FiscalNote Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:NOTE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Matt VanVliet: Great. And then, if I could just squeeze one last one in around the SBB, I guess, issues going on there. Any impact that you’re seeing on the M&A pipeline directly from that or valuations sort of, I guess, resetting lower on some of the fallout there. Any update on the M&A pipeline around sort of recent events would be very helpful.

Timothy Hwang: I don’t think that the SCB situation has had a material impact on M&A, but I will comment that from a macroeconomic perspective, we are seeing a large number of deals come across our inboxes. And so as we evaluate those deals, we have seen a material shift in terms of expectations of folks as well as the expectations around structure or price or whatever the case may be. We are constantly evaluating deals every single week, and we are trying to make good decisions around the types of markets we want to be and the types of products we want to be in. And of course, the way that we structure those deals to minimize dilution for shareholders and ultimately drive the most equity value for the business. So in short, no impact from SPP, but obviously, there are broader macroeconomic impacts here.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mike Latimore from Northland Capital Markets.

Mike Latimore: Yes. Congrats on the strong finish to the year there. I guess just on the last comment there. So you said that you saw a material shift in expectations. But basically, is the point there that just valuation expectations have been coming down this year. Is that the point?

Jon Slabaugh: Mike, it’s Jon Slim. We have seen expectations kind of rationalizing and not only in terms of headline value but also the willingness to work around structure, inclusive of structure consideration and earn-outs. So I think that it’s fair to say that the types of transactions that we’ve been looking at are actionable at lower multiples than maybe previous years?

Mike Latimore: Okay. Got it. Great to see the NRR over 100%. I guess, do you view that as sustainable? Or could that improve this year? And maybe touch on 1 or 2 points that really kind of moved it over 100% during the year.

Jon Slabaugh: Sure. We’ve asked Josh Resnick, our President and Chief Operating Officer, to join us here on the call, and I’ll let him comment on that.

Josh Resnick: Hi Mike. Yes, I can address that on NRR. So you can expect to see NRR continue to remain relatively consistent, should fluctuate quarter-to-quarter, but remain relatively consistent. We’re very focused on hitting the 2 key levers to drive it, gross retention and upsell, cross-sell. And with a lot of the changes that we’ve been making on the revenue side, in particular, we’ve been seeking a lot about how we structure our account management, customer success function to help drive that on the retention side, in particular. And with our new Chief Revenue Officer in place, have been adjusting our go-to-market focus to help drive new logo sales as well.

Mike Latimore: Okay, great. And then, just on the broader demand environment — can you talk a little bit about what you’ve seen in the fourth quarter, first quarter, say, relative to third quarter in terms of just deal sizes, sales cycles, and maybe distinguish a little bit between government and commercial sectors.

Jon Slabaugh: Sure. So we had talked back in Q3 about seeing some pauses and a little bit of hesitancy in the private sector. We saw that continue into Q4, mainly in new logo in the enterprise. We’re still seeing some budget hesitancy which is factored into our guidance for the year. We still believe our solutions are critical, which is what’s still driving this €“ the mid-teens organic growth that we’re forecasting. We’re helping enterprises with existential issues that they have around risk and opportunity could be cybersecurity, data privacy regulations, expansion and contraction of lines of business. So we’re still seeing a tremendous amount of value, and we’re seeing our ACVs grow. So we feel like there’s a lot of help there, although still from the macro environment still driving a bit of that budget presence, especially on the enterprise side.

So continuing to see a balance of growth in private and public sector, although public tends to be that kind of steadier, more reliable backbone, and we expect to drive more growth through private sector going forward.

Mike Latimore: But in terms of that private sector dynamic, any change since the third quarter? Or is the environment similar to what you saw in the third quarter?

Jon Slabaugh: I think the environment is still generally similar. Still trying to work through a lot of the malaise in the macro environment that you see and hoping to see some improvement as the year goes along. But again, we factored that into our guidance for the year.