D2L Inc
TSX:DTOL
If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.
Utilize notes to systematically review your investment decisions. By reflecting on past outcomes, you can discern effective strategies and identify those that underperformed. This continuous feedback loop enables you to adapt and refine your approach, optimizing for future success.
Each note serves as a learning point, offering insights into your decision-making processes. Over time, you'll accumulate a personalized database of knowledge, enhancing your ability to make informed decisions quickly and effectively.
With a comprehensive record of your investment history at your fingertips, you can compare current opportunities against past experiences. This not only bolsters your confidence but also ensures that each decision is grounded in a well-documented rationale.
Do you really want to delete this note?
This action cannot be undone.
| 52 Week Range |
8.2
15.13
|
| Price Target |
|
We'll email you a reminder when the closing price reaches CAD.
Choose the stock you wish to monitor with a price alert.
This alert will be permanently deleted.
You don't have any saved screeners yet
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the D2L Inc. Fiscal 2023 Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Listeners are reminded that portions of today's discussion will include statements that contains forward-looking information. Any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from a conclusion, forecast or projection in the forward-looking information.
Further, certain material factors or assumptions were applied to drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information. For identification and discussion of such risks, uncertainties, factors and assumptions as well as further information concerning forward-looking statements, please refer to the risks identified in the company's annual and interim management's discussion and analysis of the most recently filed annual information form, in each case filed under the company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
In addition, during this call, reference will be made to various non-IFRS financial measures, including constant currency revenue, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross profit, adjusted gross margin and free cash flow. These non-IFRS financial measures do not have any standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other public companies.
Please refer to the company's MD&A for the 3 and 12 months ended January 31, 2023, for more information about these and certain other non-IFRS measures, including, where applicable, a reconciliation of historical non-IFRS financial measures to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measures from our financial statements. This morning's call is being recorded on April 5, 2023, 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. John Baker, Chief Executive Officer of D2L. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us for our Q4 and year-end earnings call. After the markets closed yesterday, we released our financial results for the period ending January 31, 2023. You can find this information on the Investors section of our website at d2l.com. Please note that the results we're discussing today are in U.S. dollars.
I'm pleased to be joined this morning by Stephen Laster, our President; and Josh Huff, where we're happy to report was named CFO in February. We have a talented senior leadership team at D2L as we build a category leader in learning.
Our remarks today will cover 4 main highlights of the year: one, we're making good progress on our plan to balance top-line growth with profitability. On this path, we're building a more efficient and effective organization, while delivering on our vision for the future of learning. Two, we're seeing continued success in higher education, our largest market, as evidenced by expanding market share, high competitive win rates and fantastic new client additions. Three, we continue to make solid progress in opening up the corporate market, a market that has never needed our technology more than it does today, to support learning for the demands of today. And four, while macroeconomic conditions persist, the long-term demand outlook and opportunity remains strong across all of our markets globally.
In light of the headwinds we discussed throughout the past year, we're pleased with the overall financial performance. Our constant currency measures are a good way to understand performance from one period to another in a choppy FX environment. And with that, full year constant currency revenue grew 14% to $172.6 million. Constant currency annual recurring revenue increased 11% to $171.4 million. We continue to make steady progress on gross margin increases, and adjusted EBITDA continued to improve. We reported a positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4 and a strong full year results. In addition, we ended the quarter with roughly $111 million in cash and no debt. Our financial position affords us both stability and flexibility to make disciplined investments for growth.
During the past year, we continued to grow our customer base and build scale across our markets. Brightspace is now serving more than 1,240 customers and 16 million users in over 40 countries.
In our largest market, higher education, we had a good year as many of our higher education prospects turn to us to help as they grapple with the challenges stemming from the pandemic. While deal flow remains below pre-pandemic levels, it continues to improve, and D2L is highly competitive in new opportunities that come to market.
Last year, one of the leading market research firms reported that Brightspace captured 44% of new higher education LMS implementations across North America, Europe, Middle East, Latin America and Oceania. In North America, more than half of the new learning platform adoptions were D2L Brightspace. I'm really proud of the work the entire D2L team did to achieve this outcome, and I look forward to building on these successes in the future. These client wins give us momentum and greater market awareness to attract new clients. And in the fourth quarter, these new clients included DeSales University, Marist College, a highly regarded institution known for its emphasis on personalized education. They chose Brightspace to give faculty an opportunity to support their instruction with a more innovative tool set and deeper level of collaboration with students.
In our international markets, we're making steady progress expanding our footprint in key regions. We're working hard to establish market leadership in focused countries. A great example of that during the fourth quarter is our win with one of the largest higher education institutions in the Netherlands. Our learning platform is now powering more than half the top 10 universities in the country.
We also onboarded the Universidad el Bosque in Colombia, yet another example of us closing in on half the top universities in that country using D2L Brightspace.
And in the K-12 market, we continue to partner with clients to drive their digital transformation in the classroom and online, both with Brightspace and our services offering. And we're seeing expansion with some of our newer state and by rollout.
In our corporate market, we're making good inroads in challenging economic times by delivering a strong product market fit. Companies need our technology more than ever to support learning with today's demand and to accelerate productivity gains. While we're now approaching 500 corporate customers, we're still at the very early stages of growth in this market.
And a great example of our work in this space is how we're powering the learning and training needs of association. And in Q4, we added the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors and Tennis Canada Coach Education, among others.
D2L is also elevating the learning experience for organizations such as the Rung For Women, a career accelerator program. And BrightSpace was selected to support the strategic alliance between the RPC, the Retail Performance Company, and BMW Group to provide global academy for their suppliers.
I've traveled extensively in recent months to meet with customers and prospects. And in my time in the field, it reinforces that the long-term demand outlook and opportunity for D2L is strong. Even where penetration is high, many clients are looking to take the next step with skills and competency-based learning and continuing studies to support workforce upskilling. I'm proud of how our team is accelerating transformation as a trusted partner as we work closely with our clients to redefine the future of learning.
Now at this point, I'll pass it over to Stephen for a few comments. Over to you, Stephen.
Thanks, John, and good morning. I want to cover 2 main topics: operational excellence and the expansion and evolution of our learning platform. As John said in his remarks, we've made good progress towards our balanced growth plan. We're viewing this period as an opportunity to optimize and refine our operations at critical talent and execute for continued smart growth.
Throughout this past year, we enhanced our product development operations to accelerate product delivery, drive gross margin improvements and added market-winning capabilities. Across the company, we continue to streamline our business processes and enabling technology, driving higher levels of customer engagement and scaled operations. We're going about this in a multiple ways, including enhanced use of technology in marketing and selling; data-driven product planning, product development and SaaS operations; and harnessing state-of-the-art technology to operate D2L as a digital-first company.
Notwithstanding our focus on operational excellence, we continue to prioritize the evolution of our learning platform and have made significant progress in support of our world-class customers. This commitment is evidenced by the many powerful and seamless releases throughout the year and in our recently shared product road map, which we developed in partnership with our customer advisory councils. It is our deep relationship with our customers and our ability to enable them through elegant solutions that drives our overall success.
As a former client and partner of D2L, and now as President, we remain deeply committed to our clients' outcomes. In addition to enhancing the core Brightspace platform, we're strategically focused on increasing our value to customers and our addressable market. We launched Creator+ in 2023, and we're pleased with the initial market reaction and uptake. Early adopters are seeing great results as we've made it easier to create digital learning experiences that are more engaging to support student success. With Brightspace at the core of our customers' learning ecosystem, we see great cross-sell potential over the long term. We plan to augment internal development with disciplined M&A. In fact, we've assembled a best-in-class team that has the capacity and experience to scale D2L organically and inorganically.
As I reflect on our many accomplishments through this transformative year, we completed Q4 with strong momentum in our operations, our services and our SaaS offering. We are confident that we are well positioned to build on this success and to drive balanced growth.
I will now turn the call over to Josh for a deeper dive on the financials. Josh?
Thanks, Stephen, and good morning. Our full financials were posted last night, so I will focus on the highlights for the fourth quarter and full year. During my remarks, I will reference non-IFRS measures and KPIs, such as constant currency revenue and constant currency ARR that provide a more complete picture of our performance as they exclude the impact of foreign exchange between periods.
Total revenue for Q4 increased by 3% to $42.7 million, and constant currency revenue increased 6% to $44.0 million. For the fiscal year, revenue rose by 11% to $168.4 million and on a constant currency basis by 14% to $172.6 million, in line with our guidance range.
Looking at the revenue breakdown, Q4 recurring subscription and support revenue was $37.8 million, up by 4% over the same period last year or a 7.5% increase on a constant currency basis. For the full year, subscription and support revenue increased just over 8%, reflecting growth in new customers coupled with revenue retention and expansion from existing customers, offset by foreign exchange headwinds. On a constant currency basis, subscription and support revenue increased 11% over the same period last year.
Q4 professional services and other revenue decreased by 6% to $4.9 million. However, for the full year, professional services and other revenue increased by 31% due to the delivery of significant services engagements, including new customer implementations and content development work for new and existing customers. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with clients to deliver large transformational service projects, which from time to time can create lumpiness in services revenue. We anticipate the mix to be closer to a 90-10 software services split moving forward.
At year-end 2023, we reported net revenue retention, or NRR, of 102% versus 107% last year. The year-over-year change reflects foreign exchange currency reductions, which contributed 40% of the decrease and relative to the prior year lower enterprise expansions within our K-12 customer base. Gross revenue retention remained strong and within our historical range. As we execute the portfolio expansion strategy that Stephen discussed, we expect to increase our NRR. Over the past 3 years, as a reference point, NRR has averaged 105%.
Our operating model assumes steady improvements in gross profit and gross profit margins, which we delivered in 2023. Adjusted gross profit provides a more complete picture because of the onetime employee trust stock-based compensation expense last fiscal, which did not have a corresponding impact in the current period.
Adjusted gross profit was $27.4 million for the fourth quarter, an increase of 3%, and it rose 13% for the full year to $108.1 million. Gross margin continues to trend upward. Q4 adjusted gross margin was 64.3%, up slightly from last year, and adjusted gross margin for fiscal 2023 was 64.2%, up 90 basis points over fiscal 2022. The full year increase reflects several factors, most significantly, the continued optimization of cloud technology, which has improved our cost of delivery. We see ample headroom for further improvement this year and into fiscal 2025.
The operating expense comparisons for the full year were also impacted by the stock-based comp expense last year. I would refer you to the MD&A where we provide a breakdown by major expense caption.
The fourth quarter OpEx provides a good picture of the current cost base. For the fourth quarter, total operating expenses were $35.3 million versus $30.4 million in the same period last year. The increase is mainly due to a $4.5 million noncash impairment loss on intangible assets related to the course content and software assets acquired from Bayfield Design in fiscal 2022. If you exclude this charge, total OpEx represented 72% of revenue, a modest decrease from 73% in the prior year, showing some initial operating leverage. Again, there is more to be done here as we move forward.
Q4 adjusted EBITDA was $0.4 million, representing a positive 1.0% margin compared to a loss of $0.04 million or negative 1.0% margin in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the year came in at $2.9 million versus our guidance of negative $4 million to negative $6 million. Because of continued cost optimization and a measured prioritization of investments, I would highlight that adjusted EBITDA benefited from favorable foreign exchange fluctuations of $1.3 million and $3.1 million for the 3- and 12-month periods ended January 31, 2023.
We also generated positive cash flow from our operating activities and free cash flow of last year. Cash flow from operating activities increased to $3.8 million from $0.1 million in the prior year, and free cash flow increased to $0.1 million versus negative $0.7 million in the prior year. As a reminder, cash flows from operations generally have a seasonal low in the first quarter each year and a seasonal high in the second quarter each year.
We finished fiscal 2023 in a very strong financial position. with no debt and $110.7 million in cash. In an uncertain economic environment, our strong balance sheet and ability to generate free cash flow gives us valuable stability in the near term and the flexibility to take advantage of favorable growth trends in our markets over time.
Shifting to our outlook for fiscal 2024. With our year-end results, we are initiating financial guidance for the year ended January 31, 2024. This is a supplement to the target operating model, which reflects the operating levels we expect to achieve by the year ended January 31, 2025, and maintained thereafter, which is unchanged from the target operating model disclosed in our results for the second quarter of fiscal 2023. I would refer you to the MD&A for the current period for a presentation of the targets and a description of the assumptions and factors underlying the model.
For this fiscal year, fiscal 2024, we plan to continue making measured investments for growth, while optimizing our operations and expenditures toward increasing levels of profitability. Specifically, for fiscal 2024, we presented the following guidance: subscription and support revenue of $159 million to $161 million, implying growth of 9% to 10% over fiscal 2023; total revenue of $180 million to $182 million, implying growth of 7% to 8% over fiscal 2023; and adjusted EBITDA in the range of positive $4 million to positive $6 million.
In terms of the general trajectory this year, we are making positive progress within our balanced growth and profitability strategy as we navigate the business through the macroeconomic backdrop. As discussed in previous calls, we experienced some softness in new bookings growth during 2023. And in the SaaS model, this impacts near-term revenue recognition. As a result, we expect to exit the second half of fiscal 2024 on a higher growth trajectory as we track towards this medium-term operating model. We are pleased with the transition of our business towards profitable growth.
Our guidance this time last year was negative $12 million to negative $14 million of EBITDA for fiscal 2023. We've made strong progress over the past 12 months as we streamline our operations, with our EBITDA guidance now set at positive $4 million to $6 million for fiscal 2024. There is more work to be done, and we expect further efficiency as the business continues to grow.
More specifically, as a bridge between fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025, we anticipate further leverage from the following: one, continued gross margin improvements; second, operating expense leverage from continued efficiencies; and third, greater penetration of existing markets.
Thank you for participating in today's call. And with that, I'll pass it back to John for closing comments.
Thank you, Josh. While we navigated the macroeconomic challenges of fiscal '23, I'm grateful for how our team adapted to deliver against our revised plan that balances growth with profitability. We continue to work on making D2L a stronger, more efficient company overall. And from our financial perspective, we believe this important work will allow us to have healthy combination of top-line growth and margin expansion.
Learning continues to be vastly under digitized globally, and we're focused on becoming the category leader, client by client, country by country with a relentless focused on a learning moment as we transform the way the world learns. We appreciate your continued interest and support.
And with that, we'd be happy to take your questions. Over to you, operator.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from the line of Doug Taylor from Canaccord.
Congrats on your return to profitability. I've got a couple of questions about the guidance. A couple of questions about the guidance you just provided. The first one, I mean, we're exiting a year where, relative to your initial guidance, top-line growth proved a bit more challenging even without the currency headwind, and you've significantly outperformed on profitability. So my question is, as we look at the new guidance you've established today, what takeaways from what you observed last year have you built in or factored into your assumptions around this year's targets?
Yes, sure. Thanks for the question, Doug. I think as you mentioned, we've made pretty strong progress over the past 12 months. This time last year, we were guiding between a negative $12 million and a negative $14 million of EBITDA. 12 months later, our guide for '24 is positive $4 million to $6 million. So certainly, we're pleased with the progress. There's more work to be done.
To your point on sort of lessons learned and application to this year, certainly, the macroeconomic conditions had an impact. Foreign exchange had an impact on the business last year. We feel like we're navigating through that nicely and continue just to be focused on this balanced growth and profitability approach.
When looking at the guidance this year in terms of EBITDA and the conversion of that to free cash flow, is there any reason why we wouldn't think that your free cash flow would outperform by a wide margin this year as it did in 2023 and your forecasting for '25?
Yes, similar relationship as seen in prior years, Doug. So our upfront annual billing in our contracts sort of results in that dynamic playing out. So you can expect a similar sort of relationship between EBITDA and free cash flow.
Okay. And maybe a last question on the guidance for me. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that you're expecting an acceleration of your top-line growth towards the -- in the second half of this year, and that's certainly implied in the '25 guide. Can you speak to the confidence interval you have in that inflection? Are you anticipating some sort of improvement in the macroeconomic condition? Or is this just a function of the improving deal flow you're referencing in your prepared remarks as well?
Yes. Yes, another good question. Yes, as mentioned in the opening remarks, we did experience some softness in bookings in fiscal '23. And certainly, that is a near-term impact on revenue recognition, more specifically the first half of fiscal 2024. I think a helpful way to look at it is if you look at the incremental ARR adds in Q2 and Q3 of fiscal 2023 as reported, you can sort of see that softness, which flows through the first half. And so the back half acceleration is more informed by our recent bookings and near-term visibility.
So put it another way, I mean, you've seen this acceleration in your ARR growth in terms of gross adds in Q4, but it will take a couple of quarters for that to flow into the revenue recognition? Is that a fair characterization.
Yes it is.
The next question today comes from the line of Maxim Matushansky from RBC Capital Markets.
I'm wondering if you can provide some color into the RFP activity occurring in higher ed. Are you seeing any slipping of deals from last year, like 2022, into this year or changes in the competitive environment? I'm just trying to get a sense of if the environment or what you're seeing is any different from, say, a quarter ago or even half a year ago, when you kind of put out the new midterm operating target model?
That's a great question. So from a big picture, we're still seeing a slow climb, still below pre-pandemic levels, but it continues to tick up quarter-over-quarter. And I think the most exciting part is, as I travel around the world, visiting with clients and prospects, it's very clear that many of our education clients in particular are now looking for the next phase of adoption, going beyond just simply digitizing to now trying to embrace better optimization for better student outcomes or better enrollment growth or supporting a shift to competency-based education. And I think that bodes well for us as we look at our competitive win rates in higher education. As those ticked up last year, my hope is that we continue to see strong performance on the land rates as the market continues to rebound, back to normal levels.
And you had impressive customer growth in the last few years, but that kind of slowed to single-digit growth in this past year. Can you help clarify what factors led to that? Is that the same kind of slower softness in bookings that you're referring to? And whether you expect the customer count growth to accelerate in fiscal '24? Or whether we should expect more from revenue per account kind of contributing to that growth?
Yes. I think in the early pandemic, there was a number of small clients that had not yet digitized their educational experience. So you saw a bit of a list in terms of logos, but they're relatively small relative to our normal type of levels that we're pursuing. And so I think relative to ARR, the average deal size is ticking up, and that's a reflection that we're targeting more of our traditional client base, both at higher education, K-12 and corporate. So I wouldn't read too much into that other than maybe there was a bit of a bump with the early part of the pandemic with folks that had not gone into digital at all at that stage. And today, we're starting to see the rebound back to normal levels of business for our core markets in higher education and corporate.
And last one for me. I'm just wondering if you can help break down even directionally your performance by the higher ed at K-12 and corporate segments? And whether you see any notable differences in terms of revenue growth or new customer acquisition between the 3?
We're not seeing any notable difference. No. I think that's the quick answer. In K-12, we're still pursuing clients that are really looking to provide the highest quality educational experiences for their students, helping them shift to models around mastery base starting our competency-based education, still powering the large virtual schools across the world and driving for better professional development for people. Those use cases are still very strong.
In higher education, again, not seeing a notable difference, but I do see clients starting to dig in and try to provide a better learning experience to drive improvements in the outcomes for their learners and for adoptions and for growth. And in corporate, I think we're still at the early stages. In corporate, I talked to the CEOs, there's a very clear demand for a better learning experience for their employees to help them upskill and get skills they need for today's demand. But that still has yet to really translate into accelerated growth for us in terms of adoption of our learning platform. We're aiming to do that as quickly as we can, and we're working hard to make sure that the part that we've built maps to the needs of the market. And so that work is being done extensively this year to start to translate that into a real economic driver for us.
The next question today comes from the line of Christian Sgro from Eight Capital.
The first one I'll ask on today is on the net dollar retention rates at around 102% this year. It's sagged over the prior year, but it sounds like upsell is a focus for the company, pushing Creator+ other modules. So do you see this metric -- I mean, would you say, at this point, you have some visibility into this increasing in fiscal '23 -- or '24 rather? And your cross-sell will be a big part of that?
Yes. Thanks, Christian. Yes, just quickly, I mean, gross revenue retention and logo remains strong and in line with historical range. As you mentioned, there was a 40% sort of impact of FX on NRR year-over-year. So you're talking about something closer to 104%, if you subtract that 40% versus the 107%. The other factor was lower enterprise expansions within the K-12 market. And yes, over the past 3 years, NRR has averaged 105%. We continue to think that's a good way to think about it. And as you mentioned, yes, we'll look to expand our product portfolio. And over time, we expect that to have positive impact on NRR.
Okay. That's a helpful color. And then for the second one, I'll touch on M&A. Stephen made some reference to acquisitions in the prepared remarks. Just wondering, an open-ended question, but what size of asset and what type of asset you may be looking to buy if you bought something this year?
Yes. The type of asset is really something that, a, services the needs of our customers to transform their digital learning. That really helped to augment that by integrating deeply with our platform as such of the center, the learning environment. And similar to what John said, we're very much focused on both learner engagement and learner outcomes in K-12, higher ed and corporate. So it will fit in that family of criteria. And then within that, this size will just be driven by their go-to-market strategy of it and how much impact the asset can help us create for our customers.
The next question today comes from the line of Daniel Chan from TD Securities.
This is Evan on for Dan. Just a question on the progress of international growth that's supposed to be kind of one of the fastest-growing segments for you guys. Any color on international, whether it's for higher ed, K-12 or corporate?
Yes. Thanks, Evan. Certainly, as we've discussed throughout the year, foreign exchanges had an impact. So I would certainly encourage you to look at it from a constant currency basis. And when you do so, and you sort of run an average FX rate calculation, I think you'll see Rest of World growth closer to a 15%-ish range. And so I think that's a better way of looking at it.
Yes. And maybe just to add a little bit of color. I've done a bit of number of international trips in the last little while. And it's very clear from my conversations with the core markets, higher education, corporate and international, that there is a big demand for improving the educational experience.
So for example, I was on a recent trip to Singapore, and we're -- today, almost 75% of the university sector is now a client of D2L. So it's seeing significant growth. We're also breaking into the corporate market. And across both of those markets, they're looking to take education and the learning that they're providing up to the next level, embracing things like flip classrooms or driving better competency-based educational experiences. It's a really positive sign that many countries around the world, it doesn't matter which one I've visited, are looking to take the next step in the evolution of their learning experience. And I think that bodes well for our competitive positioning as we go forward.
Okay. On my second question, just wondering if you could share any thoughts on why K-12 has been somewhat inconsistent. We've been looking at the extra funding still potentially being a catalyst in the U.S. Just wondering on your thoughts on that.
Yes. And again, K-12 is our -- is about 20% of our business today. We never really chased hard after that funding. We're also seeing signs of that fundings not as easy to get for -- not only us, but for any of our competitors. And so we've largely dodged a bullet there, I think, in terms of pursuing stuff that might have come to an end.
In our case, we're just focused on winning the market leaders. So the top virtual schools, the top school districts, the school districts that care deeply about improving the educational experience for learners. And we're seeing steady progress there. There might be a little bit of lumpiness from 1 quarter to next, but very confident that we can be a market leader in many countries around the world for our K-12 offerings.
Okay. Great. And just one more question, if I may. I think AI has been very topical. Have you guys been looking at client AIs anything maybe in Creator+ might be the most relevant there? Any work on there?
Yes. So I mean first thing, it's important to understand that we have a lot of history of authentically using AI in the learning moment and doing it in highly tested and constructive ways. You've seen over the past period of time that D2L Performance Plus uses AI to early guide success counselors into student engagement within the first couple of weeks of a course. We've used AI very successfully to drive accessibility in automating the captioning on video and making that searchable and accessible to all. And we continue to build on that.
Certainly, with the large language model AI that everybody is speaking about right now, we are in R&D with it. We take a very, I think, pragmatic approach to it in that we start in a labs environment. We're focused on innovations with large language models that drive better outcomes, drive engagement and save time. We do not bring them to market until we're comfortable that they're fully tested and they have authentic learning outcomes. So more to come on that, but we're very much engaged with that.
Yes. And another great example is our support organization recently doing a lot of testing around on AI chatbot to support our clients in terms of being able to help self-serve answer their own questions that they have that the product or some of the challenges that they're experiencing within their learning experience. And the results from testing that with a large number of clients recently that we're testing Creator+ with a large number of clients, has been overwhelmingly positive. So we're seeing some good adoption of that and expect to talk more about that in the future.
The next question today comes from the line of Thanos Moschopoulos from BMO Capital Markets.
Just going back to the point about the acceleration in growth that you're expecting in the second half and into next year. Just to clarify, is that primarily driven by the improvements you're seeing are for macro? Or is part of it also that perhaps you now have more seasoned sales reps that are increasingly hitting their stride? Is there any of that dynamic as the sales force matures?
Yes. I think, Thanos, it's more about the impact of what we have previously been discussing in fiscal '23 around sort of the Q2, Q3 time frame on bookings and sort of the macroeconomic conditions and the impact on sales activity at that time and the flow-through implications to the first half of the year.
Yes. And I'd say our confidence is high with our model this year as the reps that we did onboard through the last year have come onboard in a really good way. We've -- just with many of our top sales reps last week, it's very clear, they're all highly motivated, highly engaged and excited about the year ahead. And some of the churn issues that we saw last year, we're not anticipating this year because of the work that we've done just to put in place the right foundation for success for the year ahead. So we're feeling very confident in the model that we've put in place.
Okay. And then as far as the OpEx trajectory in 2024, your own guidance for, I guess, a fairly modest increase. Should we be expecting that to be pretty linear throughout the year? Or is there anything to call out in terms of how OpEx will trend?
Yes, I think it's fair to think of it as fairly linear, as you mentioned, Thanos.
Okay. And then finally, in the past, you've talked about the mix being 60-20-20 higher ed, corporate, K-12. Is that roughly still the same? Or has that evolved meaningfully in the last year?
Yes, we're still anticipating corporate being in the fastest-growing segment. So it will be slightly higher than 20%. Higher education is still performing really well, so keeping in line with the 60. And K-12 is still growing. So I don't think there's anything wrong with we still using the benchmark of 20-60-20, with realization that the corporate base will continue to tick up over time.
The next question today comes from the line of John Shaw from National Bank.
I just want to ask about the update on the current labor market and your headcount policy for 2023?
So in terms of the labor market and the impact on D2L? Is that John, what you're referring to?
Yes, that's right, as well as your headcount policy.
Yes, in terms of headcount. So we're anticipating that the labor market changes have had a positive impact on our ability to attract top talent into D2L. Now to keep in mind, we're trying to grow very efficiently throughout the year, but the labor market conditions changing is a positive for us and our ability to execute throughout the year.
Okay. Could you also give us an update on D2L wave? I know you guys recently announced that expanded post-secondary options. I'm just curious if you can share some of the customer feedback. And also from a products perspective, it's been a year since D2L Wave was released. So do you think it's now ready to scale?
So we're still early days. I think as we were saying last year, it's still going to take 2 to 3 years to really build our Wave to be a product that really starts to see accelerated growth. So very similar to Slack or Uber or many of these other companies that have built a new model, it takes time to get it right.
Now that said, we're seeing a significant growth year-over-year with the clients that have adopted Wave. So the product is being well liked by the folks that are using it. And we are seeing new customer adds two ways, but I still suggest that, that's not a big part of our model today or into next year, just to caution overinflating the expectations around Wave.
As we tune that model, I am pretty excited about the future for it as it really does solve the big issue for a lot of our corporate clients, as they're grappling with how do I upskill all these people to win economy, digitize my company, support cybersecurity. The catalog today now offers over 1,000 top-tier offerings from the best academic and corporate providers in the world. And so I am pretty optimistic about it. I just -- we're just not baking it into our models today.
The next question today comes from the line of Brian Peterson from Raymond James.
I'm Jessica on for Brian. I have a bit of a follow-up question on NRR. With NRR consistently over 100% for you guys, what are key drivers of upsell and cross-sell with existing customers? And how has D2L help in driving the sales motion?
So in our case, as we shifted to a pure cloud model, our primary focus is on our core platform, making that as strong as it possibly can be. And then big markets like higher education, we've now ticked up our win rate in North America to over 50%. And if you look at the data from all across the world that we've looked at, as articulated in our filings, 44% win rate globally, which is pretty impressive for our core offering.
Now in terms of upsell and cross-sell, we have additional products. We're just launching Creator+ into the market. That's an exciting new offering engine that helps instructors or helps educators build highly engaging course content, practices, assessments, video where they have, they know how to code. We see a great opportunity for us to take that out to market.
Performance Plus is another one that Stephen talked about earlier, which is leveraging artificial intelligence to have an impact on the quality of the educational experience. I'd say pre-ChatGPT launching that was a hard sell into education. There was a fear of embracing AI as an education. I'm getting a lot of e-mails from clients asking about our strategy around AI in education today. And so I think that's just a bit of a tipping point, if you will, in terms of their willingness to embrace technology to support a better educational experience through artificial intelligence. And so I'm optimistic about that as a great upsell strategy for us as we look forward into the future.
And then to the other earlier point that was being made, there is also an M&A strategy that we could employ, but it's not part of our model today. As we presented, it is an organic growth story. But if we lay around additional products or partners and we take that out to our client base, that's another way for us to accelerate the growth in the NRR with our client base.
And if you want to add another one, a big opportunity for us is a lot of our clients are now starting to support nontraditional orders or upskilling of the workforce. And so there could be uplift from existing clients as they pursue new markets. But as I talked to clients around the world, that's a big growth vector for them as well, too.
Got it. I've got one follow-up question. Now that schools and companies are moving to being more fully in person in the office and at school, have you been seeing changes to usage trends across your customer segments?
Yes. So education post pandemic continues to be an extended and blended world. So we've seen some of the usage patterns of the platform change. But thanks to our learning and creative services and our advisory services, we're actually helping our customers move the boundaries of their campus. And so we're actually seeing nice continued usage very creative and engaging patterns so that even residential programs are taking full advantage of digital technology to allow students to learn at their own rate and at their own time. So we're very much in the thick of things, we're fully online for extended campuses and for grounded campuses as well.
Thank you. There are no additional questions raised. At this time, I'd like to pass the conference back over to Mr. John Baker for any closing remarks.
All right. Well, thank you very much, everybody, for joining us on the call today and for the excellent questions. We're looking forward to updating you following our Q1 results. Have a great day, everybody.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.