Research Solutions Inc (RSSS) 2025 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Research Solutions' financial and operating results for its fiscal 2025 third quarter ended March 31, 2025. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, John Beisler, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

大家下午好，感謝您參加今天的電話會議，討論研究解決方案截至 2025 年 3 月 31 日的 2025 財年第三季度的財務和運營業績。提醒一下，本次通話正在錄音。現在我想將會議交給主持人、投資者關係部 John Beisler。請繼續。

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Research Solutions Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Call. On the call with me today are Roy W. Olivier, President and Chief Executive Officer; Bill Nurthen, Chief Financial Officer; and Josh Nicholson, Chief Strategy Officer. After the market closed this afternoon, the company issued a press release announcing its results for the third quarter of fiscal 2025. The release is available on the company's website at researchsolutions.com.

謝謝接線員，大家下午好。感謝您今天參加研究解決方案 2025 財年第三季財報電話會議。今天與我一起通話的有總裁兼執行長 Roy W. Olivier； Bill Nurthen，財務長；以及首席策略長 Josh Nicholson。今天下午收盤後，該公司發布新聞稿，公佈了2025財年第三季的業績。新聞稿可在公司網站 researchsolutions.com 上查閱。

Before we begin our prepared remarks, I would like to remind you that some of the statements made today will be forward-looking and are made under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied due to a variety of factors. We refer you to Research Solutions' recent filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could impact the company's future operating results and financial condition.

在我們開始準備好的發言之前，我想提醒大家，今天所作的一些聲明將具有前瞻性，並且是根據 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法》作出的。由於各種因素，實際結果可能與明示或暗示的結果有重大差異。我們請您參閱 Research Solutions 最近向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，以更詳細地討論可能影響公司未來營運績效和財務狀況的風險和不確定性。

Also on today's call, management will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors. A reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release as well. Finally, I would like to again remind everyone that this call will be recorded and made available for replay via a link on the company's website.

此外，在今天的電話會議上，管理階層將參考某些非公認會計準則財務指標，我們認為這些指標為投資者提供了有用的信息。今天的收益新聞稿中也包含了這些指標與 GAAP 指標的對帳。最後，我想再次提醒大家，本次通話將被錄音，並透過公司網站上的連結提供重播。

I would now like to turn the call over to President and CEO, Roy W. Olivier. Roy?

現在我想將電話轉給總裁兼執行長 Roy W. Olivier。羅伊？

Thank you, Stephen. Overall, I'm pleased with the Q3 results. The investments we have been making in sales and marketing are starting to pay off. We had strong gross and net ARR bookings across all 3 sales teams. The net new deployment number of 43 during the quarter takes us up to 150 on a trailing 12-month basis, and I'm happy with that number.

謝謝你，史蒂芬。整體而言，我對第三季的業績感到滿意。我們在銷售和行銷方面所做的投資開始獲得回報。我們所有 3 個銷售團隊都擁有強勁的總 ARR 和淨 ARR 預訂量。本季淨新部署數量為 43 個，這使我們在過去 12 個月內的新部署數量達到 150 個，我對這個數字感到滿意。

We are all excited to have taken ARR above $20 million for the first time, and the $1.2 million incremental ARR for the quarter is a strong result as well. I also want to note that our AI-based products are showing strong growth. On a year-over-year basis, growth is strong across the board, but in the B2B enterprise license segment, we saw a 180% increase over the previous year quarter. We will talk about our AI strategy in more detail later, but it is working, and I think the results should provide some comfort to our investors that we are on the right track and have the right strategy in place to provide AI-based solutions that research-intensive organizations need and want.

我們都很高興 ARR 首次超過 2000 萬美元，本季 120 萬美元的增量 ARR 也是一個強勁的成績。我還想指出，我們的基於人工智慧的產品正在呈現強勁成長。與去年同期相比，各方面都成長強勁，但在 B2B 企業授權領域，我們看到比去年同期成長了 180%。我們稍後會更詳細地討論我們的人工智慧策略，但它正在發揮作用，我認為結果應該給我們的投資者帶來一些安慰，讓我們知道我們正走在正確的軌道上，並製定了正確的策略來提供研究密集型組織需要和想要的基於人工智慧的解決方案。

I'm now going to pass the call over to Bill to walk through our fiscal third quarter financial results in detail. After Bill's portion, I will be back to address where we are in more detail and Josh Nicholson, the Founder of Scite and our Chief Strategy Officer, will provide some additional context about our AI strategy. Bill?

我現在將把電話轉給比爾，讓他詳細介紹我們第三季的財務表現。在比爾講完之後，我會回來更詳細地討論我們目前的情況，而 Scite 的創始人兼首席戰略官喬希·尼科爾森 (Josh Nicholson) 將提供有關我們人工智能戰略的一些額外背景信息。帳單？

Thank you, Roy, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I begin, I want to go through -- before I go through the financial results today, I would like to make a couple of statements. First, the Scite acquisition is now fully anniversaried. As a result, all comparisons for this quarter to the prior year quarter are now fully organic.

謝謝你，羅伊，大家下午好。在我開始之前，我想先講一下——在講今天的財務結果之前，我想做幾點聲明。首先，Scite 收購現已滿週年。因此，本季與去年同期的所有比較現在都是完全有機的。

Second, if you are a long-term investor, you have heard us discuss the transformational impacts of our ongoing revenue mix shift to SaaS revenue. This quarter is a prime example of those impacts as we achieved a number of milestones and records in the quarter. Margins and cash flow have expanded as we have navigated the company from $10 million to $20 million ARR, and we expect similar type expansion as we continue to grow ARR onwards to our next target of $30 million.

其次，如果您是長期投資者，您已經聽過我們討論我們持續的收入結構向 SaaS 收入轉變所帶來的轉型影響。本季就是這些影響的典型例子，因為我們在本季實現了許多里程碑和記錄。隨著我們帶領公司從 1000 萬美元 ARR 增長至 2000 萬美元，利潤率和現金流也隨之擴大，並且隨著我們繼續將 ARR 增長至下一個 3000 萬美元的目標，我們預計也將出現類似的擴張。

Turning to the results. Total revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 was $12.7 million compared to $12.1 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2024. Our platform subscription revenue increased 22% to $4.8 million. The growth was primarily driven by growth in Scite B2B and B2C platform revenue. However, we also experienced growth in both revenue and net new deployments in our core Article Galaxy product.

談到結果。2025 財年第三季總營收為 1,270 萬美元，而 2024 財年第三季總營收為 1,210 萬美元。我們的平台訂閱收入成長了22%，達到480萬美元。這一成長主要得益於 Scite B2B 和 B2C 平台收入的成長。然而，我們的核心產品 Article Galaxy 的營收和淨新部署也都實現了成長。

Platform revenue accounted for about 38% of our total revenue for the quarter compared to approximately 33% in the prior year quarter as this mix continues to move up into the right. We ended the quarter with $20.4 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR, up 23% year-over-year. The result was impressive for a couple of key reasons. First, similar to last quarter, the growth was broad-based across both Scite and Article Galaxy between both new sales and upsells and between both B2B and B2C.

平台收入約佔本季總收入的 38%，而去年同期約為 33%，且此結構繼續向右移動。本季末，我們的年度經常性收入（ARR）為 2,040 萬美元，年增 23%。由於幾個主要原因，這一結果令人印象深刻。首先，與上一季類似，Scite 和 Article Galaxy 的新銷售和追加銷售以及 B2B 和 B2C 之間均實現了廣泛成長。

Second, B2B experienced net incremental ARR growth of $736,000, which is a company organic record for a quarter and compares to growth of only 38,000 in the prior year quarter. I will note that there were some onetime larger churn items in last year's Q3. However, regardless, the result is impressive. The ARR is broken down as $13.5 million in B2B ARR and $6.9 million in normalized ARR associated with Scite's B2C subscribers.

其次，B2B 業務的淨增量 ARR 成長了 736,000 美元，這是該公司本季的有機成長記錄，而去年同期的成長僅為 38,000 美元。我要指出的是，去年第三季有一些一次性較大的客戶流失項目。但無論如何，結果令人印象深刻。ARR 分為 1350 萬美元的 B2B ARR 和 690 萬美元的與 Scite 的 B2C 用戶相關的標準化 ARR。

Net incremental ARR growth in the quarter was approximately $1.2 million, and we had 43 net B2B platform deployments. Please see today's press release for how we define and use annual recurring revenue and other non-GAAP terms. Transaction revenue for the third quarter was $7.8 million compared to $8.2 million in the prior year quarter. Q3 is seasonally our best time for Transactions. And while this quarter was the highest result of this fiscal year, it was down 4% to the prior year quarter.

本季淨增量 ARR 成長約為 120 萬美元，我們擁有 43 個淨 B2B 平台部署。請參閱今天的新聞稿，以了解我們如何定義和使用年度經常性收入和其他非 GAAP 術語。第三季的交易收入為 780 萬美元，去年同期為 820 萬美元。從季節性角度來看，第三季是我們進行交易的最佳時機。雖然本季的業績是本財年的最高水平，但與去年同期相比下降了 4%。

The reason for the decrease was that paid order volume was simply lower in the quarter compared to last year. It is too early to tell if this is something unique to this quarter or if it is a longer-term trend, perhaps economic or otherwise, but we will continue to monitor and report on it. Our total active customer count for the quarter was 1,380 compared to 1,426 in the same period a year ago.

下降的原因是本季付費訂單量與去年同期相比有所下降。現在判斷這是否是本季獨有的現象，或者是否是長期趨勢（可能是經濟趨勢或其他趨勢）還為時過早，但我們會繼續監測和報道。本季我們的活躍客戶總數為 1,380 人，去年同期為 1,426 人。

Gross margin for the third quarter was 49.5%, a 430 basis point improvement over the third quarter of fiscal 2024. The increase is due to the ongoing revenue mix shift towards our higher-margin Platforms business, and we are now on the doorstep towards pushing through 50% plus blended gross margins. In addition to the revenue mix shift, we also experienced gross margin improvements in both our Platforms and Transactions business lines.

第三季毛利率為49.5%，比2024財年第三季提高了430個基點。成長是由於我們的收入結構不斷向利潤率更高的平台業務轉變，現在我們即將實現 50% 以上的混合毛利率。除了收入結構的變化之外，我們的平台和交易業務線的毛利率也有所提高。

The Platforms business recorded gross margin of 87.4%, a 180 basis point increase compared to the prior year quarter. The result is primarily related to lower labor costs as we scale the business, partially offset by hosting costs, which increased proportionately with revenue. Gross margin in our Transaction business increased 30 basis points to 26%. The increase was related to higher copyright margins.

平台業務的毛利率為 87.4%，較去年同期增加 180 個基點。這項結果主要與我們擴大業務規模時降低的勞動成本有關，但託管成本部分抵銷了這一影響，託管成本隨收入成比例增加。我們的交易業務的毛利率增加了 30 個基點，達到 26%。這一增長與更高的版權利潤有關。

I will note that these are really strong results for both Platforms and Transactions. As a result, it is likely you will see these margins dip down in future quarters, but we do not expect to see any material changes in what the company has experienced with respect to these margins over the last 12 months.

我要指出的是，對於平台和交易來說，這些都是非常強烈的結果。因此，您很可能會看到這些利潤率在未來幾季下降，但我們預計該公司在過去 12 個月中這些利潤率不會發生任何重大變化。

Total operating expenses in the quarter were $5.7 million compared to $5.4 million in the prior year quarter. The increases were nearly all isolated to the sales and marketing line of the P&L where we are deliberately making investments. We are pleased to be able to make these additional investments in growth as we are largely able to hold the line on other expenses.

本季總營運費用為 570 萬美元，而去年同期為 540 萬美元。這些成長幾乎全部來自損益表中我們有意投資的銷售和行銷線。我們很高興能夠在成長方面進行這些額外投資，因為我們基本上能夠控制其他開支。

Turning to profitability. The company reported income from operations of $557,000 compared to $88,000 in the prior year quarter. Net income was $216,000 or $0.01 per diluted share compared to net income of $76,000 or $0 per diluted share in the prior year quarter. I wanted to make a few statements here regarding the Scite earn-out.

轉向盈利能力。該公司報告的營業收入為 557,000 美元，而去年同期為 88,000 美元。淨收入為 216,000 美元或每股攤薄收益 0.01 美元，而去年同期淨收入為 76,000 美元或每股攤薄收益 0 美元。我想在這裡就 Scite 盈利發表一些聲明。

First, we did not make any adjustments to the Scite earn-out estimate for this quarter. Second, this earn-out will be finally determined as we close our Q4, and we will provide an update then on the final earn-out amount and any final adjustments required to our estimate.

首先，我們沒有對本季的 Scite 獲利預測做任何調整。其次，這項盈利將在我們結束第四季度時最終確定，屆時我們將提供最終盈利金額以及估算所需的任何最終調整的更新。

Lastly, GAAP requires us to present the present value of the earn-out on the balance sheet and essentially unwind that present value through the other expense line as we start making payments on the earn-out. This is why you see a negative other income in the -- negative below-the-line other income in the P&L as we expensed $406,000 in the quarter related to this unwinding of the present value. Regardless of this expense, we were still able to generate $216,000 of net income in the quarter and have a beat to last year's result.

最後，GAAP 要求我們在資產負債表上列示盈利能力的現值，並在我們開始支付盈利能力時透過其他費用線將該現值平倉。這就是為什麼您會在損益表中看到負的其他收入——負的線下其他收入，因為我們在本季度支出了 406,000 美元，與此現值的解除有關。不管這筆開支是多少，我們仍然能夠在本季度產生 216,000 美元的淨收入，並且比去年的業績有所提高。

Turning to adjusted EBITDA. We set a new company record in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $1.4 million compared to $961,000 in the year ago quarter and just edge over the prior company record for adjusted EBITDA, which was set in Q4 of last year. On a trailing 12-month basis, our adjusted EBITDA is now $5.1 million, which represents a 10.4% margin. We believe crossing through the 10% adjusted EBITDA margin to be an important milestone for the company and that this margin can continue to expand as ARR grows.

轉向調整後的 EBITDA。我們在本季創下了新的公司紀錄。調整後的 EBITDA 為 140 萬美元，而去年同期為 961,000 美元，略高於去年第四季創下的公司調整後 EBITDA 紀錄。在過去 12 個月中，我們的調整後 EBITDA 為 510 萬美元，利潤率為 10.4%。我們相信，突破 10% 的調整後 EBITDA 利潤率對於公司來說是一個重要的里程碑，隨著 ARR 的成長，該利潤率也將繼續擴大。

While the adjusted EBITDA result was strong, the thing I was pleased with most was our cash flow performance in the quarter. Looking at our balance sheet, cash and cash equivalents as of March 31, 2025, it is now reported at $9.9 million versus $6.1 million on June 30, 2024. Cash flow from operations in the quarter was approximately $2.9 million compared to $2 million in the prior year quarter and $4.8 million year-to-date compared to $1.6 million last year.

雖然調整後的 EBITDA 結果強勁，但最讓我滿意的是本季的現金流表現。查看我們的資產負債表，截至 2025 年 3 月 31 日的現金和現金等價物現在為 990 萬美元，而 2024 年 6 月 30 日為 610 萬美元。本季經營現金流約 290 萬美元，去年同期為 200 萬美元；年初至今為 480 萬美元，去年同期為 160 萬美元。

On a trailing 12-month basis, we have now generated over $6.7 million in cash flow from operations. These are material increases over the prior year, and our cash balance continues to grow rapidly, positioning us well to pay the Scite earn-out as well as remain flexible when it comes to using the cash for strategic considerations. As of quarter end, there were no outstanding borrowings on our revolving line of credit.

在過去 12 個月中，我們已從營運中產生了超過 670 萬美元的現金流。與前一年相比，這些都有了實質性的增長，而且我們的現金餘額繼續快速增長，使我們能夠很好地支付 Scite 的盈利，並且在將現金用於戰略考慮時保持靈活性。截至季末，我們的循環信貸額度中沒有未償還的借款。

In conclusion, we are very pleased with the results of the quarter and think they are in line with what we have been communicating to investors and indicative of the future value in the company that can be realized as we continue the ongoing revenue mix shift towards higher-margin SaaS revenue.

總而言之，我們對本季的業績非常滿意，並認為這與我們向投資者傳達的訊息一致，並表明了隨著我們繼續將收入結構轉向利潤率更高的 SaaS 收入，公司的未來價值可以實現。

As we look ahead, similar to prior years, we are expecting a strong finish in our final quarter of the fiscal year. Even if transaction revenue declines and is seasonally down sequentially, we still have the possibility to attain a Q4 adjusted EBITDA result that is similar to what we saw in Q3. Regardless, in many respects, it will be another record year for the company and one that continues to see us executing on our ARR growth plan.

展望未來，與往年類似，我們預計本財年的最後一個季度將取得強勁成長。即使交易收入下降並且季節性環比下降，我們仍然有可能實現與第三季類似的第四季度調整後 EBITDA 結果。無論如何，從許多方面來看，這將是公司創紀錄的另一年，我們將繼續執行 ARR 成長計畫。

I'll now turn the call back to Roy. Roy?

我現在將電話轉回給羅伊。羅伊？

For the last quarter or 2, we've talked about investments we've been making in sales and marketing. I think it's critical to our long-term strategy to build a professional and disciplined sales and renewal team. It is the cornerstone of our value creation strategy to cross-sell new products internally developed or acquired into our base of customers. I continue to be excited about the progress that we're seeing in this area.

在過去的一個季度或兩個季度裡，我們討論了在銷售和行銷方面所做的投資。我認為建立一支專業且紀律嚴明的銷售和續約團隊對於我們的長期策略至關重要。將內部開發或收購的新產品交叉銷售給我們的客戶群是我們價值創造策略的基石。我對我們在這一領域所取得的進展感到興奮。

Marketing has been executing at a high level for quite some time. All sales teams are starting to show better results, higher average sales price, improving close ratios based on the adoption of the new approach and sales process we started in early FY25 when we built out a dedicated Academic and Corporate team. I'm very pleased with the progress to date. I'm now going to ask Josh to step in and talk a little bit about our AI products, and then I'm going to circle back to talk about the general environment as it relates to some of the budget cuts and some other details related to our performance. Josh?

行銷已在高水準上執行了相當長一段時間。所有銷售團隊都開始表現出更好的業績、更高的平均銷售價格、更高的成交率，這都得益於我們在 2025 財年初期建立專門的學術和企業團隊時開始採用的新方法和銷售流程。我對迄今為止的進展感到非常滿意。我現在要請喬希介入並談談我們的人工智慧產品，然後我將回過頭來談談與一些預算削減有關的整體環境以及與我們的表現相關的一些其他細節。喬希？

Thanks, Roy. As I shared on our last call, AI is central to what we're building at Research Solutions. By combining exclusive access and rights to global research content with a real understanding of how researchers work, we're creating a scientific research platform for an AI-driven world. This isn't a side bet, it's the future of the company, and we're leaning fully in. The numbers we're reporting today show that we're executing on that strategy.

謝謝，羅伊。正如我在上次電話會議上分享的那樣，人工智慧是我們在研究解決方案中建立的核心。透過將對全球研究內容的獨家存取權和權利與對研究人員工作方式的真正理解相結合，我們正在為人工智慧驅動的世界創建一個科學研究平台。這不是一場賭注，而是公司的未來，我們會全力以赴。我們今天報告的數字表明我們正在執行該策略。

As companies and researchers look to figure out their own AI strategy, they're increasingly turning to Scite as it offers the best coverage in research, focused workflows for their tasks and importantly, hallucination mitigation. For Academic customers, it provides a transparent and ethical AI solution, which can be deployed across a university campus.

當公司和研究人員尋求制定自己的人工智慧策略時，他們越來越多地轉向 Scite，因為它提供了最佳的研究覆蓋範圍、針對其任務的專注工作流程，以及重要的幻覺緩解功能。對於學術客戶，它提供了透明且合乎道德的人工智慧解決方案，可以在整個大學園區部署。

From a product perspective, we have deployed several new LLM models into Scite Assistant this quarter, allowing users to select from different providers and providing cutting-edge advances in AI to our unique corpus of research articles. We have also deployed a new Tables mode in Scite Assistant that allows you to leverage AI for data extraction. Think about creating a spreadsheet with AI analyzing reports based on whatever data you need, sample size, study limitations, statistics, et cetera.

從產品角度來看，本季度我們已在 Scite Assistant 中部署了幾種新的 LLM 模型，允許用戶從不同的提供者中進行選擇，並為我們獨特的研究文章庫提供人工智慧領域的前沿進展。我們還在 Scite Assistant 中部署了一種新的表格模式，讓您可以利用 AI 進行資料擷取。考慮建立一個電子表格，使用 AI 根據您需要的數據、樣本大小、研究限制、統計數據等分析報告。

We continue to remain model agnostic and can deploy new models within days of release, including deep reasoning models. This flexibility supports customer demand and allows us to further delineate features available to B2B customers versus B2C customers. As some of you may have seen, a recent headline in the New York Times reported, AI is getting more powerful, but its hallucinations are getting worse.

我們繼續保持模型不可知論，並可以在發布後的幾天內部署新模型，包括深度推理模型。這種靈活性可以滿足客戶需求，並使我們能夠進一步劃分 B2B 客戶和 B2C 客戶可用的功能。正如你們有些人可能已經看到的，《紐約時報》最近的頭條報道說，人工智慧變得越來越強大，但它的幻覺卻越來越糟糕。

This past month, I visited numerous large customers in Denmark and a recurring piece of feedback was that Scite was valuable to them, specifically for the mitigation of hallucination. They expressed continued frustration with ChatGPT, making things up and them having to deal with the requests for articles that didn't exist.

上個月，我拜訪了丹麥的許多大客戶，反覆收到的回饋是 Scite 對他們很有價值，特別是在緩解幻覺方面。他們表達了對 ChatGPT 的持續不滿，認為 ChatGPT 編造了一些內容，並且讓他們不得不處理不存在的文章請求。

This challenge might seem completely new but is reminiscent of the early days of the web where new pages of information were being created at a scale never seen. As Google Co-Founder, Sergey Brin and Larry Page noted in their seminal paper, web pages proliferate free of quality control. Think of all the content proliferating free of quality control through LLM.

這項挑戰可能看起來是全新的，但卻讓人回想起網路早期，當時新的資訊頁面以前所未有的規模被創建。正如Google聯合創始人謝爾蓋·布林和拉里·佩奇在其開創性論文中指出的那樣，網頁的激增缺乏品質控制。想想透過法學碩士 (LLM) 不受品質控製而激增的所有內容。

What emerged out of this Cambrian explosion of information in the early days of the web was a better way to rank content, specifically PageRank from Google. PageRank was directly influenced by academic papers and citation analysis, and I quote, PageRank provides a more sophisticated method for doing citation counting. Over the past decade, Scite has been working to improve the academic citations, which we call smart citations.

在網路早期，資訊大爆炸催生了一種更好的內容排名方式，特別是 Google 的 PageRank。PageRank 直接受到學術論文和引文分析的影響，我引用一下，PageRank 提供了一種更複雜的引文計數方法。在過去的十年裡，Scite 一直致力於改進學術引用，我們稱之為智慧引用。

As a reminder, unlike traditional citations, mark citations exposed to actual in-text citation statements from citing articles show where those statements appear in the document and indicate whether the cited claim is supported or contradicted. These enhanced snippets don't just offer better context, they enable smarter, verifiable knowledge synthesis.

提醒一下，與傳統引用不同，標記引用暴露於引用文章中的實際文內引用語句，顯示這些語句在文件中出現的位置，並表明所引用的主張是否得到支持或反駁。這些增強的片段不僅提供更好的背景，還能夠實現更聰明、可驗證的知識綜合。

Crucially, these smart citations allow us to leverage the flexibility and power of AI, but to do so in a trustworthy way, eliminating hallucination. This is not 100% perfect, but it is market-leading owing to the access and content we have. It is a core differentiator of Scite and very often how and why we win deals. The Scite product is also a finalist in the Society of Scholarly Publishing Epic Award. Very happy about that.

至關重要的是，這些智慧引用使我們能夠利用人工智慧的靈活性和強大功能，但以值得信賴的方式進行，從而消除幻覺。這並不是 100% 完美，但由於我們擁有的訪問權限和內容，它是市場領先的。這是 Scite 的核心差異化因素，也是我們贏得交易的原因和方式。Scite 產品也入圍了學術出版協會史詩獎的決賽。對此我非常高興。

In addition to the work on Scite and Scite Assistant, we have also brought over core aspects of Scite and AI into Article Galaxy, helping users as they access articles, easily find supporting or contrasting evidence and better assess the relevancy of an article with full text expert preview. By empowering AI in a trustworthy way across products, we enhance user flows, save researchers and organizations time and money and crucially help them make sure they are using reputable information.

除了 Scite 和 Scite Assistant 的工作之外，我們還將 Scite 和 AI 的核心方面引入了 Article Galaxy，幫助用戶訪問文章，輕鬆找到支持或對比證據，並透過全文專家預覽更好地評估文章的相關性。透過在產品中以可信賴的方式增強人工智慧，我們增強了使用者流程，節省了研究人員和組織的時間和金錢，並至關重要地幫助他們確保他們使用的是可靠的資訊。

We also continue to make progress with our AI data strategy. Regarding adding additional publishers and content into Scite, we added an additional publisher during the quarter. We also added 8 publishers to our new PDM/AI rights product that will allow customers to purchase AI rights for their articles they purchase and articles they already have in their library.

我們的人工智慧數據策略也持續取得進展。關於為 Scite 添加額外的出版商和內容，我們在本季增加了一個出版商。我們還在新的 PDM/AI 版權產品中增加了 8 家出版商，允許客戶為他們購買的文章和他們圖書館中已有的文章購買 AI 版權。

Finally, we have added 2 new publishers to Article Galaxy, and we continue to focus on adding new content to Scite AI, adding the ability for customers to acquire rights if they do not have them and adding new publisher agreements for the AG platform in addition to our efforts to deepen our workflows for users.

最後，我們為 Article Galaxy 增加了 2 個新出版商，並且我們繼續專注於為 Scite AI 添加新內容，為沒有權利的客戶增加獲取權利的能力，並為 AG 平台添加新的出版商協議，此外我們還努力深化用戶的工作流程。

With that, I'll turn it back over to Roy, and I look forward to any questions.

說完這些，我將把話題交還給羅伊，我期待任何問題。

Thanks, Josh. One other comment about our results. I am, and Bill is, as you know, Rule of 40 people. We'd like to see our platform growth and EBITDA margin equal 40% or greater. We have been a long way from that the last couple of years with a 25% and 16% result for FY23 and '24.

謝謝，喬希。關於我們的結果的另一條評論。我和比爾都是「40人規則」的實踐者，這一點你們也知道。我們希望看到我們的平台成長和 EBITDA 利潤率達到 40% 或更高。過去幾年，我們取得了長足的進步，2023 財年和 2024 財年的表現分別為 25% 和 16%。

For the quarter, we're at 34.1%. And on a trailing 12-month basis, we're at 33.1%. So we're excited about making that progress, and we look forward to making more progress toward the Rule of 40.

本季度，我們的佔比為 34.1%。過去 12 個月，這一比例為 33.1%。因此，我們對取得這一進展感到非常興奮，並期待在實現 40 規則方面取得更多進展。

Regarding the rest of the business, I'd like to start by noting the recent budget cuts in government and academic institutions. Many investors have asked us how this impacts our business. To date, we have not seen any material change in churn or in the sales pipeline because of those actions. That said, there are several moving parts that may impact our business in the future. Many of the cuts will impact academic library budgets. We do not think they will materially impact corporate accounts that we service today.

關於其餘業務，我首先要指出的是政府和學術機構最近的預算削減。許多投資者問我們這對我們的業務有何影響。到目前為止，我們還沒有看到這些行動導致客戶流失率或銷售管道發生任何重大變化。話雖如此，仍有幾個變化因素可能會影響我們未來的業務。許多削減將影響學術圖書館的預算。我們認為它們不會對我們目前服務的公司帳戶產生重大影響。

As a reminder, we offer 2 products to our Academic customers today: Scite, which is the search and AI-based analysis platform. It is typically much less expensive than the incumbent search platforms in libraries today. We also offer Article Galaxy Scholar, which allows a library to access and buy peer-reviewed scientific research on a document-by-document basis that is not covered by an existing subscription.

提醒一下，我們今天為學術客戶提供 2 種產品：Scite，它是一個基於搜尋和 AI 的分析平台。它通常比當今圖書館現有的搜尋平台便宜得多。我們還提供 Article Galaxy Scholar，它允許圖書館逐一文件地存取和購買現有訂閱未涵蓋的同行評審的科學研究。

Libraries that subscribe to all publisher content will not need AGS. Ones that partially subscribe can use AGS to fill in the gaps. While publishers prefer subscriptions, in the cases where libraries do decide to drop one or more subscriptions, the publisher will earn some revenue on the documents we deliver as part of AGS. If the library cancels a subscription and does not have AGS, then those documents are provided by something called ILL or inter library loan, which generates no revenue for the publisher or Research Solutions.

訂閱所有出版商內容的圖書館將不需要 AGS。部分認購者可以使用 AGS 來填補缺口。雖然出版商更喜歡訂閱，但如果圖書館決定取消一個或多個訂閱，出版商將從我們作為 AGS 的一部分提供的文件中獲得一些收入。如果圖書館取消訂閱並且沒有 AGS，那麼這些文件將透過所謂的 ILL 或館際互借提供，這不會為出版商或研究解決方案帶來任何收入。

In short, downward pressure on library budgets, we view as an opportunity. As a reminder, the U.S. is about 55% to 60% of our total platform revenue and Academic libraries are about 1/4 of our platform installs. While some of our corporate customers will be impacted by tariffs, it is not clear today if that will have any impact on their research spending. It does put pressure on research budgets. The dynamic will be similar to Academic in terms of AG providing a pay-as-you-go model versus subscribing to all content from all publishers.

簡而言之，我們認為圖書館預算的下行壓力是一個機會。提醒一下，美國約占我們平台總收入的 55% 至 60%，學術圖書館約占我們平台安裝量的 1/4。雖然我們的一些企業客戶將受到關稅的影響，但目前尚不清楚這是否會對他們的研究支出產生任何影響。這確實給研究預算帶來了壓力。就 AG 提供現收現付模式而不是訂閱所有出版商的所有內容而言，其動態將與 Academic 類似。

While we don't see any material impact on our business today, it will take a couple of quarters for us to understand the consequences of these cuts. Regarding M&A, we have nothing relevant to report, although we will continue to review opportunities and work to build an actionable pipeline. As we have been executing financially and building a cash balance, our stock price has gone backwards. Given where we are, it's fair to ask if holding the cash for acquisitions is the only option, I have nothing formal to report other than we are looking at those options and we'll report on the outcome of those discussions in the future.

雖然我們目前沒有看到對我們的業務有任何實質的影響，但我們需要幾個季度才能了解這些削減的後果。關於併購，我們沒有什麼相關報告，儘管我們將繼續審查機會並努力建立可行的管道。由於我們一直在執行財務並建立現金餘額，我們的股價已經下跌。考慮到我們目前的狀況，我們有理由問，持有現金進行收購是否是唯一的選擇，除了我們正在研究這些選擇並且我們將在未來報告這些討論的結果之外，我沒有什麼正式的消息要報告。

Ultimately, we have great momentum in the business, and we believe we will continue to build value with each quarter we report. We will continue to look for new and different ways to further increase shareholder value.

最終，我們的業務發展勢頭強勁，我們相信我們將在每季的報告中繼續創造價值。我們將繼續尋找新的和不同的方法來進一步提高股東價值。

Now I'll turn the call over to the operator for questions. Operator?

現在我將把電話轉給接線員來回答問題。操作員？

(Operator Instructions) Jacob Stephan, Lake Street.

（操作員指示）Jacob Stephan，Lake Street。

Richard Baldry, ROTH Capital.

羅仕資本（ROTH Capital）的理查德·鮑德里（Richard Baldry）。

Your adjusted EBITDA has been setting some pretty strong numbers and very strong year-over-year growth. So I'm sort of curious your thoughts on how much you could sort of shift gears, spend more into the sales and marketing line and proactively drive faster growth. I'm trying to figure out is, are you more of a growth taker where you can grow with the market itself? Or can you be a growth maker where if you can put more heads in, is there a market share to be taken or greenfield space to be adopters that you couldn't necessarily get to with the team you've got right now?

您的調整後 EBITDA 已經創下了一些相當強勁的數字，並且同比增長非常強勁。所以我很好奇您的想法，您可以採取多少措施來轉變方向，在銷售和行銷方面投入更多資金，並積極推動更快的成長。我想弄清楚的是，你是否更傾向於接受成長，可以隨著市場本身而成長？或者，您可以成為一個成長推動者，如果您可以投入更多人力，是否有市場份額可供佔領，或者是否有綠地可供採用，而您目前的團隊不一定能做到這一點？

Yes. I think the reason we've been making the investments in sales and marketing and more recently, sales teams by splitting the teams, training the teams, adding more people to the teams and forcing use of a new solution-oriented selling process versus what we did in the past, is that I'd like to get to the point where we have a fairly predictable model there.

是的。我認為，我們之所以對銷售和行銷進行投資，以及最近對銷售團隊進行投資，透過拆分團隊、培訓團隊、增加團隊人數以及強制使用新的以解決方案為導向的銷售流程（而不是我們過去所做的），是因為我希望我們能夠達到一個相當可預測的模型。

In other words, on the B2C side, we invest in primarily digital advertising. It drives trials, trials drive subscriptions. It's a very predictable customer acquisition cost number that generates a lifetime value number out of that. So we can dial up or dial down expense to get to where we want to go. And as we start to see negligible improvements or those ratios change materially, we simply lower investment back down.

換句話說，在B2C方面，我們主要投資數位廣告。它推動試用，試用推動訂閱。這是一個非常可預測的客戶獲取成本數字，並可由此產生終身價值數字。因此，我們可以增加或減少開支以達到我們想要的目的。當我們開始看到微不足道的改善或這些比率發生重大變化時，我們只需降低投資。

I'd like to do the same thing on the B2B side. And on the marketing front, I think we have very good metrics, very good tracking, we know when we invest, when we're going to get out of it in terms of marketing qualified leads. I think with the progress that Sefton, our new Chief Revenue Officer, is making, we're starting to build out that predictable, professional, disciplined sales process and sales team that I think would give me more comfort to say, okay, if I throw another $1 million at this, this is what we can expect to get out of it. My hesitation to do that historically has been it was not predictable. It would have just been a throw some money at it and see what happens. So I think we're close to being able to answer that question with a lot more confidence than we can today.

我想在 B2B 方面做同樣的事情。在行銷方面，我認為我們有非常好的指標和非常好的跟踪，我們知道何時投資，何時從行銷合格潛在客戶中獲得回報。我認為，隨著我們新任首席營收長塞夫頓所取得的進展，我們開始建立可預測、專業、有紀律的銷售流程和銷售團隊，我認為這會讓我更放心地說，好吧，如果我再投入 100 萬美元，這就是我們可以預期獲得的回報。我一直猶豫是否要這麼做，因為這是不可預測的。這只是投入一些錢然後看看會發生什麼。所以我認為我們很快就能比現在更有信心地回答這個問題了。

And back to Rule of 40, if we think we can invest more and drive more top line growth, we'll definitely make that change.

回到 40 法則，如果我們認為我們可以投入更多並推動更多的收入成長，我們肯定會做出改變。

And last for me would be more and more of the companies I'm talking to are talking about what they can do with AI internally in processes and anywhere from accelerating greatly the R&D processes and development processes to streamlining operations and lowering -- actually outright lowering costs. So could you talk to some extent about how much you think AI can do that for you? Can that alter sort of the long-run Rule of 40 concept if it can make you more streamlined sort of efficient internally?

最後，與我交流的越來越多的公司正在談論如何在內部流程中使用人工智慧，從大大加速研發流程和開發流程到簡化營運和降低——實際上是直接降低成本。那麼，您能否談談您認為人工智慧能為您做多少呢？如果它能讓你的內部運作更加精簡高效，那麼它能否改變長期的 40 規則概念呢？

I think it can, and I don't think we've put enough emphasis on utilization of AI internally to improve productivity or other processes. I think the sales teams are doing actually a pretty good job with that with the new sales process for researching background, what CEOs have said about the strategic initiatives of the company and how that might tie into a discussion we're having with that company.

我認為可以，而且我認為我們還沒有足夠重視內部利用人工智慧來提高生產力或其他流程。我認為銷售團隊實際上做得相當不錯，他們透過新的銷售流程研究背景、執行長對公司策略舉措的看法以及這些看法如何與我們與該公司的討論聯繫起來。

But in fact, this month, we are starting as part of our all-manager meetings, which we have every month, the managers are going to report starting this month on what they're doing with AI internally to improve their part of the business. And so I think that's a discussion we need to continue to have. But honestly, as you know, 2/3 of our workforce is in Mexico at labor rates that are materially lower than the U.S. or European labor rates.

但事實上，本月，作為我們每月舉行的全體經理會議的一部分，經理們將從本月開始報告他們在內部利用人工智慧所進行的工作，以改善他們的業務部分。所以我認為我們需要繼續討論這個問題。但老實說，如您所知，我們三分之二的勞動力在墨西哥，其勞動成本明顯低於美國或歐洲的勞動成本。

So frankly, the piece of the business I'm really interested in utilizing AI in is getting a kind of a force multiplier on R&D, on software engineering. The CEO of Microsoft reported a material percentage of their new code is being written by AI, and we're not anywhere near that number. And given our size, we certainly would like to improve dramatically what we're doing with AI to write new code, and we'll continue to work on that looking forward.

所以坦白說，我真正感興趣的是利用人工智慧在研發和軟體工程上獲得一種力量倍增器。微軟執行長報告稱，他們新程式碼的很大一部分是由人工智慧編寫的，而我們離這個數字還很遠。考慮到我們的規模，我們當然希望大幅改進我們在人工智慧方面所做的事情，以編寫新的程式碼，並且我們將繼續為此努力。

So my point is, I think we're focusing on AI as a productivity enhancement as opposed to cost reduction. However, if we see opportunities for cost reduction, Bill and I are pretty good about chasing those.

所以我的觀點是，我認為我們關注的是人工智慧作為生產力的提高，而不是成本的降低。然而，如果我們發現降低成本的機會，比爾和我就會盡力去追求。

(Operator Instructions) Jacob Stephan, Lake Street.

（操作員指示）Jacob Stephan，Lake Street。

Just hopping between a few calls here. So apologies if I double-click on something. Overall, I kind of wanted to get your feedback on kind of the new logo versus cross-sell teams, and any color you could kind of give around the sales performance this quarter?

只是在這裡打了幾通電話而已。如果我雙擊了某個東西，請見諒。總的來說，我想聽聽您對新標誌和交叉銷售團隊的回饋，以及您能否對本季的銷售業績做出一些評價？

Yes. The new logo teams did well. They were well over half of our total new bookings number for the quarter. I kind of look at gross new bookings and then back out churn. Corporate team and Academic teams performed almost equally in terms of their revenue split between Academic and Corporate. And keep in mind, we had no Academic team last year. So that was a nice progress from just creating that team in July of last year.

是的。採用新標誌的隊伍表現不錯。它們占我們本季新預訂總量的一半以上。我會查看新預訂總量，然後再查看客戶流失率。企業團隊和學術團隊在學術和企業之間的收入分配方面表現幾乎相同。請記住，去年我們沒有學術團隊。因此，自去年 7 月創建該團隊以來，這是一個很好的進展。

And the upsell renewal team, I think, had a fairly strong quarter as well. I think Academic was very strong. I think Corporate was strong to very strong. And I think the renewal upsell team had a good quarter. We still have work to do predominantly on the churn side, and we still have some work to do in reorganizing and redeploying how we manage our accounts.

我認為追加銷售續約團隊本季的表現也相當強勁。我認為學術性很強。我認為公司實力非常強大。我認為續約追加銷售團隊本季表現不錯。我們的主要工作仍是在客戶流失方面，我們還有一些工作要做，包括重組和重新部署我們的帳戶管理方式。

We're taking an approach where we've kind of split our accounts into top 1/3 that we expect to provide white glove service to middle 1/3 that will still have a lot of human interaction and a tremendous amount of service, but not quite as much of the top 1/3 who generates more than half of our revenue.

我們採取的方法是將我們的帳戶分成前 1/3 個，我們期望為中間 1/3 個帳戶提供白手套服務，這部分帳戶仍然會有很多的人際互動和大量的服務，但不像前 1/3 個帳戶那麼多，前 1/3 為我們創造了一半以上的收入。

And then the kind of the bottom 1/3 in terms of trailing 12-month revenue will handle through less human touch and more automation, more automation that reinforces through reporting that's automatically generated and sent to the administrator and the business leaders in the account, what the product is doing for them. So as we look into FY26, we'll be investing in building better analytics tools that we can incorporate into the conversations at the Tier 1 and Tier 2 level and incorporate into automated reporting for the Tier 3 teams.

然後，就過去 12 個月的收入而言，底層 1/3 的收入將透過更少的人為幹預和更多的自動化來處理，更多的自動化透過自動產生並發送給帳戶管理員和業務負責人的報告來強化，告訴他們產品為他們做了什麼。因此，當我們展望 26 財年時，我們將投資建立更好的分析工具，這些工具可以納入第 1 層和第 2 層的對話中，並納入第 3 層團隊的自動報告中。

Got it. Very helpful. And maybe just checking in on B2C. Obviously, you've kind of got classes beginning to wrap up in May here. Just wondering if you're starting to see any trends in line with normal seasonality or where things are differing?

知道了。非常有幫助。或許只是檢查一下 B2C。顯然，你們這裡的課程在五月就開始結束了。只是想知道您是否開始看到符合正常季節性的任何趨勢或情況有何不同？

Yes. We've definitely seen it weakening already in terms of trials and sign-ups. I will say we made -- we're big on trialing new ways of appealing to either visitors to the website or people in the trials. And we made some changes that have materially improved our conversion rates. But I don't think that's going to offset ultimately the softness that's kind of starting now and will continue through the end of June.

是的。就試用和註冊而言，我們已經明顯看到其減弱。我想說的是，我們非常熱衷於嘗試新的方式來吸引網站訪客或參與試驗的人。我們做出了一些改變，大大提高了我們的轉換率。但我不認為這最終會抵消現在開始並將持續到六月底的疲軟趨勢。

Bill, is there anything you want to add to that?

比爾，你還有什麼要補充的嗎？

I was just going to add on the prior point that upsells -- as far as the renewal and upsell team, as far as upsell, cross-sell, they had their best quarter of the year by far in Q3. And keep in mind, that upsell includes upsells to our existing AG customer but also includes a lot of cross-selling into Scite product into AG customers, which we had a very solid quarter on and continue to see a lot of opportunities there. So I just wanted to mention that.

我只是想補充一下之前提到的追加銷售——就續約和追加銷售團隊而言，就追加銷售、交叉銷售而言，他們在第三季度取得了今年迄今為止最好的成績。請記住，追加銷售包括對我們現有 AG 客戶的追加銷售，但也包括向 AG 客戶進行大量 Scite 產品交叉銷售，我們在該領域取得了非常穩健的季度業績，並繼續看到很多機會。所以我只是想提一下這一點。

And ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions at this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to Roy Olivier for any additional or closing comments.

女士們、先生們，由於現在沒有其他問題，我想將發言權交還給羅伊·奧利維爾，請他發表補充評論或結束評論。

Yes. Thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. As a reminder, we will be participating in the East Coast IDEAS Conference in New York on June 11. If you're a qualified investor and would like to attend, please contact Three Part Advisors. We look forward to speaking to you in September to discuss our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2025 results and have a great day.

是的。感謝大家參加今天的電話會議。提醒一下，我們將在 6 月 11 日參加在紐約舉行的東岸 IDEAS 會議。如果您是合格投資者並希望參加，請聯絡 Three Part Advisors。我們期待在 9 月與您交談，討論我們的 2025 財年第四季和全年業績，祝您有美好的一天。

Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful rest of your day.

謝謝。女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。現在您可以斷開連接並享受美好的一天剩餘時間。