 4 numbers should be better than what we have done in quarter 3. And both in terms of revenue as well as margin, I would expect a small uptick in comparison to quarter 3. We will have a better read on the next year towards the end of this fiscal. So when we do the next conference call update, I would be in a position to give you an update for the next year.
Given that, I mean the pipeline is large, as I mentioned, but I also indicated that in general, this year, the number of large deals and the velocity with which we are able to close has still been sluggish. Of course, we are expecting that things will continue to improve over the course of this quarter as well, so I would be able to give better guidance on the next year. But definitely, Q4, we should see upticks in terms of revenue as well as margin.
Okay. And second, where should your utilization be broadly for this quarter?
I think for the current quarter, the utilization could get impacted a little bit because we do want to onboard a bunch of the campus hires and offers that we have made. The timing of the onboarding, we are still working through that. And as I said, it will depend on how quickly we see some of the larger opportunities closing. So if they close sooner and we see strong signals, then we might even start -- I mean, we might do the onboarding even in the month of February. And then those people will go through the boot camp in the month of February and March, which means that they will be unbilled. And therefore, to that extent, it could impact utilization. If we see a little bit more delay than we will accordingly push the onboarding.
But with all of this taken into account, we are still planning to complete onboarding everybody, to whom we have made offers, by April at the latest. We're just trying to phase this out in line with what we see as the demand trajectory.
So the utilization could get a bit of an impact on account of the campus onboarding. We will be very watchful of any lateral hiring. I mean, in fact, we have initiated a fairly disciplined exercise of Pyramid Refresh so that a lot of the upcoming demand, we will be able to staff internally, meaning that we release people who are even currently on build engagements and backfill them either directly or through a tiered model with the campus hires, so that we are able to absorb and make more of the campus hires productive while, at the same time, meeting the demand for the new jobs as well.
So now all of this will mean that the utilization will get impacted by these factors. I'm expecting that the utilization could be a tad lower in this quarter.
And in third quarter, we would be around?
In the third quarter, it did improve. The utilization levels have improved in comparison to the previous quarter because we were very calibrated both on the external hiring front as well as on the campus onboarding. I mean, we did one round of campus onboarding, but that was a controlled action that we took, and we didn't let the numbers run up too much ahead of the curve. So our utilization for quarter 3, the quarter that just ended, that's been better than what we did in quarter 2 and quarter 1.
Right. And last is on the tax rate. Now this quarter, you had an exceptional item. So should we expect you to revert to this 23%, 24% range for FY '25? Or do you think could vary from there?
Mohit, your question was for '24? Or was it for Q4? Sorry.
FY '25.
Yes, FY '25, a couple of things will happen, Mohit. So like we have mentioned in the past, there was a fairly large ESOP exercise that has happened in the U.S. for which we were getting a tax break, and we continue to enjoy the tax break, I think for us, it will take us up to Q1 or even potentially Q2 of next year for us to completely exhaust the tax break that we had in the U.S.
Secondly, the entire tax benefit for the SEZ facility that we operate out of, which is SEZ in Chennai, will run out in FY '25 -- march '24, both SEZ units that we operate out of will come to an end as far as the tax quality is concerned. And therefore, we believe that we should go back to -- I think, in fact, our effective tax rate for the group as a whole will go back to 26%, 27% for the next year.
26%, 27%, okay.
Yes.
The next question is from the line of Rushabh Shah from O3 Wealth & Asset Management.
My first question is, sir, has there any M&A happened in our industry at a global level? And what could be the valuations of that M&A, sir, if possible you could state?
First question was is there M&A that happened in our industry at a global level, any updates. And then question two what could be the valuations.
Okay. I was just making sure that I got the question right. From an industry global perspective, I would say that most data analytics service providers, as well as analytics practices, are still experiencing the sluggishness that I talked about. In many instances, they have even commented that analytics initiatives can be sometimes discretionary in nature, especially if that revolves around newer technologies and some amount of change management to be implemented on the part of the client as well.
Of course, analytics initiatives that support cost reduction and revenue enhancement that have a direct P&L impact, they have seen more traction even during the course of the year. Although I would say that clients have been reluctant to kick off large new initiatives, in many instances, they have continued with initiatives that already have found favor within the management, and that has been the case for us as well.
For this year, we were pretty much able to renew all of the managed services work that we were doing last year. We did see some drop-off this year in terms of fixed fee engagements. We did see some impact in the case of clients that were directly affected by the interest rate regimes that prevailed in the U.S. and Europe. But barring that, we did see renewals coming through pretty much as expected.
What has been challenging, of course, are large new deals with new clients and even with existing clients. With existing clients, a lot of the growth that we have had this year so far has been smaller, incremental additions to ongoing engagements and smaller, newer initiatives that they have kicked off. I would say that, that is reflective of the general global environment that prevails at this point with respect to data analytics.
The one big kicker that the entire industry has been witnessing is generative AI, and I'm sure that you have seen a lot of news on that as well. I would say that at this point in time, while that is generating a lot of excitement, the initiative sizes and the nature of the initiatives are still in an earlier stage of maturity, smaller initiatives, many of them could even be unpaid POC and pilots. There might be some infrastructure work that is happening in preparation for larger initiatives, but otherwise, organizations are still figuring out the best use cases to make use of the generative AI capabilities. I'm expecting, however, that this will be a fairly significant lever in the next year as we see organizations are taking up newer initiatives on the back of improving macroeconomic scenarios. So I would say that is a broad commentary in terms of what we are witnessing globally.
On the M&A question, we are generally looking for opportunities where the revenue range is between $10 million to $20 million. And in general, you will see that if it is a services organization, multiples are in the range of $3 million to $5 million revenue to valuation multiples. If there is any nonlinearity at play in terms of product or IP that the organization brings to the table, then the valuation multiples could be better than that.
At this point in time, the conversation that is currently on the table where we are in advanced stages, like as Raj mentioned, is more of a services play, but they do have some IP and a product that they have built, which has already started giving them revenue. So we will be factoring that into the valuation discussion that we are having.
My second question is, what could be the entry barriers for your business in the future? Like, what more Latent View has that it can defend and no other competitive player can enter into it? What would be the entry barriers, sir?
Yes. So I believe that there are 2 or 3, right, that are worth mentioning. Of course, there can be a very long list that one can talk about, but I would say that the real differentiators are the 2 or 3 that I will just mention.
One is that as an organization, we have built pretty much all of our expertise and capability working with our technology and digital-native companies. In fact, the very first account that we won back in 2008 when we actually started focusing on the U.S. market, Microsoft is one of the big 5 in the technology space, and we continue to work with them.
And we have expanded our limit to work with many of the leading technology and digital-native companies in the Silicon Valley and the U.S. West Coast. These organizations are pioneers themselves in the area of data analytics. They are inventing the next new -- like you know how Microsoft has invested in OpenAI, for example, and they are building Microsoft Fabric, for example, to compete with Snowflake and Databricks. So just the sheer experience of working with the organizations that are creating the next new in the space has given us an edge in terms of the technological as well as the algorithmic novelties and approaches that are emerging in the space of data analytics, and we are able to take these and apply in many other situations and in other industries, like retail and consumer and industrial, for example. So I think that was a very important, significant differentiator factor.
The second point I would say is that consciously, we have straight away from the lower end of work that happens in the data analytics space. So for example, in data engineering, we don't do too much of the lift-and-shift work nor are we too much into the regular dashboarding and reporting work. A lot of the work that we do has a significant element of complexity and fuzziness and that is also reflected in the premiums that our clients are willing to pay for the work that we do. Of course, this means that we are a little selective and choosy in the work that we take on, and if we take on work at slightly the lower end of the spectrum, we bring in a lot of the automation and the latest tooling and technology that is available to get that work done in a very productive, efficient manner.
This has meant that we have to hire a certain caliber of people, whether it is from engineering colleges or whether it is from the management institutions or whether it is from statistics and mathematical institutes. I think the combination and caliber of people that we hire and the fact that we focus on fuzzy, complex problems, has again stood us in good light in terms of the kind of premiums. And like you said, it provides a certain level of comfort and moat to the work that we are doing.
I would add the third thing as the solutions and accelerators that we've been able to build over the last 16, 17 years of our existence. We have built very solid set of accelerators and solutions that provide, if not a nonlinearity, and that does happen in many instances, but even if there is no nonlinearity in terms of the revenue on the particular engagement, these are fantastic conversation starters and the tip of the spear strategy in terms of getting us connected and having discussions with the right set of stakeholders and convincing them that we have the ability to solve their toughest problems.
We now have a very good suite of products and solutions that we have built over the years. In the last 1.5 years, we have also been layering in capabilities around generative AI into those solutions, in addition to having solutions that have been built with generative AI at the core, and all of these are helping us in terms of newer conversations as well as in terms of increasing the efficiency with which we are able to do the work.
I would kind of restrict my answer to these three. I believe that these are the most significant differentiators.
Okay. And then my last question is, how has been the learning curve for Latent View, like before 6 to 7 years, versus now? How has Latent View evolved?
Yes, I think that's a good question, and it kind of provides me an opportunity to talk about some of the changes that we have been making internally at our end. In general, data analytics is a fairly dynamic place, and this is something that we have witnessed over our entire existence. But having said that, I would say that the same principles of Moore's Law are at work in the data analytics space. If anything, the pace of change and the dynamism is accelerating even more, and we now see the emergence, the maturing, and the fadeout of newer technologies had at an even more rapid clip in comparison to what might have happened 5 years back or 10 years back.
So therefore, the ability of organizations, and this I mean both service providers as well as client organizations, to be able to quickly appreciate what is the next new that is emerging, find the right kind of business problems that can be tackled in an entirely new way or in a more impactful manner using these technologies and being able to quickly kick off initiatives and then capitalize on that, I think that is the defining characteristics of successful organizations, and I think that is also exactly what we have been doing.
So in the past, 5 years back, 6 years back, we were largely organized as a portfolio construct with 3 or 4 portfolios of accounts, and that was the only construct that we had. Everybody was part of one of those other 4 portfolios. These portfolios are not defined by industry nor were they defined by any kind of horizontal capability. They were just loose clusters of accounts and, in many instances, defined by geography rather than any other factor.
In the last 3, 4 years, we have reorganized ourselves by industry as the main defining dimension, and I think that is significantly important because our ability to come up with industry-leading solutions that tackle the most pressing problems of the industry have been significantly impacted by that new organization.
In addition to that, we have also set up multiple technical as well as value chain-based horizontals. One of the value chain horizontals that we have is supply chain analytics, and there are 3 value propositions that have come out of the supply chain analytics horizontals that tackle the core problems of supply chain organizations across industries, around on-shelf availability, around multi-tier supplier visibility, around demand forecasting, for example, and these are the value propositions that are again finding traction in the market.
So the horizontals that we have set up, whether it's a functional horizontal like supply chain analytics or whether it's a capability horizontal like the data science practice or the data engineering practice, they are actually pushing the envelope in terms of the technical as well as the algorithmic and the functional problems that we are able to bring to the table, and I think that, again, it's a very important defining characteristic of what has changed for us in the last few years.
Lastly, I'll mention that with all of this happening, we are also very conscious that we need to be able to put our arms around all of these things and then act as s consulting and a thought partner to our clients and not just be an execution partner. So the other thing that we have been focusing on is the consulting capability and the consulting practice. And that practice has been doing really well, especially in this fiscal. Our consulting practice is currently operating at a chargeability of 80%, and we are looking to add more people into the practice. There are several engagements where we are helping define the analytic strategy and the road map of initiatives that our clients should be undertaking.
I believe that these are the ones that are also helping us with generating a lot of opportunities that we currently see in the pipeline. So I would mention that these are the 3 substantial changes that we have made in the last 3, 4 years.
[Operator Instructions] The next questions is from the line of Rohan Nagpal from Helios Capital.
I have a few questions. I'll just ask them one by one. So the first thing I want to know is, you talked a bit about the right kind of logos that you're finding traction with in Europe, so could you just provide some color on the kinds of logos you have found in Europe that are sort of giving you confidence for expansion in that geography?
Yes. Sure, Rohan. We have shared a bit of that in the press release. In fact, 3 out of the 4 bullet points that you see under select key client wins in the press release is pertaining to the account additions that we have in Europe. One of them is one of the largest players in the consumer space. They actually are a well-known global brand into beverages, into food, and other products. So we are working with them. We are going to be helping them on the innovation and the R&D front, helping them validate what kind of flavors are likely to work in what kind of markets, and we are helping them on that front.
Another one is an asset management company, and we are helping them with their data strategy. They are, again, a fairly significant player within that space.
A third one is also in the consumer package group space, and they are a biscuit manufacturer, and we have been helping them with a tool that goes right up to the CEO level in terms of decision-making and data utilization.
In addition to that, if I look at the current set of opportunities in the pipeline, most of them fall, again, either within the BFSI space, the consumer space, or into the automotive manufacturing space. That is where we are finding a lot of traction.
We have mentioned that we are already working with one of the largest iconic luxury car manufacturers based out of Germany. We are having plenty of open opportunities with them. There are also several other car manufacturers, automotive manufacturers, that we are in conversations with on the back of the capabilities that we have especially around warranty analytics, around predicting part failures, and so on. So I think that's an interesting area that we are finding traction.
The entire R&D innovation suite, leveraging our smart innovation solution, that is also finding a good amount of traction in the European market, and the solutions that we have around payback growth payments and asset management is again finding traction in the European market.
So again, just in terms of the profile, pretty much all of them would be in the Fortune 500 list, and that is the type of clientele that we have focused on in the past, even in the U.S., so we are happy to note that the conversations in Europe are also with the right kind of client.
Got it. That's really helpful. And then the next two questions pertain to margins. So based on where we were a year or a little more than a year ago, with a significantly more profitable company, I already see the company making significant strides towards sort of improving that, but there's still a lot of headroom if I just take the past as a benchmark. I think next quarter, you just guided for 22.5% to 23.5%, but what is the longer-term outlook on profitability over here? Or is it just a matter of the investments in Europe sort of kicking in or other factors weighing on profitability?
Yes. I'll actually take that question. So I'll answer that question in two parts. So one is, this is the current level of investment that has gone into the business. So I think we did sort of respond to this question in one of our earlier conference calls as well.
So beginning of this year, the level of investments that we had planned for, which is in the capability teams, which is the sales and business development teams as well as the account management teams, a lot of the investments was planned with an intent to and also to build the capacity, which will enable us to get up to $25 million on a quarterly basis. So at this point in time, these investments would mean that we would be back to the 25%-odd margin level. So that's the sort of current investment that has gone into the business. So once the business hits a run rate of $24 million to $25 million on a quarterly basis, we should be back at the 25% EBITDA margin trajectory.
Now having said that, our endeavor, again, is not to really ramp up or sort of revenue up the EBITDA margins to historical levels of 28%, 30%. So the intent is to continue to grow at a much faster and healthier clip than the rest of the market. And therefore, for us, the goal for the next couple of years, in fact, 2 to 3 years, would be to grow at a much faster rate. This year, we'll probably end the year with a growth rate of between 16% to 18% on an annualized basis.
But if you look at the last couple of years, last year, we grew in excess of 25%-plus. The year before that was 33%-plus. So our endeavor would be to sort of get back to those growth levels, even if that means that EBITDA margins stay in the range of 24%, 25%. So we are, as a business and as a management team, comfortable keeping up a few basis points on the EBITDA margins so long as we're able to maintain a certain growth trajectory. I would say that's the guidance from our side at this point in time.
We will be able to give a better, I would say, view on the margin outlook for the next year once we close our planning exercise and once we sort of meet during our next earnings call. At that point of time, you would have a better view of, one, the order book, the pipeline visibility, plus the level of investment that we would like to commit for the next year, and we will be able to give a better margin trajectory when we meet in the next earnings call.
The next question is from the line of Karan Uppal from PhillipCapital (India).
Congratulations on a strong set of numbers and great to see positive demand commentary. So Rajan, just first question is, in terms of the improvement in the demand, would you characterize this as an improvement in the discretionary spending or the outlook of discretionary spending improving from the clients? Or do you think other factors are also at play? So that's the first question.
Yes, Karan, I would say that maybe there is some element of confidence returning on the macroeconomic front with potentially interest rates softening and getting back to earlier levels, which might be encouraging people to take up some discretionary initiatives. But I would add that most of the prospects and clients that we are talking to are still very focused on ensuring that the initiatives are helpful in terms of either revenue growth or margin enhancement. And therefore, there's a lot more levels of internal scrutiny and validation before they sign off on the engagement.
And even when they are ready to, in some sense, take a plunge into an initiative where everything may not be quantified and set in stone, they would want to do it on a smaller scale rather than launch a big initiative. So for example, they might want to test the waters in a few markets or with a few SKUs or they try and do it in one part of the business before they go more aggressive in terms of the coverage.
So the sentiment is improving, but it is definitely not back to the earlier levels in terms of being willing to take on bigger initiatives. I think the sentiment will improve. I mean, obviously, there is some expectation that interest rates will turn the corner. Obviously, the whole higher interest rate regime increases the cost of capital and then therefore, it means that all considerations will have to be weighed against IRR and payback and other things, and therefore, it's tougher for teams to justify new initiatives.
What we have seen though is where it has already grown and they are seeing the benefits, either on the cost reduction or on the revenue enhancement front, we have seen substantial increase in budgets that have been allocated. So this year, for example, if we take the whole year till date, we grew significantly in the 3 largest accounts that we have, and it's a really significant growth that I'm talking about. And with all of them, it's been on the back of work that's been already done, that's been proven, where they know for certain that the work is already giving them the kind of impact that they are looking for. So they've been more comfortable betting on expanding initiatives that are already working for them, still a bit conservative when it comes to taking off completely new initiatives.
Second question is in terms of the large deals. So you mentioned that the pipeline has doubled, so any color in terms of the nature of work, the deal size, duration, as well as the stickiness of the work which you guys are getting?
Yes. The deal sizes, when we say large deals, I mean, what I meant by large deals in this conference call are deals that are at least $1 million and above. Internally, when we classify deals, anything that is more than $0.5 million, we call it a large deal or a strategic opportunity. But for the purpose of this conference call, I really had a $1 million kind of a threshold in mind. And we do have several opportunities that are upwards of $1 million at this point in time.
The nature of the deals are not very different. I mean they span the full spectrum, going all the way from undertaking strategic work to data engineering, getting the data ecosystem in place, to actually applying newer principles of decision-making in terms of the kind of dashboards and reports and work that they want to do, as well as quite a bit of work on the advanced analytics front, especially around innovation, around the one customer view value proposition that we have, for example, work around applying generative AI and newer concepts to how we generate insights from a lot of data that they might be already having in unstructured format.
So I wouldn't say that the nature of the work is very different, but these larger initiatives, which cut across the organization, maybe involve multiple business units and so on.
The time duration of the deal and the contracting model, the larger deals, I would say that most of them are in the managed services model, where the client actually has already identified a set of initiatives that needs to be done and therefore, they are looking at working with a partner to make all of that happen. And therefore, we will be contracting in a managed services kind of a model only. And in most instances, therefore, these would also be repeatable over a longer time horizon, and these are not just one-and-done, fixed-scope projects, but instead ongoing initiatives that will need to be continued for the foreseeable future.
The next question is from the line of Manan Poladia from MKP Securities.
So my first question is on the lines of the generative AI thing that you mentioned in this call and the previous call. I just wanted to understand what sort of role we are playing when it comes to generative AI. I understand what you said about LASER and the other products, but if you could please just give me some specifics of what kind of generative AI projects were looking to work on.
Yes, sure. As far as generative AI, we are taking a three-pronged approach in terms of how we are looking to utilize and leverage that. The first part, the first prong of approach, is to build products that have generative AI at the core, and that's what LASER and AI Pen Pal are all about. And I've already talked about both LASER and AI Pen Pal.
But just as a quick refresher, LASER is all about using the power of generative AI to look at documents that the organizations already have within their internal knowledge repositories in text and unstructured form and being able to generate insights. These could be contractual documents, for example, these could be customer reviews or employee surveys that they have conducted, and how do you use the power of generative AI to generate insights from all of that.
AI Pen Pal is more focused on generating new content that is tailored to the preferences and the understanding that we have about specific customers, potential customers or cohorts, as the case might be, where instead of sending mass mailers, you can actually be more targeted in terms of designing campaigns and executing along the lines of what will appeal to individual customers or specific cohorts. So that's what AI Pen Pal is all about. It actually uses a generative capability of gen AI to come up with very tailored content.
So these are two examples where the core of the product itself is generative AI. So this is one prong of the approach.
The second prong of the approach is to build a layer of generative AI into all of the other value propositions that we have. So for example, one of the value props that has found a lot of traction in the recent years is what we call insight lens. And essentially, this is about how do you use the latest in technology to move away from a dashboard kind of a concept to more of a decision board. A dashboard still tends to be a representation of what somebody wants to look at in terms of data and the visual representation of it, whereas a decision board goes 1 or 2 steps about it in actually spurring action, giving very particular and specific recommendations on what needs to be done, given what is there on the dashboard. And that is where we have again implemented generative AI to come up with very specific actionable points, actions that decision-makers can take.
And this is something that we are trying to implement in as many of the value propositions as possible, to bring the generative AI to answer the so-what question. Yes, the dashboard tells you what, but the so-what is where generative AI comes into play.
And then the third prong of the approach is to use generative AI internally for enhancing and improving the productivity of our people. So whether we are building data pipelines or whether we're building a model or a dashboard or whatever it might be, can we do it faster, can we do it with less effort, can we leverage code or options and suggestions that are already available. And that's where, again, generative AI can be put to good use.
Of course, on the third prong, it is still early days because we also want to be careful that we are not taking any issues that might be there, in what Generative AI comes up with, because everybody knows the issues around hallucination and so on. So we are being calibrated on the third prong. But that's another area where we are already starting to see traction in terms of improving the productivity of it.
So these are the 3 things that we are doing in terms of how we make use of generative AI.
So that sounds like a fantastic initiative, sir. Secondly, sir, I have a follow-up question. On the revenue front, the first prong that you did explain, are we seeing any meaningful traction, number one?
Secondly, when we are making pitches to customers, especially customers that are Fortune 500 customers and larger logos that you speak about in Europe, are we seeing any sort of generation from them where they want to move towards generative AI within your contracts? Or is there something that's not happening very commercially right now?
There is a lot of traction. There is a whole lot of interest and excitement when it comes to generative AI. Some of it is just driven by the general excitement and the hype that is there around the topic. So even Board members and very senior people, irrespective of whether they really know how a large language model works, they have all experienced it in some shape and form. I mean, for all you know, their children or grandchildren might be using an LLM actually to write their school essays or come up with a poem for their granddad's birthday, for example. So given the general democratization that has happened, there is a great deal of visibility and excitement on account of it.
When you talk generative AI, and when you then mention how can it be put to good use in the context of problems that we are trying to solve, there is always an openness and willingness to engage. Now of course, this doesn't mean that it will immediately translate into very large initiatives engagement, you still need to go through the entire process of evaluating whether it will work within their context with the data that they have, for the problem that they are trying to solve, and whether it will still be meaningful for them in terms of what emerges from that.
Having said that, I mean, we have won already several engagements with generative AI. In fact, one of the most strategic opportunities that we won this year is a complete generative AI engagement. It actually utilizes the laser value proposition that I talks about, our solution that we have built. This is with one of our existing customers. In fact, they will be the largest account that we have, and it's more than $650,000 of work that we have won with them, just implementing that particular solution.
So there is traction. Now obviously, the understanding of what generative AI can do for them will, again, vary based on the maturity of the organization, in terms of how much they have been already leveraging data and analytics and the data ecosystem that they have. We see better traction even now with technology and digital companies. When it comes to consumer, retail, other organizations, there's still more education that is called for at this point in time.
The next question is from the line of Sumangal Pugaliya from Rare Enterprise.
First thing, on the acquisition, can you help us just give some color on what kind of ballpark size and nature of the asset?
Yes, I'll take that question. While we can't give you exact specific details in terms of the transaction because, at this point in time, we are, I would say, still in the process of completing the entire due diligence as well as some of the other sort of confirmatory checks that we would like to do in a transaction of this nature. But in terms of, I think, guidance, Rajan has already mentioned the targets that we are looking for are in the range of $10 million to $20 million in revenue. So it would be fair to assume that the target that we will be looking at would be somewhere in the sort of midpoint of the range that I spoke about.
Secondly, in terms of the size of the deals, of course, there is a certain structure that we would sort of put out even while evaluating targets, which would mean that there would be a certain upfront acquisition, which will then be followed by a target acquisition of the remaining stake in the company.
But typically, what we've seen, specifically for companies that are there in the analytics space, and which we also have high-quality logos as claims and have some sort of repeatable, I would say, solutions or accelerators that they've developed on the back of which they are able to charge premium pricing, we've seen the deal multiples range between $3 million to $5 million, with $4 million to $5 million being the multiples for, I would say, more premium businesses, which have high-quality logos, better pricing, as well as accelerators that I spoke about.
So the transaction that we are evaluating at this point in time, we can safely assume that the valuation multiples will be in this range and the ticket size of the transaction would obviously be based on the revenue numbers that I just spoke about.
That's very helpful. Final question on the go-to-market investment, so going forward, what is the outlook relative to what we've been doing last year? Also, any color on the evaluation of the go-to-market investments so far?
Can you repeat the first part of the question because I think that we lost you in between.
Yes. My question is, on the go-to-market investments on the hiring side, what is the outlook relative to what we are doing in the previous financial year going forward? Will we maintain that? Or will we lower that? And any valuation that you've done on the performance of this go-to-market investment so far?
Yes, sure. So as Raj mentioned in response to an earlier question, the investments that we made starting the beginning of this fiscal and maybe a little bit even in the last fiscal, they're all done a little ahead of the curve, even before this interest rate, we have started playing it out. And the intent was to set up a team, a front-end team, that can actually take us all the way to about $25 million to $26 million in terms of a quarterly run rate. So today, we are actually at about a $20 million kind of a run rate. So we believe that the current level of investment are adequate to carry us to the $25 million to $26 million range.
There will be some churn and some exits and new additions, I mean, backfills, that will happen on the back of performance of the people who are there at the front end, whether they are on the entity side or on the client-servicing side or whether they are in the new business development side. But we do not expect that the level of investment itself will change significantly until we get to the $25 million kind of a mark. When we get to that, we will be evaluating what else is needed. Of course, we have already begun that kind of a thought process, and we're expecting that we will probably get to the $25 million mark in a couple of quarters in terms of run rate. So we will start making the preparation for it.
There's also a lot of learnings from the last year in terms of what kind of people have clicked for us and worked well, whether it is on the client-servicing side or whether it's on the new business development side. So all of those learnings will be factored into the type of people that we hire into the organization. We are not anticipating any other significant investments. Marketing and other investments will be in line with the revenue trajectory and the kind of plan that we have for the next year.
The next question is from the line of Kshitij Saraf from Tusk Investments.
I wanted to know, because Microsoft is both a customer and a key partner, just a sense of how much revenue comes as part of the partnerships for not just Microsoft but the other hyperscalers. So we have all these partnerships outlined in the presentation. So could you just throw some light on how these fit into the overall scheme of things and what sort of contribution is there, which are the most key partners, at least in terms of revenue, as we stand? And given that we are looking to focus slightly more on the BFS side and on CPG and DTL, is the mix expected to shift in favor of any of these partners away from Microsoft? Or how do we think of it?
Right. So the simple answer, Kshitij, is that the partnership channel, as a source of new leads and opportunities, it has not been a very significant one for us so far. I mean, we have got leads and opportunities, and we have closed some revenue. I mean, in the past, we have seen traction from Snowflake. We have seen some traction from Databricks, from Microsoft Azure, as well as the Power Platform ecosystem. We have seen some traction from Amazon AWS as well. So these are the partnerships where we have seen lead generation and some revenue come in.
But I wouldn't say that this is a significant source of revenue for us, not for me to actually even put out a percentage in terms of this is a contribution coming from channel. Now because of this reason, we are also doing a bit of a refocus. And the intent going forward is to just work very seriously with 2 partners. And at this point in time, the 2 that we have zeroed in are Microsoft Azure, Power Platform, Fabric ecosystem. I mean actually, Microsoft itself is also looking at promoting Fabric as the main go-to-market plank, which actually unifies and integrates many things that they have within their tech stack and, of course, AWS, given that AWS is a significant player in some of the industries where we are present. So the plan is just to double-down on these 2 and drive more engagement with them.
So the partnership team is focused on how do we get more of our solutions showcased within AWS as well as Microsoft. So for example, many of the solutions that I talked about even earlier, whether it is one customer view, whether it is smart innovation, they are already hosted on AWS and Azure, and they're expecting to capitalize on that going forward. So the intent is to build stronger relationships with specific account executives who are also focused on the prospects that we are interested in and bring in more leads and revenue through the channel.
Okay. And just to follow up on that, so is it safe to say that you're looking at garnering direct business on the basis of Latent View's capabilities itself and partnerships would just be some sort of an enabler? What would differentiate Latent View compared to other similar offerings in the market? What would you say is your USP when you look at the solutions for the client?
So I think I kind of answered this question earlier in terms of what we believe are our differentiators and boards. And I mentioned 3 points there. One is just the fact that a lot of our analytics shops and capability has been built on the back of working with the technology and the digital-native ecosystem. So therefore, the robustness of our technical, as well as math and algorithmic approaches, are exceptionally strong.
The second point that I had mentioned was the fuzzy and the complex problems that we go after, and therefore, the commensurate caliber and capability of the people that we bring to the table in terms of who we hire and how do we groom them.
And the third are the solutions and the accelerators. And the third point is probably more relevant to this question and the earlier question that you asked.
These solutions and accelerators, in many instances, have actually been very pioneering in nature. For example, with AWS, we had actually own, we have participated in the AWS re:Invent event even as many as 8 years back because we actually pioneered the build-out of specific solutions, leveraging some of the newer capabilities that AWS was putting out at that point in time. And we have collaborated directly with AWS in building some of the solutions.
I think that the strength of the solutions that we are building, which address very specific pain points that the industry is facing, I think that is really what helps us in terms of differentiating ourselves when we go and have conversations.
So our smart innovation solutions, for example, it incorporates a lot of the nuances and latest capabilities around AI and modeling that is able to ingest vast amounts of data from multiple sources and apply the right kind of modeling techniques to identify what is trending, how big it is likely to get, and therefore, what kind of actions an organization should be taking on the R&D and innovation front. I think that is really the main differentiator. Of course, this will not only benefit further if you're also able to showcase these solutions within the context of an AWS or an Azure and how these solutions can work within those ecosystem as well. And that is really what we are attempting in terms of partnership conversations we are having.
That clarifies. congratulations, all the best.
Thank you, Kshitij.
The next line is Rohan Nagpal from Helios Capital.
I had a question on the impact of profitability as a result of this acquisition. I mean you're going to add about maybe 15% to 20% of your margin this year. Do you see this as being margin neutral? Do you anticipate margin compression? How should we think about that?
So the way to sort of look at this acquisition, Rohan, would be, one, at an EBITDA level, this deal will definitely be margin accretive. Although at an EBIT level, we are still, at this point in time, undertaking an exercise where, of course, you will need to allocate a portion of the purchase price itself to intangibles or assets that could come as a part of the acquisition, and therefore, you need to do a purchase price allocation.
We will be able to comment on the impact on EBIT, specifically once we've had a chance to complete the entire due diligence exercise. But the sort of guidance that we can give is, at an EBITDA level, this will definitely be margin accretive for the business because the margin profile of the opportunity we're evaluating is more healthier than the current Latent View business.
Perfect. Okay. And is this a company that broadly operates in Europe? Or is this A North America thing? Are there synergies? Or is it just expanding the scope of business that you're looking at?
So geography is not the sort of primary driver for this particular opportunity. It's more the capabilities that come along with this particular opportunity because we've repeatedly stated that our primary focus for any acquisition would be, one, if they help us fill up a white space that we have today. So of course, expanding into Europe is important for us. But for us, I think the first focus would be to expand or sort of reduce the dependence, one, on technology and expand our footprint in consumer and retail and financial services. So this particular opportunity will help us expand into the verticals that I just spoke about.
The next question is from the line of Karan Uppal from PhillipCapital (India).
So just one question in terms of next year's growth, given that you will exit strongly in Q4, you are mentioning that Q4 will be similar or slightly better than Q3. So given a strong exit, do you believe that FY '25 growth rate can be back to the pre, maybe 1 year, 2 years back, when you used to see 25%, 30% kind of growth? Can FY '25 growth be around those levels?
A little early, Karan. Like I said earlier, we would actually be able to be in a better position to provide that guidance when we actually wrap up quarter 4 and we do the next conference call. Like I said, it depends on the velocity and the closure of some of the larger opportunities that we see in the pipeline. The signs are encouraging at this time. So therefore, we would want to push further ahead with the momentum that we are seeing. But we'll be in a better position to give you guidance when we do the next earnings call.
The next question is from the line of Parikshit Kabra from Pkeday Advisors Limited.
I just want to ask one question about competition. Who do you typically compete with when you are pitching for new business? And typically, when you are pitching to a client for a new business, are you typically the first vendor for data analytics support or usually replacing somebody else?
So we see competition from different kinds of players, Parikshit. Of course, there are the other pure-play data analytics companies like ourselves, like Mu Sigma, Fractal, Tiger, Tredence, and so on. We see them in some instances. Interestingly, though, each of us have carved out a slightly different niche for ourselves. I mentioned that we are very strong in the technology and the digital-native ecosystem. So therefore, I mean, while we see them in some instances, we don't see them in all the instances.
We also compete sometimes with the analytics practices of larger organizations, like an Accenture or Infy or TCS. And sometimes, we see them as a threat. Deloitte, for example, we have seen them as a threat, especially if it is also around a strategic type of exercise.
As I mentioned, our consulting practice is focused on analytics strategy and road mapping. We have even competed with the likes of McKinsey or a BCG, in some instances. And then we see competition, in some cases, from product companies because if it is a very specific problem that the client believes can also be solved using an off-the-shelf solution or a SaaS model, then sometimes we see those players also in the frame. So that's the kind of the competition spectrum.
The good news, though, for us in many instances, we are actually creating the opportunity ourselves. This is the second part of your question. So the number of instances where we are responding to an RFP or a competitive situation, it is still a smaller percentage. I wouldn't say that it is nonexistent. It used to be even smaller earlier. In the last couple of years, I would say that clients are also becoming more aware and then they are bringing multiple kinds of perspectives into the frame. And therefore, we do see instances of RFP and competition.
But even today, a fairly significant portion, I mean, read about 65%, 70% of the work that we do, is something that we are able to co-create directly, working with the stakeholders that we are interacting with. And in those instances, in many of those instances, we will be in a sole source position or maybe worst case has to compete with 1 or other 2 competitors that the client chooses also to bring into the frame. But in many instances, it is really our ability to craft the right kind of opportunity and value proposition that defines what happens going forward.
So just a quick follow-up on that, this percentage that you mentioned, about 65% to 70%, is the opportunities that we have created or cocreated with the client. Is that number changing significantly rapidly? Or is that how you see that progressing going forward as well?
It used to be about 80%. I think now it is about 60%, 70%. I would say that the percentage will actually drop further when it comes to completely new accounts and stakeholders with who we do not have a relationship. With existing accounts, with many of the referral-based contacts and clients that we get, that percentage is still very high.
I mean, we are mostly in a sole source model when it comes to defining those engagements and initiatives. But if it is a completely new prospect where they do not have any introduction to us or a referral path experience, then I would imagine that they will increasingly become more competitive in the day to come.
As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments.
Thank you. I think we've covered our current quarter performance as well as the outlook in a fair amount of detail in the current call. We would like to sort of end the call by stating that we have seen, I would say, an increased positive sentiment as we've traveled through this year. I think we started the year on a very, very cautious footing, and as we head into Q4 of the current year, definitely, the confidence levels are better than what they were at the beginning of this fiscal.
However, we continue to watch some of the trends, especially some of the news that we read about large technology players, specifically in the U.S., who are continuing to, I think, rationalize costs and look at how can they become a lot more tighter in terms of their spend and what would be the likely impact on our business. So we will continue to be very nimble and cautious as we trade into the next year.
However, having said that, several of the initiatives that we have started in the last year are beginning to bear traction now, and we are seeing that in the form of a significantly higher pipeline that we carry today. There is an uptick in the confidence level for the business as we head into FY '24, '25. As we've done in the past, as we head into FY '24, '25, we will give you an update of where we are likely to sort head in terms of revenue growth as well as our margin guidance, which we will be able to do towards the end of Q4 when we meet for the next conference call.
And with that, I think we pretty much covered whatever we had to say, and I'll hand it over to Asha again to close the call now.
On behalf of Latent View Analytics Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.