Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Darren Aftahi : Great. Thank you.

Ryan Steelberg: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chad Bennett with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Chad Bennett : Great. Thanks for taking my question. So can we just dig into a line item on the balance sheet, the accrued media payment line item? I think it was $84 million. And how that kind of reconciles with your $60 million held for payment customer commentary on the call. Is that – I assume that $60 million is in that $84 million? And if so, what’s the remainder?

Mike Zemetra: Yeah, I’ll take that one. So you do have receivables associated with that business, which would plug the difference.

Chad Bennett : Okay. You have receivables in that $84 million as a liability?

Mike Zemetra: No, you have receivables plus the cash will get you back to the liability.

Chad Bennett : Okay. And so the delta between your cash and that line item has grown. It actually went net negative last quarter, but grown this quarter. Is that – I mean, just from a future payment term standpoint, that $84 million is cash going out over the next 12 months?

A – Mike Zemetra: Yeah, that’s right.

Chad Bennett : Okay. And then, what are the terms on the new debt facility from what’s the current interest cost today, and then are there any covenants associated with that?

Mike Zemetra: Yeah, so the current interest cost today is 1.75%. This one is going to go up just on the new debt facility. It’ll be a SOFR, so call it prime, plus 850 basis points. It’ll be a four-year loan, so 2027. And the covenants, while the minimum liquidity covenant, that’ll be pegged at $15 million of consolidated cash.

Chad Bennett : Okay.

Mike Zemetra: And those are the big ones.

Chad Bennett : Is there any net leverage or anything else on the covenant side?

Mike Zemetra: No.

Chad Bennett : Okay. And then just from a cost savings standpoint, the $24 million you talked about, and I think you alluded to additional cost savings, and I just want to get a sense from the current OpEx run rate, kind of how to think about that run rate, maybe two quarters out into the first half of next year.

Mike Zemetra: Yeah, so what we said in our prepared remarks, if you take the pro forma business exiting this year and assuming no growth, our bottom line would be improved by over 50% from a non-GAAP net loss perspective. Assuming 20% growth on that pro forma revenue, we’d be near breakeven.

Chad Bennett : Got it. Okay. Thanks much.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from Kunal Madhukar with UBS. Please go ahead.

Jason Park: Hi. Thanks a lot. This is Jason for Kunal from UBS. I have a couple questions as well. The first question is on your unencumbered cash. So you finished 3Q with $14 million or so amount of unencumbered cash, and I think in the prepared remark you said after the debt deal close, you’re going to be at $37 million unencumbered cash. And so I’m just trying to get a sense of how you guys manage the unencumbered cash. What is the minimum amount that you guys expect to have on balance sheet? And do you guys think about it in connection to other key metrics such as cost or revenue? Any helpful – any color will be helpful. Thank you.

Mike Zemetra: Yeah, the $37 million was the net benefit of the CAB [ph], the debt facility, after you take in all the fees. We continue to manage cash pretty tightly through this window. So I don’t know if that gives you any more perspective.

Jason Park: Got it. Thanks a lot. And in the prepared remark, you also said 2024 will be an inflection point for growth trajectory. So can we break that down a little bit by different verticals? Can you talk about some of the trends that you see as we go into ‘24 for software, advertising, hiring trends, anything you can share will be helpful. Thank you.

Mike Zemetra: Yeah, we’ll give more guidance on 2024 in our annual call in March.