Earnings Call Transcript - CURI Q1 2025

Operator, Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Carrie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the CuriosityStream Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Tia Cudahy, Chief Operating Officer of CuriosityStream.

Tia Cudahy, Chief Operating Officer

Thank you, and welcome to CuriosityStream’s discussion of its first quarter 2025 financial results. Leading the discussion today are Clint Stinchcomb, CuriosityStream’s Chief Executive Officer; and Brady Hayden, CuriosityStream’s Chief Financial Officer. Following management’s prepared remarks, we will be happy to take your questions. But first, I’ll review the Safe Harbor statement. During this call, we may make statements related to our business that are forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, but rather are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Our actual results could differ materially from expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements. Please be aware that any forward-looking statements reflect management’s current views only, and the Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update these statements nor to make additional forward-looking statements in the future. For a discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to our SEC filings available on the SEC website and on our Investor Relations website as well as the risks and other important factors discussed in today’s press release. Additional information will also be set forth in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2025, when filed. In addition, reference will be made to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures can be found on our website at investors.curiositystream.com. Unless otherwise stated, all comparisons will be against our results for the comparable 2024 period. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Clint.

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Tia. We have a lot of good news to share today. Our Q1 revenue of $15.1 million was up 26% year-over-year and 7% sequentially. Our net income was positive for the first time and improved by $5.4 million year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was positive and improved by $1.1 million. Brady will provide more detail about other positive key metrics. Two years ago, in March 2023, we explained our determination to achieve positive cash flow in our operations and to join the ranks of companies that have enduring business metrics. We increased our cash flow in every consecutive quarter from Q4 2022 to Q4 2024, and we’ve achieved positive cash flow over the past five quarters. In Q1 2025, our EBITDA performance caught up with our sustained positive cash flow and today we are gratified to report that we were adjusted EBITDA positive for the first time, as well as net income positive, landmark achievements for our company. Because we believe that the volume of our cash flow and surplus cash, beyond what is needed for operations, belongs to our shareholders, we implemented a dividend program in Q1 of 2024 and paid our first dividend in April of last year. In March of this year, we announced an increase to our dividend to $0.04 per quarter or $0.16 annualized. Today, our outlook on future performance gives us the confidence to announce another increase to our quarterly dividend. We are doubling it to $0.08 or $0.32 annualized. We are delighted to provide this extra return to our loyal shareholders, many of whom have been committed to our enterprise for well over five years. We work for the benefit and interest of our shareholders, and we are proud to do so. I mentioned last quarter that 2025 is a return to top-line growth and continued bottom line growth, both at double-digit percentages. While we aren’t providing specific year-end guidance, we remain confident in hitting these marks. Third-party licensing and distribution opportunities are accessible to us, provided we execute optimally, at a scope and scale greater than at any time in our company history. As such, we remain focused on the five growth pillars we outlined in March, which again are: 1) increased licensing of high volumes of video, audio, and other data to traditional media companies and also to tech companies building and fine-tuning AI products; 2) continued rationalization of our annual expenses; 3) leveraging falling translation costs to accelerate global growth; 4) launching new currencies to reduce subscription friction internationally; and 5) selectively enhancing our talent density. In light of this focus, we have entered into several new third-party agreements in the U.S. and internationally. We have added extensively to our deep and increasingly wide library of video, audio, and other data. We recently rolled out 10 new currencies. On the content front, we continued to seek to entertain and enlighten viewers with original premieres, like the second season of Deadly Science, profiling the many brave men and women who paid the ultimate price in pursuit of their breakthroughs; our one-hour collaboration with the popular YouTube franchise Economics Explained, exploring how the U.S. became the largest and most influential economy in human history; and Breakthrough: Asteroid Impact, a look at cutting-edge efforts to explore one of the greatest threats. We also continued to strengthen our core offerings in science, history, nature, and tech with specials like Cleopatra: The Mystery of the Mummified Hand, FAST: The Celestial Eye, and Mysteries of the Bayeux Tapestry, revealing a look at the remarkable 224-foot narrative embroidery that has taught us so much about the end of the Vikings and the beginning of the Knights and the feudal system in Europe. To reinforce what we’ve said in the past, we believe our strong balance sheet, $39 million in liquidity, and no debt, along with our continued double-digit growth in both top line revenue and cash flow, make us stand out in the current environment. Moreover, we believe our global subscription proposition, our rising roster of technology and traditional media partners, our public currency, and our ongoing rationalization of our cost structure are uniquely favorable attributes that provide us with durable, sustainable market advantages and exceptional flexibility. I’d like to thank my colleagues and our existing shareholders for investing the time, energy, and resources critical to building CuriosityStream. I hope there are many potential future shareholders allocating time today and in the days ahead to better understand our story and trajectory. I’ll now yield to my colleague, please, our CFO, Brady Hayden.

Brady Hayden, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Clint, and good afternoon, everyone. Our full financial results will be presented in the 10-Q that we’ll file in the next day or two, but let me quickly go through some highlights of the first quarter results. As Clint said, we achieved another significant milestone in the first quarter as we reported earnings of $0.3 million or $0.01 per share, our first quarter of positive net income in the company’s history and a $5.4 million improvement from 2024. Likewise, we reported our first ever positive adjusted EBITDA, which came in at $1.1 million, an improvement of $3.9 million from a year ago. Adjusted free cash flow came in at $2 million, at the high end of our guidance range and an increase of $0.8 million compared to last year. This also represented the fifth sequential quarter of positive adjusted free cash flow. Revenue for the first quarter was $15.1 million compared to $12 million a year ago. While our direct subscription revenue at about $9 million was down slightly, this was more than offset by our licensing revenue, which grew by about $4 million. First quarter gross margin was 53%, an improvement from 44% a year ago driven by continued reductions in content amortization. As expected, our cash cost of revenue increased slightly from a year ago as a result of acquiring more rights to license content through revenue share arrangements and associated storage costs. Operating expenses declined in the first quarter as combined costs for advertising and marketing plus G&A were down $1 million or 11% compared to last year, the continued result of our ongoing cost rationalization. Excluding stock-based compensation, G&A declined 19% from a year ago. As I mentioned earlier, adjusted EBITDA was $1.1 million in the first quarter compared to a loss of $2.8 million a year ago. Adjusted free cash flow was $2 million in the quarter compared with $1.2 million a year ago. In March, we paid our Q1 dividend of $2.3 million, meaning we have now returned $6.3 million to shareholders since announcing the dividend program just over a year ago. We ended the quarter with total cash and securities of $39.1 million and no outstanding debt. We believe our balance sheet remains in great shape, providing us with significant operating flexibility. For the second quarter guidance, we expect revenue in the range of $16 million to $17 million and adjusted free cash flow in the range of $2 million to $3 million.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Your first question will come from Dan Medina from Needham.

Dan Medina, Analyst

Good afternoon and congratulations on the great numbers. I have my question is really on the cost side, Clint and Brady. And can you talk a little bit about how GenAI may have contributed to coming in and well below what we estimated for costs? Thank you.

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Great question, Dan. I really appreciate that. I would say the good news is we’ve been able to reduce our costs largely without leveraging and accessing the emerging tools that are available to us from GenAI. As we look forward, we believe that the big advantage is available to us through GenAI, particularly in translation. As soon as we can get to a point where we can translate our content into 60 languages at minimal cost as compared to the 10 to 12 that we’re in today, that will have a meaningful impact. We do use some tools today on the editing side related to sequencing and organizing content. So there’s some help there. But for the most part, we've reduced our costs through a focused approach on what’s essential, what’s not essential, what’s revenue generating, and what’s not. The good news is we still have, we believe, considerable headroom in reducing and rationalizing our cost base, and the tools from GenAI will only accelerate and enhance that effort.

Dan Medina, Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Your next question will come from David Marsh with Singular Research.

David Marsh, Analyst

Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions and congrats on a great quarter. So I just wanted to start on the top line. Could you give us a little bit more granularity in terms of what the key drivers were for the revenue growth, relative to licensing versus subscriptions?

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I’d be happy to. Virtually everything is up. In regard to our direct subscription revenue, that’s down a little bit year-over-year. This decline is largely a function of our marketing spend today. We’re focusing heavily on the efficiency of that spend. This spending might be a little lumpy at times, which is primarily tied to seasonality and the various value exchanges we can secure with various marketing channels. As we look to optimize our CPA, I think you’ll see us be opportunistic at certain times of the year when we can get much more bang for our buck with various ad products available to us. Our churn continues to be low. Significant growth was on the licensing side. We’ve done a lot of work to build a broad corpus of appealing content for technology companies and traditional media companies. We have many new licensing partners and we’re excited about the potential for the rest of the year.

David Marsh, Analyst

Thanks. That’s really helpful. And then just turning to the cost side. Great job on SG&A. It was down 16% year-over-year. You guys were able to wring out a fair amount of cost. Is that a sustainable level going forward? Or could there be some things that creep back in as you try to market to different channels and partners?

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Yes, David. We’ve talked about this before, but one of our biggest costs, which is a non-cash cost, is our content amortization. That cost has been declining every quarter. Our marketing costs may be historically lower in Q1 compared to Q4 when we ramp up costs towards the holiday season, as there are many renewals with our subscription base. However, we expect continued decline in G&A throughout the year as our cost reduction efforts from the past 12 to 18 months continue.

David Marsh, Analyst

Got you. And then if I could just get one more in. Just looking at the dividend change. I mean, congratulations on the confidence to raise it as much as you have, but doing a little math, it looks like it’s probably going to be about $4.5 million a quarter at the new rate, if I’m calculating correctly. Given the cash flow guidance of $2 million to $3 million, do you have confidence that you’ll generate sufficient cash flow to cover that dividend without eating into your reserves?

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Yes. We are very confident in the business throughout the rest of the year. If we didn’t feel this way, we certainly wouldn’t have doubled the dividend. We think it’s conceivable that we’ll be able to pay the dividend from operations. At the same time, we have enough cash reserves to absorb a dividend payment if needed. Our intent is to pay the majority of it from operations. The volume of our cash and surplus funds beyond what is needed for operations belongs to our shareholders. That’s why we implemented the dividend program and why we’ve increased it. We’re proud to deliver this extra return to our loyal shareholders, especially those who have been with us for a long time. We work for the benefit and interest of our shareholders, and we aim to leverage our unique position to drive shareholder value.

David Marsh, Analyst

Great. Hey, thanks very much, guys. Appreciate it.

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Dave.

Operator, Operator

Your next question will come from Patrick Sholl from Barrington.

Patrick Sholl, Analyst

Hi, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit on the direct business and any consumer trends that you’re seeing there.

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Sure. The big thing to note is that our overall direct subscription revenue is largely a function of our marketing spend. As we focus on the efficiency of that spend while optimizing our CPA, you’ll see some lumpiness in the direct subscription business. We will be more opportunistic at certain times of the year, so you’ll see quarters with more growth than others. As we sit here today, we’re managing our direct subscription business to a level that is flat to slightly up or down. That’s in light of the large opportunities ahead. If we execute well, we’ll be able to invest more in marketing and explore additional ways to grow our direct business. We anticipate new launches of our subscription services from existing partners like Amazon, Apple, and Roku, as well as new partners across the world. The pace and location of these launches affect our direct subscribers and revenue.

Patrick Sholl, Analyst

Yes. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Your next question will come from Ed Schneider with Quan Technology.

Ed Schneider, Analyst

Yes. I have a question on the size and sources of the pipeline for your AI licensing beyond Q2. Can you provide more color on that?

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Appreciate that question, Ed. We can’t offer up specific names due to confidentiality requirements, but given the quality and quantity of our corpus—video, audio, text, and images—we appeal to a broad set of licensees. This includes the tech giants who are actively licensing data and investing heavily in CapEx. It also includes many AI companies with distinct training needs that have raised capital for data licensing. Beyond the hyperscalers and smaller private AI companies, there’s an emerging public sector marketplace, such as federal government departments and agencies with budget for licensing video and data. Our Silver Spring location gives us a proximity advantage here. These are large, meaningful deals that will significantly impact the company. As for profitability, a 40% to 50% margin can be expected from these types of agreements.

Ed Schneider, Analyst

Yes, that’s really good. Thanks, that was very helpful.

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Your next question will come from Kris Tuttle with IPO Candy.

Kris Tuttle, Analyst

Thanks for taking my question and for all your hard work; it’s evident in the results. The one question I hear most often from folks we talk to about this name is the relationship on the AI content side. They question the duration and sustainability of these relationships. How do you think about them as you add content? Can you assert that these are relationships that will continue and grow in the long-term?

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

That’s a fair question, Kris. If you control a library of hundreds of thousands of hours of video and audio, you will always be able to monetize that. This has been the history of the media and technology business. Regarding the tech and AI work we’re doing, I’ve been part of numerous content licensing agreements. Most are not recurring in the traditional sense. Typically, we provide content to a license partner, and then when they accept the content, we recognize all that revenue at the beginning of the term. While it may not look like a subscription model, it can effectively become a recurring business based on demand. Every partner we’ve worked with has requested more data beyond the initial agreement. If we maintain strong relationships by delivering high-quality, diverse content on time and in the scope they need, we will develop a robust recurring business. We also anticipate new rights grants over time that don't exist now.

Kris Tuttle, Analyst

Thanks, super helpful. Congratulations again on a great result.

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Kris.

Operator, Operator

This concludes the Q&A portion of today’s conference call.

Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

And this concludes today’s conference. You may now disconnect.