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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to VEF One Quarter '23 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Nangle. Please go ahead.
Super. Thanks, Roberto. Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. This is Dave Nangle, CEO of VEF and I welcome you all to our Q1 '23 results conference call. With me today, as per usual, I have our CIO, Alex Koumoudos who will help me in presenting the slides. We'll do that over the next 20 minutes or so, and then we'll open up for Q&A as per usual. The slide deck is available on our website and also by the media counsel, which I'm presenting on today. Getting into the slide deck, and I'll be alluding to certain slides as they go along. But Slide 2, just key events in summary of the quarter, key highlights here. NAV in 1Q '23 was up 7.5%. So while there's been some volatility in the market year-to-date, Germany has been a net positive time for markets and stocks within that. And that's always been a key tailwind in everything we do from a valuation point of view. So we're seeing early signs of a NAV recovery after it was effectively a market and NAV reset for us in 2022. A lot of moving parts in the NAV which we'll get into during the call, but a key standout driver of that NAV accretion, which was approximately $28 million was just pace from a last valuation round moral approach and effectively on release value from that name as it was trading below market multiples when it was in our NAV previously. And that's really a function of its performance of the company. It's becoming one of our standout names both in terms of size and performance and the NAV is reflected more truly in the valuation we put out this quarter.Credit after our largest name, a more moderate increase in volume as we evolve the valuation process, but a lot of tailwinds in that story and the valuation as well in Q1. And as of the point of end of the quarter, 91% of our portfolio is marked on a market-based approach. So a lot of focus on valuations, but in VC firms and private equity firms, given the sell-off in stocks and markets last year, but we're nearly 100% marked to mark and even the 9%, if not, is very close to market multiples, plus/minus. As we're very comfortable from our NAV and we'll get into that. Our biggest holdings still credit of about 50% of our NAV released Q4 numbers during the quarter. Once again, with this company, they're moving towards an IPO process in due course. They're getting more transparent with their details. So these numbers coming through and give you the market a good read-through to our biggest holding and effect a key aspect of our NAV. And they showed good growth of the quarter, strong year-on-year numbers, both in terms of revenue growth and loan growth. But the overall story, which I'll get into is the prioritization of path to profitability, the more moderate growth from a balance sheet point of view, but is also benefiting from a margin recovery and cost efficiency, which is driving that path to profitability, which we like. It gives us a lot of comfort in the name.From a best standpoint, solid capital position ending the quarter of $46 million. We also allocated the proceeds from our sustainability bond, 1 year on from raising the bond raising SEK 500 million or $50 million in the market that's now been allocated to 4 names in our portfolio, and I'll talk about that. And then obviously, during the quarter, from a macro perspective, there was a lot of volatility, tailwinds in the market overall, the volatility around especially the financial services sector, which we play in, and that's led to a lot of movements in our share price, both down and the recovery more recently up. But when we focus on this discount, we care a lot about the discounts, and I'll talk a lot again, which I'll keep on doing about what we're doing to try and address this with the market that we talk to. Moving into a bit more detail in the presentation. The financial highlights, key numbers, you'll see you coming through, but our NAV at the end of the quarter is $410 million. That was up $28 million quarter-on-quarter or 7.5% from a NAV per share and the SEC point of view, which the market tends to focus on, given we're traded in Sweden than have a SEC share price, the NAV or share at the end of the quarter is 4.09%. And share price today is 230. As we're trading still at a healthy discount albeit that has been narrowing of late, which we welcome.Slide #4 is the long-term evolution of our NAV and I'd like to look at this every quarter or more often. And that you reflect back in the short term, you saw the spike in 2021, and that was the broad tech-based rally and multiple rally post-COVID, and that was reflected in our portfolio valuation at that time. And then you had the reset in 2022 as market came back down to earth and we were one of the first companies out there from a VC investment perspective to mark our portfolio more fairly to market. And then what you've seen since is a more stable NAV evolution. And what I'd like to think of as I look back further field back to 2016 or '17, you see a longer-term trend of NAV evolution, which is gradually up into the right to take out that spike. And I'd like to hope that the first quarter of '23 is a recovery or a move back towards that long-term trend. And everything we see in our portfolio gives us confidence that we're moving along that right path.Slide #5 is just touching on the markets because there is our portfolio itself and how it performs, but obviously, the valuation of our portfolio and our NAV evolution given how we lay things out is continue our markets, market trends, market multiples, both from a stock and peer group but also from an FX point of view. But over the quarter, whether it's the classic S&P market, up 7% or the higher beta tech market and NASDAQ up 17% for the quarter. And as a couple of fintech in there because we tend to follow the ARC fintech and higher beta and furnace and had a big spike. The FINX more benchmark parameters of 8% over the quarter. All these things are indicative of the drivers behind some of the NAV marks that we have and hence, our NAV per share was 5% over the quarter on a macro level. Moving on to Slide 6. The next few slides is moving into our valuation and the evolution of our NAV marks. And what I'll do here is I'll pull back, I'll let Alexis jump in because he focuses on this aspect of our presentation. Alexis?
Hi, everyone. Yes. So on Slide -- as you can see, this kind of presents the evolution of our NAV marks for various companies. And I think on this slide, I'll just highlight a few of the biggest moves. Dave already mentioned like a big driver of the NAV increase in the quarter was Juspay, which is our single largest portfolio company contribution to the NAV move. And that was reflecting a move to mark-to-model as the company continues to grow and we move beyond the 12 months from the last transaction, and that contributes to about $15 million. Secondly, was Konfio, which was already at a mark-to-model valuation approach, and that benefited from multiple expansion of the peer group and then also strengthening currencies in the quarter. That was about $9 million. Thirdly, we had Gringo. Gringo was a new investment we made in March 2022. And since then, the company has grown more than fivefold in terms of revenues and most key metrics. And we've moved that to up to model-based valuation approach, given the very strong performance from the company and how that performed, that contributed about $8 million to the NAV change quarter-on-quarter.Next was Creditas, and this was a move from mark to model from calibration methodology plus some currency strengthening in the Brazilian real. That was about $5 million. And then we had Nibo as well, which was about a $3 million contribution to the NAV change, and that was a business that's been profitable for a while, and it's been on a mark-to-model valuation approach. But it's a company that's growing organically now with its own cash. And they just continue to launch great products and grow the company NAV of 50% year-on-year. So it's becoming a nice compounding asset that's in charge of its own destiny, which is great to see. I'd say on the negative front, the 2 ones worth highlighting would be Rupeek. Rupeek saw a more drastic reset in their business plan to focus more acutely on near-term profitability and a move to mark to model. So we changed the business plan dramatically and move to mark to model to reflect the change in the business. And Magnetis had an aggressively priced funding round in which we saw quite a bit of dilution, and that was a $2 million change in our NAV contribution. But I think like one other general trend to highlight in this slide is just the top of the portfolio is growing quarter-on-quarter, and the bottom of the portfolio is getting a bit smaller and I think that's roughly what we would expect for a business and an investment company of our nature. We have success stories compounding and smaller companies in this window may be struggling and the valuations of those businesses are going lower.On Slide 7, this is just to reiterate our focus on a robust valuation approach. I think the one thing worth highlighting here because nothing's changed, but this is the first quarter where we saw a very significant move from calibration methodology to mark to model. So Creditas which we've had on calibration for a while, moved to mark to model and it was a very effective transition. And I think it's just proven out how effective calibration methodology is for these extreme scenarios where we've had a recent last transaction, but the environment changed very dramatically. And we've just proven that there's a smooth transition from calibration methodology to mark to model. And I think it just goes to show how robust the process is and how effective calibration methodology is. On Slide 8, so this just runs through the names one by one and give a bit more detail on the transition for each. But I think the big thing to highlight here is, as Dave mentioned, we now have 91% of the NAV on a mark-to-model basis and only 9% lease transaction. That means that -- so it's 11 companies of our 17 on mark-to-model 5 models that last transaction and the one Russian asset market is 0. I think that we've taken a lot of the pain in the portfolio. And now we have -- we can really say that almost all of our portfolio is marked at peer multiples. And I think given how fast the portfolio is growing as well from here, we've got a nice tailwind for growth in the NAV.On Slide 9, we just -- first of all, we lay out how we mark down the NAV from 2021 to 2022. And now we feel that we're starting to see that gradual increase in NAV as we're getting these kind of market tailwinds plus the portfolio company grow. Again, just highlighting that 91% of the portfolio is mark-to-model. We've relooked at our portfolio. And despite like some aggressive changes to business plans like Rupeek, we still think -- we still believe that our portfolio is going to grow top line. 56% year-on-year in 2023, which is healthy. And I think if there's any fundraisers at portfolio companies that could increase, but this is just accounting for more of the same and companies having to make do with the capital that they have today. And then in terms of like cash and runway for the portfolio, I know that we've started to put out our store in this regard, but 71% of our portfolio in terms of NAV-weighted portfolio can reach breakeven and profitability now. The 29% of the portfolio has a portfolio-weighted runway of 15 months, which we think is, on average, is giving those companies which are typically growing faster in their smaller companies, a healthy runway to execute and to find funding solutions.On Slide 10, we just break down, as we've done in previous quarters, kind of the contribution to the NAV change quarter-on-quarter. So as Dave mentioned, we've had a $28.5 million increase in NAV quarter-on-quarter. The bulk of that is coming from multiple expansion for comps of companies that are mark-to-model and also companies that have moved to mark to model from last transaction round. So that contributed $23.6 million in the quarter. Underlying FX for our portfolio companies, particularly the peso and the real have been strong and tailwinds for the company. The portfolio companies continue to perform well as well, which is contributing. The new investments in other bucket, which is at negative $5.6 million in this slide is effectively like a reduction in cash positions in some of our companies as they've burned additional capital and made new investments. And then I think broadly, you're seeing -- so the $2.8 million is change in corporate cash, which is our operating cost plus some of the cost of our debt. And in the portfolio value the latest transaction, the minus $2.3 million, the bulk of that is from the Magnetis down round that we saw in which we saw quite a bit of dilution as VEF and we did not participate in that round. I think those are the key points to highlight here and the combination of those has led to that 7.5% quarter-on-quarter NAV growth. That's it for me, Dave, handing back to you.
Super. And thanks, Alex. It's very comprehensive on the valuation front, and I'm sure we'll have some questions from the IMS doesn't get into it. But at this point in the presentation, I'm going to touch on a couple of companies also on Creditas as Alexis on Juspay where he sits on the board. These are our 2 biggest holdings, Creditas, I was in Brazil a few weeks back, sitting with the team and also on the recent board meeting. And the news and the detail and the mantra coming out of that is very in line with the test results and the messaging that's been out there in the market from Creditas. So they're getting quite good at this in terms of setting out their solving very clear with their messaging and reflecting it in the numbers and execution. But we have a story which where the portfolio is still growing strong. We had nearly 60% year-on-year growth in that portfolio for the full year '22. That's down from the year before, which is a couple of hundred percent, but that's reflecting this more moderated growth in this window towards the path to breakeven. On the revenue side, higher growth in the revenue year-on-year, obviously as margins and repricing has been coming through NAV of 100% for the year '22 versus '21. I guess the messaging is clear and consistent in as a business, they're moderating growth from a balance sheet point of view. And that moderating growth is feeding through an income statement level to an ongoing positive repricing of the portfolio, and that's feeding through to an increase in margins, which bottomed out at about 10% their gross margins in the second half of last year. True-cycle limit hitting 40% to 50%, and we're back on the front towards those true cycle ranges. Obviously, below the revenue lines are very focused on cost efficiency and focusing on what works from a strategy point of view, also reducing CAC. And all of these are positive trends, which will feed through and are feeding true to the income statement as they look to get to breakeven this year and a more moderated growth plan. From Creditas moving to Juspay, I think Alexis, I'll ask you to say a couple of words. And the reason why we're touching on Juspay is because it's now 15% of our NAV and probably growing. It is clearly one of our better stories, but maybe one of our least understood stories and now a little bit complex in nature is not claims in a fintech in any way. Alexis, you're to say a few words.
 Yes. Thanks, Dave. As Dave was in Brazil, I was in India earlier this year in February, and I spent some time with the Juspay team as well as just Indian ecosystem of VCs, investors around the Juspay story. I think Juspay's definitely grown substantially since we first made our investment there in 2020. And I think it's becoming more and more of a strategic payment asset within the Indian ecosystem. The team is just recognized as real executors in the space and problem solvers for payments in India. And it's great to see that 3 years after our initial investment and 5 years after first meeting the team, just how much the business has grown and the impact that they've had on payments and mobile commerce in India. I think what we've tried to do with this slide is just highlight a few more of the details of the business that maybe haven't been that clear to the market. But effectively, what Juspay are doing and is solving for friction in payments in India. And it's becoming a name that is used by a huge portion of like mobile commerce clients. They have over 300 enterprise clients now in India. They annualized over $100 billion of charge TPV, which is growing over 50% year-on-year. The average daily transactions are over $30 million. I think the last day of 2022, so 31st of December 2022, they did over 50 million daily transactions. The app is installed-- has been installed over 1.5 billion times and the -- I think one of the great things about this story is speaking to clients of Juspay who wouldn't -- who just wouldn't think of moving or churning. There's very few solutions like Juspay in the market and the value add that it brings to its clients is very clear.It creates a very significant uptick in conversion rates at checkout. So the company is performing really, really well, very, very positive attitude at the company. They just launched an international product that vehicle Hyperswitch, where they're looking to solve similar challenges that are happening in India that are coming to the rest of the world like mandatory 2-factor authentication, some of the instant payments infrastructure, similar to UPI in India. It's very early on, and I think it's going to take a while to like monetize international. But I think it's very interesting to see that they're being Indian companies being taken internationally by some of their big clients like Visa to help solve the problems that they've already solved in India for other countries. So we're very excited about the story, and I think there's a bright future for Juspay.
Thanks, Alexis. Look, a few more slides, and then we'll open up to any questions out there. On Slide 14, I touched on our sustainability bond and mandate. And I'm happy to say that 1 year after we raised 500 million SEC or $50 million from the Swedish community fixed income investors, we released our bond allocation reports where we were very clear on how we allocated the funds that we raised both into new companies in the portfolio and retrospectively into others. The funds were allocated to 4 key names and those names fit the mandate of having 90% plus of their revenues coming from subtainable finance categories around financial wellness, financial transparency. And those names, specifically are Konfio, small business focus in Mexico, Solfácil, in the solar ecosystem space in Brazil, Rupeek callback lending in India and Mahaana in Pakistan in financial wellness and investing. And so we're very happy to have that allocated now and good clarity around where those funds that have been raised and have now gone in good homes. Moving on to the share price, NAV per share, premium discounts. This is something that, obviously, we live and breathe. We obviously came out at a new NAV of $410 million, the market cap of $234 million. So we're still trading at a healthy discount to our NAV, albeit we've seen some recovery of late in the share price.And this is a slide just on Slide 16 of closing discount NAV. So we live and breathe the idea of increasing our NAV per share gradually over time. This compounding aspect of investing well in the structural growth story of fintech and emerging markets. And the other aspect is keeping the share price honest and it's close to or in line with NAV per share through cycle. Obviously, we're in a window where we fully understand why a share like ours can and those trade at a discount to NAV, given what happened last year with the markets from disruption and the selloff in tech and the size of our market cap and share price liquidity. But it doesn't mean there's not levers out there that we can pull and things we can do to try and close that gap over time and that's what we continue to do. So we did touch on the buyback before, and we have the mandate out there. We did some small buyback last year because we do believe in our NAV, and we'd like to buy back our shares when it trades at a deep discount and create a lot of value for both us and our shareholders. I think on the IRPR front, it's ongoing. It's constant. We're in the U.S. this week, meaning current and new investors, just continuing to work with our investment bank partners, meeting the investment community to communicate where we are at, where our portfolio at how well it's doing and how we stand behind our NAV, our process, and we'd like to think it's starting to have traction.Also, some of our companies are working with us in that regard, and Konfio will be in the U.S., meeting investors at a Bank of America event in May. We're looking to get Creditas to Sweden to meet our core investor base there. So there's a number of things we can do to get our portfolio in front of our investors and the investment community, which will help us as a company and the understanding of the value within our company, both today and tomorrow. On the transparency front, this is an ongoing drive. So you see our companies once again helping Creditas on the reporting is very welcomed. Our side, we're providing more transparency in calls like this and in their presentation around processes and NAV and marks. But also in research where we put out, for example, a recent piece on Solfácil, where we have to lean in where the gaps in the market of understanding some of our names, writing research from our side on our company to help them understand the in price gaps. That's not the person we've done. We've done it before at Rupeek. We did it also with Juspay. And then performance, you can't be performance to close gaps to NAV per share. So I'd like to think that this, from a performance point of view, the Q1 numbers, the NAV mark, the portfolio performance and is helpful in that regard and adds everything else we do. So it's ongoing performance. And we're obviously looking forward to things like capital raises for our portfolio and in due course the exits, which is obviously the key parameter and mark and show the true fact behind the NAV.From a capital position, just a couple of words here. We're sitting on $46 million. I think that's no surprise in the market given what happened last where we were last quarter didn't invest this quarter effectively. So we're in a very comfortable position from a cash point of view, by no means the war test to get out there and shopping in the cycle but still in a very comfortable position, and that's where we intend to stay. And then just the final slide, just kind of a few pointers on thoughts on the investment case and outlook. Once again, I think it's still a window where we reflect back in '22 and how we navigated the market then. I think anybody, not anybody, but it's a lot easier to navigate an upmarket where everybody is a winner, then you get a window like '22, and you have to be strong and stand up and deliver in a different environment. And I'm very happy with how we played out irrespective of the value destroyed from an NAV and a share price point of view. I like the levers that we pulled and how we stood up in that window around strengthening our balance sheet with the sustainability bond, focusing on our key names of portfolio level to make sure they're strong and have the capital they need to get true to breakeven and being quick and transparent around our NAV market that is building trust and confidence in that with the market true cycle.We move into '23 at the start of the year. And it's hard not to feel more optimistic given the start of the year in market and what we're seeing through our portfolio. So let's not get carried away. It's still a volatile window, still a lot of stress in the global system, but we're more optimistic as we sit here today than we were 12 months ago when things were a lot more volatile on a negative footing. And when I look within our portfolio and look at names like Creditas and Konfio with a rebased valuation mark and names that are performing, names that have been true and their stress test and are in very much in execution mode as they have a lower growth profile true to a breakeven point at some point this year. We take names like Juspay and we've got Gringo as well who the structural growth story is actually so strong in names like that, that they're -- I won't say they're hardly affected, but they're very little affected by what's going on from a global macro point of view. So they're compounding nicely irrespective at a very healthy clip on becoming bigger names in our NAV. And there's a number of other exciting names coming through, but I'd like to focus on some of the bigger ones. But Gringo obviously doing well obviously Solfácil and Abhi are towards the top end of an exciting list. And that will evolve and change as those and our narrative around these names will evolve and change as we go.Capital position I've touched on. And the investment opportunities, it is starting to appear. So it's gradual. The private markets are waking up. Obviously, rebased from a valuation point of view, so it makes it a lot more interesting to an investment company like ours. And we're starting to see what could be the start of an interesting gin said it before, whether it's companies in our portfolio and is putting more capital to work there are companies outside our portfolio. Obviously, from a capital point of view, we're in a comfortable position, not a very strong position from an investment point of view, but we can solve that capital problem as we start to find ways and means of putting capital to work at high IRRs again, which we can see on the near-term horizon. I will stop there, and I will pass back to the operator who can now open up for Q&A.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]We are now taking the first question. The first question from Joachim Gunell from DNB.
So can you just help us here with a bit how you look upon the demand to, call it supply gap here in terms of funding available, there seems to be somewhat of a mixed picture in terms of that there is obviously a lot of dry powder in the venture capital market, although there are also reports here where funding available is tightening. So can you talk a bit about that team and how is that impact your current market, especially than Brazil, Mexico, but perhaps also I would assume that India is driving a bit, but any thoughts on that?
Yes. I think at a macro level, it is interesting. It's a world where there is money on the sideline, but people are still not aggressively leaning in. And then there are companies out there who either have raised a lot of money in the past or who've been working a different model. We talk about things like Creditas or Konfio in our portfolio and instead of chugging away and growing 100% plus and needing more capital to deliver that fast growth story are taking back control, I guess, from the capital markets so that they don't need or may want, but they don't need that capital. So I don't think it's a standoff, but there's kind of capital on the sidelines while the bigger, better companies are trying not to look for that capital until the market stabilizes a bit a little more. And then I think on a more micro level or country level, you've got different ecosystems or different trends playing out. And I think India is an example of a market which is closest to getting back to normality. And I think this is across the curve from early to late stage. So we're starting to see -- and there's a lot of capital in India and outside India looking and is like the #1 emerging market for, I guess, public and private equity these days because China is gone off the M&G in terms of risk appetite. But there is a lot of money looking at India across the spectrum. And I won't say it's business as usual, but it's our market that's closest to business as usual that we're looking at. And then you look at the modular markets and we thought Brazil, Mexico from our context, we could add others to it. And the early stage ecosystem is still healthy. We're seeing a lot of early-stage investing seed Series A, us generally to middle locals and less so by us in these markets. So a robust early ecosystem of companies being created and got to a certain point in the cycle. And then at the later stage, Bplus, I guess, Series Bplus, where it's still dry. I would say a lot of the capital that flowed over from mainly the U.S. has slowed back and is sitting on their hands or is investing closer to home at this point in the cycle. But there still are a number of funds, and we were discussing it yesterday that are looking at for till looking at opportunities. So I think the capital is there. I think the right companies will and can attract that capital. I think there's still a valuation debate going on in people's heads from the capital provider side versus the companies that need capital and what's the right price and who will give capital off price and who will accept capital or price. But I think it's -- the right companies will have access to the capital, and we're starting to see it through some of our portfolio companies who are having some early conversations with investors, and it's more a question of do I want your capital? Or do I want it about price as opposed to there's no capital available.
Good. And with regards to that, you are obviously playing a bit of details here, and you are -- I mean you have -- you are committed to, call it, cash flow guidance that you provided as of 1 quarter ago. But with regards to the funding needs you see in the current portfolio and now that you decided not to take your Paratashare in the Magnetis round, does the $6 million you expect to support your existing holdings with does that mean that there could be more companies where you won't take your Proto shares into 2023?
Yes. Look, there's many aspects to this Joachim. I think we look at each investment decision, not just today but also yesterday, whether we have cluster capital or comfort capital are tied on capital and each investment decision has to make tens on a found-alone basis. And you mentioned Magnetis, that's a company that we could have taken part because it was a small round and is a small incremental check but we move to a point where we are comfortable or made the investment decision not to put more capital in and to be diluted on that basis. And that was a very clear investment decision. That wasn't a decision that was based on we only have $46 million of capital, and we can't do it, we could have. We just decided not to. We decided to allocate our capital, maybe double down harder on some of the winners that are coming through in the portfolio, and you may see that $6 million allocated that we've got in our chart, but also that's a number which could move as well. We were thinking it was a company in the top 3 of our portfolio. We're thinking of allocating more capital to early this year. That's now not happening as a funding round. They don't need it. And so we're not going to allocate it, but there's another one that we're looking at of allocating capital. So I think what we're doing on this front is, we're very cognizant of the amount of money we have. We're very close to our portfolio and all the moving parts. We're very close to our capital providers. And I think that we will be comfortable allocating more capital to the right companies at the right price from the money that we have. And also, we would lean in to our investors if we see opportunities that are just too good to pass on and find a way of accessing more capital to them should that fit. But that's just all evolution of conversations where, first and foremost, we say close to our companies. We look for the best opportunities, and we make sure that we're comfortable on capital at all times.
Great. And then just finally from my end. You call it, sibling DMG was out in -- with the early Q1 report talking about the potential to actually have somewhat of a more yield being asset as the anchor providing more financial flexibility to fund these types of growth assets. Is -- I mean, are you evaluating any such strategic move to call it on your cash flow generation to quite an increased extent?
Look, I think it's been a -- it's been a window of a lot of strategic thinking from investment companies like ours. It's been a window where you've -- a lot of moving parts have made you think twice, 3 times about the model that you run, the best model that would work through cycle. And maybe there's a slightly different model for a different points in the cycle or below the umbrella of your investment thesis and investing well. We have, in the past, as an investment company, had a yielding cash flow positive asset in Tinkoff. It was obviously one that was going up in value, while paying out dividends. We'll also being a benchmark fintech name across the emerging world. So we've had experience of that. It's been a very good experience. And that was one that evolved from a private company to a public company in the portfolio. I guess we could see that with a number of names in our portfolio, most namely credit pass. If it was to IPO, we still own the stake. We would have a public company that would be, in theory, cash flow positive and then in theory, dividend-paying. And it's impossible. It's not a strategic objective. I think we look to have the best fintech names and emerging markets in our portfolio. There is a focus on the private side. It's possible we could do it private, that would be positive and bottom line with dividends. And the number of our companies are evolving that way. neebopositive on bottom line, Revospositive and bottom line. This could become dividend-paying companies in the private sense, and we could end up in public names also. So it's quite a long answer, but we're not making strategic calls here. At this point around we'll do X or Y from a portfolio point of view, but we'll always do things that make sense from the portfolio, the business and long-term success.
We are now taking the next question. The next question from Ermin Keric for Carnegie.
So the first one would be a little bit on the valuation approach. So correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe for Creditas, you're moving from calibration to market to model. And then just a repeat, you're moving from last transaction to also mark the model before 12 months have passed. So could you just help me to understand what the trigger is for you to move to mark to model ahead of time, ahead of the 12 months? And also to understand the calibration model versus mark-to-model. I think Creditas saw a modest uplift now in Q1. If I just look at how peers have created, I perhaps would have expected a larger valuation uplift. So did the change evaluation have a negative impact in all of equal on Creditas?
All for your questions. Alexis, do you want to grab this one, and I'll follow up with maybe.
Yes, sure. Yes, so I think you highlight so Juspay and Rupeek in terms of move to mark to model, I think the trigger is there. So Juspay completed the last financing round or the first tranche of that last financing round in January 2022. So it was in the first quarter of 2022. That was the round led by SoftBank. They then raised another $16-odd million in, I believe, July last year. That was an extension of the round. And what happened between, say, the time that, that last transaction was priced, and today is that we run the shadow peer group and the implied multiple was substantially below the peer group. And as we passed 12 months since the first tranche of that transaction, we thought it made sense to move to mark to model. And like, I guess, the -- your question is around like, is it the first tranche or the second tranche? I think in this instance, what was the catalyst was specifically that there was-- the implied multiple for Juspay was way out of WACCÂ with the peers that we had it marked against. And then a similar thing happened to Rupeek just in the opposite direction. So Rupeek completed the first tranche of this -- of the last transaction early on last year. And then they completed an extension towards the middle of last year, the implied multiple because of the move in the business plan and because they're focusing to get to breakeven in fact, next month. So the change in the business plan meant that the implied multiple was way out of WACC plus it had been 12 months since the first tranche of the last transaction. So we decided to move to mark to model. We thought it made sense and to correct the valuation there. So hopefully, that helps to explain the first part of your question.I think on the question around Creditas and calibration versus mark-to-model. So the way calibration methodology works is if the last transaction and the implied multiple is way out of WACCÂ very soon after the last transaction, we're applying a similar move in the share price of the peers to credit at the share price. And that just helped calibrate basically the share price of Creditas since the last transaction. Then when we move it to mark-to-model, there's a very clear we are using XYZ model for Creditas, and we're applying the peer multiple to a revenue or gross profit number to come out to a valuation for Creditas. I think what we're very proud of and what's worked really well, the transition was very smooth. I think, yes, maybe like some of the comps moved more aggressively into the quarter. But I think the calibration methodology is designed to basically give us a soft landing from an elevated last transaction in a very different market to a mark-to-model and I think it's proven to be able to give that smooth transition. So we're pleased with the outcome.
Yes. And thanks, Alex. I think there's obviously a lot of detail and we're spending a lot of time and focus on our NAV and our valuation process. That's a function of the evolution last year and the market's focused on us, but on a macro level, any of our marks at any point in the cycle at the end of the quarter, we want to be able to stand behind for logical reasons. We do a lot of work on this, obviously, about detail. And one can debate the nuances and inputs of everything we do, but it's fundamental, it's pure, it's logical. And then it goes through our Audit Committee and then it goes through PWC, and we dance back and forth to make sure that everybody is comfortable with the logical nature of what we're doing before we go into the market.
I think that provided a lot of insight to it. So I'm fully on board then. Then another question would just be, you have the slide where you're showing your expected aggregate average kind of portfolio weighted growth for 2023. And I think that was now at 56%. If I roll it back one quarter, it was at 65%. So is that mainly repeat-driven? Or have you seen any other material revisions worth mentioning in other holdings?
I think if you're looking for the most dramatic move within the portfolio, it would be Rupeek and that's who we mentioned. And we're a bit like you guys in a way, Ermin, in terms of our -- the companies that we cover and the models that we have for those companies and the revisions that we make on an ongoing basis, if not once every 6 months or 12 months, it's we're because we're not public market unless we just want to be very live. And every time we meet a company, talk to the company, get monthly data points on a board call, we come away with a tweak to our model, whether it's a minor tweak or a major tweaks, majorly it's minor tweaks. And that's an ongoing and almost real-time process. So a lot of tweaks within that but in an environment like this, where you get some of the top of the portfolio, as we moderated growth a bit with Creditas and Konfio, you're bringing down '23 number a touch for the benefit of '24 numbers as things get going again on the front foot. But that's one number or one company that had the bigger effect on that or the standard effect was Rupeek.
The next question is from Priya Rathod from KBW.
Thanks for taking my question. Just 2 for me. First is on your -- is on capital raises. So you're expecting to see some capital raises in 2023 at or above the last-round mark. Can I just check my understanding that this also means that would be above the level you bought at or above the level you've marked to in the NAV today? And my second question is on bond issuance. Is there any more capacity for you to issue any more sustainability or any other bonds? How are you thinking about that? And are there any ceilings on issuance?
 Yes, that's fair. Thanks, Priya. I think on the companies and capital raisings and what we're looking at through the year, as we sit here today, amounts raised and what valuation and versus marks. I guess the names that they are top of mind are one and that we think would raise are ones that would be at or above the last valuation round, which is also where we have the market and it's 2 or 3 in that category. So that is pretty much in tandem as opposed to companies that we have taken down in valuation mark, but the last round was higher. So these are ones that are a bit more linear in that regard. So it would be something that we would look to see at or above last round, which is also in line with our mark. And on the bond front, look, I think issuing the sustainability bond 12 months ago was the right capital balance sheet move for us at that time. I think that has a place within our capital mix. But one has to be very careful with that, given the nature of our asset base and what we do for a living and investing in long-term assets, which are equity in private markets in fintech and emerging markets. So we are comfortable with our level of debt as it sits today with the duration of the bond, how it's worked for us in the recent past. Very happy we made that move. But no, we would not be looking at increasing our debt position at this point in time, given all the factors that I see in front of us in our portfolio and markets. And obviously, if our NAV increase that we'd line a light nearer term and an anuit different parts can move and the confidence in those parts move, you could see potentially more or different form of debt coming into our capital mix but not right now.
We are now taking the next question. And the next question from Suleman Soorani from Tricap Investments.
Dave. Just a quick question. Are any of your portfolio companies exploring even if it's an early-stage exploration, any kind of monetization, and I'm talking about obviously the mature ones. Do you foresee any discovery, price discovery for your portfolio company monetization in the next 6, 12 or 18 months? Because I think that could be one option for reducing the substantial discount that you have right now with your NAV stock price right? So yes.
Thanks for dialing in the question. And that factor is not lost on me. It's very clear. One of the easiest positive things we could do at this point or at any point as cycle is have a successful exit in one of our portable portfolio companies ideally at or above our NAV marks -- if we have a history in things like Tinkoff and EasyGo even also where we exited above our NAV mark. So we tend to be quite pure and through our NAV mark and we tend to exit our company after above them. To answer your question more specifically, we are more specifically our companies that are leaning in, a lot of them on potential exit opportunities, whether they're early or mid-stage or unsolicited companies coming at them. So we're happy to engage in them because the output is a positive exit. And as you say, confirms our NAV markets with more cash, we can go out there and buy back our shares to show and once we value our shares and get involved in pipeline. I guess the biggest one and the most specific one that people can talk about is Creditas because it's been on the record about wanting to earn a path towards IPO. I think that's to a story which is market dependent where the markets aren't IPO friendly right now. I'd like to think they will be again in '24. It might be '25. Once we got the right assets, that's the main thing at timing the exit is harder. But I think if we said 6 months, I would be positively surprised if we had a realization or an exit, if we said 18 months, I would be disappointed if we didn't have an exit by some point there.
There are no further questions at the moment.
Super. Thank you, Roberto. Look, everybody, thank you very much for following our story. We talk a lot to you guys, and we appreciate the support the interaction, the feedback, the questions, tough and positive as they come. So all very welcome. You can see from our set of numbers this year-to-date, and we're getting back on the front foot. We're starting to feel optimistic about life again after phasing down 2022. And we're very comfortable with what we see in our portfolio, especially the top half, which is going to be a key driver in the short term for NAV, but also in the long term for real value creation and realization through exits. And as always, you can get in touch with us directly if you have any questions. But once again, thank you for your attention and for your time and look forward to seeing in the future.
That concludes the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.