BTRCF (BTRCF) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Better Collective Q1 2026 Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Better Collective VP, Investor Relations and Communications, Mikkel Munch Jacobsgaard. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, and welcome to Better Collective's Q1 2026 Webcast. As it was just stated, my name is Mikkel Munch Jacobsgaard, and I'm joined today by our Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Jesper Sogaard, and CFO, Flemming Pedersen, who will provide today's business update. Please follow me to the next slide. Here, we ask you to pay attention to this slide where we display our disclaimer regarding any forward-looking statements in today's webcast. Please turn to the next slide. Here, you see today's agenda. Jesper will start by providing a business update, including some of the highlights for Q1 2026, whereafter Flemming will take you through some of the financials before handing the word back to Jesper for concluding remarks. As always, we will end the call with a Q&A session. Please turn to the next page as I hand over the word to Jesper. Jesper Søgaard: Thank you, Mikkel. Let's dive into the highlights of the report. Please follow me to the next slide. We are pleased to report a good start to the year with Better Collective returning to growth in Q1. Last year, we navigated through a new regulation in the large Brazilian market, which now has found a new level and baseline. Revenue grew 5% or 9% in constant currencies, reaching EUR 86 million, while operational earnings increased 14% year-over-year to EUR 25 million. This growth was delivered despite headwinds from foreign exchange, sports win margin and further regulatory adjustments in Brazil. In North America, our transition towards recurring revenue share continues to progress well. Revenue from revenue share grew 46% compared to Q1 last year, further strengthening the quality and stability of our revenue base. We also saw strong development in value of deposits, which measures the amount deposited in Q1 by players we have referred over time. This important KPI grew 15% to EUR 799 million, underlining the continued value of the users we generate for our partners. Lastly, following the successful launch of our Playbook partnership with X, we have now expanded the partnership globally and become the official global partner to X. Please turn to the next page. Further elaborating on the X partnership, the expansion builds on the successful launch in North America, where playbook has already seen strong user adoption and is now sending millions of bets to partners every week. With this expanded partnership, we are scaling playbook into key international markets and bringing a more seamless social native betting experience to sports fans globally. There are several important benefits in this partnership. First, we become the official global partner to X, which gives us a highly attractive position directly within one of the world's largest real-time sports conversation platforms. Second, the partnership introduces direct message integration. This means that users can privately message Playbook with a bet idea or even a screenshot and Playbook can then convert that into a prefilled bet slip, allowing the user to place the bet with a regulated sportsbook in just a few clicks. Third, we gained access to enhanced analytics, social listening and monitoring tools. This strengthens our ability to understand user intent, automate engagement and create more value for both users and sportsbook partners. And finally, the timing is important. We are launching this global partnership ahead of a very attractive sports calendar, including the 2026 FIFA World Cup as well as the upcoming NFL and NBA seasons. For us, this partnership is a strong example of how Better Collective continues to build technology-led products that go beyond user acquisition and also strengthen engagement, retention and long-term partner value. Please turn to the next page. Prediction markets represent a substantial and fast-growing opportunity, particularly in the U.S., and we are now taking clear steps to position Better Collective at the forefront of this emerging category. The market has already demonstrated rapid growth. From relatively limited volumes in early 2024, monthly trading volume reached more than $13 billion in 2025, and several external sources estimate that the total addressable market could reach around $1 trillion by 2030. For Better Collective, this is a natural extension of what we already do well. For more than 2 decades, we have helped users understand outcomes, compare probabilities and make more informed decisions around sports and other major events. To capture this opportunity, we are rolling out several initiatives. First, we are launching dedicated prediction market hubs across leading brands such as Action Network and Vegas Insider. These hubs will provide editorial content, expert analysis, probability-driven insights and educational content to help users understand and navigate the category. Second, we are developing more social-first content formats, including real-time alerts and video formats on X. This is important because prediction markets are closely linked to real-time conversations around sports, politics, entertainment, finance and culture. Third, we are working on product integrations, including direct links to prebuilt event contracts, similar to the way we already create a more seamless user journey through Playbook. And finally, we are scaling the opportunity globally through our paid media capabilities, where we can apply our proven data-driven model to help prediction market operators acquire informed and high-intent users. Importantly, this is still an emerging category, but the early signals from our audience are strong. We already see increasing interest in event-based probability content, and we believe our brands, products and distribution give us a strong position as this market develops. Please turn to the next page. Moving to brand partnerships. We continue to see strong momentum across several parts of the business, and this is an area where we see a significant long-term opportunity. Over the past years, we have deliberately diversified our revenue base beyond traditional performance marketing and sports betting affiliation. Brand partnerships is an important part of that development as it allows for us to monetize our owned audiences, premium media brands and highly engaged communities in new ways. A good example is Playmaker HQ in North America. Since we acquired the business in 2023, it has developed into an increasingly important part of our portfolio and is now performing very well, both operationally and commercially. What makes Playmaker HQ particularly attractive is that it brings a differentiated business model into Better Collective. It is talent-led, video-first, and built around authentic sports conversations with highly engaged fan communities.. This gives us a strong value proposition, not only towards sportsbook partners but also towards a broader group of blue-chip advertisers looking to reach sports fans in a trusted and engaging environment. During the quarter, Playmaker HQ launched Man On, a first of its kind video podcast hosted by U.S. soccer Legend, Jozy Altidor and NBA icon, Joakim Noah, ahead of the World Cup.. This is a strong example of how we can combine premium talent, major sporting events and engage sports audiences into attractive commercial opportunities. At the same time, we're seeing similar momentum in other parts of the collective. HLTV hosted the biggest Counter-Strike awards show, bringing together around 1,000 people from the esports industry and generating significant global viewership. This demonstrates the strength of our own brands and their ability to create valuable commercial inventory around highly engaged communities. Strategically, this is important because it shows that our diversification is working. We are building a broader sports media business with multiple monetization models where brand partnerships is becoming an increasingly important growth driver. It also highlights one of Better Collective's core strengths, our ability to identify, acquire and scale premium sports media brands and then monetize those audiences at scale through a differentiated commercial platform. Please turn to the next page. Turning to the FIFA World Cup 2026. This will be one of the most important sporting events in recent years, and we've been preparing for more than 12 months. The tournament will be the largest World Cup ever with 48 teams, more than 100 matches and 39 days of content. It is also expected to engage around 5 billion people globally, making it a major commercial opportunity for Better Collective. For us, the World Cup is relevant across several dimensions. First, it creates a significant opportunity for high-intent audience. Major sports events drive increased user activity, higher search demand and stronger engagement across our brands. This is particularly important for our soccer assets, but also across our broader sports media portfolio. Second, it creates a strong reactivation opportunity. Many users who may not engage with betting or sports content every week become highly active around major tournaments. That gives us a valuable opportunity to reengage existing audiences and drive renewed activity for our partners. Third, this is a truly global event, and that fits very well with Better Collective scale. We have leading brands, local expertise and strong commercial relationships across key markets, which allows for us to capture demand both locally and globally. And finally, the World Cup is a strong example of where we can bridge high-quality content and the betting experience. Through our media brands, data tools, Playbook and partner integrations, we can help users move from interest and content consumption to more informed and engaging betting experiences. Overall, the World Cup represents a major opportunity across audience, reactivation, brand partnerships and partner value creation, and we are already preparing to make the most of that opportunity. Please turn to the next page as I hand over the word to Flemming for a run-through of the financial development during the quarter.

Thank you, Jesper, and good morning to you all. Please follow me to the next slide as we dive into the financials. Let me start by bridging the revenue development in the first quarter. Q1 last year, revenue was EUR 83 million. This year, during Q1, we had a negative impact of EUR 4 million from foreign exchange, while regulatory changes in Brazil and the sports win margin each impacted revenue by negatively around EUR 1 million. This was more than offset by solid growth momentum in the business, contributing EUR 9 million of growth in the quarter. The growth was mainly driven by Paid Media, the continued strong development in talent and media, as Jesper just discussed, and the ongoing ramp-up in North American revenue share. As a result, we delivered reported revenue growth of 5%, reaching EUR 86 million for the quarter or 9% in constant currencies. Overall, it's encouraging to see Better Collective return to growth, especially while absorbing external headwinds during the quarter. Please turn to the next slide. Revenue share continues to represent the majority of recurring revenue in Better Collective. In Q1, recurring revenue amounted to EUR 50 million of which EUR 40 million came from revenue share. This continues to underline the strength and quality of our recurring revenue base. Looking specifically at North America, a larger share of the revenue share income was historically from hybrid agreements, where part of the value was paid upfront. Over recent quarters, however, we have seen a clear transition towards predominantly pure revenue share agreements. This is an important development. Pure revenue share improves the quality of earnings, increases long-term visibility and strengthens the compounding value of our player cohorts over time. For the quarter, North American revenue share grew 46% to EUR 6 million, which highlights both the high value of players in the region and the continued progress in the revenue share transition. At the same time, profitability in North America improved significantly with the margin increasing to 31% compared to 18% in the same period last year. So in short, North America continues to scale with an improving revenue mix, strengthening both the recurring and compounding nature of the earnings base. Please turn to the next page. Let me now bridge the EBITDA development for the quarter. In Q1 last year, operational earnings amounted to EUR 22 million. During the quarter, the positive revenue development added across EUR 3 million to earnings. A key growth driver for Better Collective continues to be Paid Media. We have seen strong performance from this business for some time, and Q1 was no exception. Paid Media delivered revenue growth of 12%, while operational earnings grew 25%. Given the continued strong performance and attractive return profile, we have also continued to increase investment spend in Paid Media during the quarter. This added EUR 2 million to cost, but this is a deliberate investment in future growth. In addition, the cost reductions we have implemented earlier benefited earnings positively by EUR 2 million in the quarter. As a result, operational earnings increased to EUR 25 million, corresponding to growth of 14% and an EBITDA margin of 29%. Overall, this is a strong development, especially as we are both growing earnings and continuing to invest in areas where we see attractive returns. Please turn to the next slide. Moving on to new depositing customers and value of deposits. In Q1, we delivered 308,000 new depositing customers, broadly in line with both last year and the previous quarter and fully in line with our expectations. NDC levels were still impacted by the regulatory changes in Brazil, particularly the prohibition of welcome bonuses, which has redirected some users towards unlicensed sportsbooks. This continued to weigh on NDC development during the quarter. At the same time, value of deposits continued to show strong growth. As a reminder, value of deposits measures the total amount deposited into revenue share accounts during the quarter by all historical referred users. It is not a cumulative metric, but deposits generated within the specific period. In Q1, value of deposits reached EUR 799 million, corresponding to growth of 15% compared to Q1 last year. This is an important development, while NDC volumes were broadly stable versus recent quarters, but still significantly down from all-time highs, the value of activity generated by our referred users continues to increase. That confirms the strength and health of our revenue share databases and underlines our ability to deliver high-quality customers to our partners. So in short, we continue to see strong and healthy underlying development in the revenue share databases, driven not only by volume, but increasingly by higher player values. Please turn to the next slide. Now let me turn to our funding position and capital allocation. During the quarter, we continued to execute on our capital allocation framework while maintaining a strong financial position. In March, we launched a new share buyback program of up to EUR 40 million. This follows the cancellation of roughly 5% of the shares issued at the beginning of the year. And during Q1, we bought back shares worth nearly EUR 7 million. Cash flow from operations was strong in the quarter with a cash conversion of 101% before special items. This once again underlines the cash-generative nature of our business. At the end of the quarter, we had capital reserves of EUR 75 million, consisting of EUR 20 million in cash and EUR 55 million in unused bank facilities. This gives us a continued financial flexibility to support the business and act on attractive opportunities. Our capital allocation policy remains unchanged. Please turn to the next slide. Concluding on the Q1 financial development, our guidance remains unchanged. Q1 was a good start to the year with Better Collective returning to growth and delivering revenue development in line with our full year outlook. For 2026, we continue to guide for organic revenue growth of 7% to 12%, EBITDA growth of 8% to 18% and annual share buyback of EUR 40 million and net debt to EBITDA below 3x. Our guidance for 2027 to 2028 also remain unchanged. We continue to target positive organic growth and EBITDA margin of 35% to 40%, continued strong cash conversion and net debt-to-EBITDA below 3x. Overall, Q1 supports this trajectory that we have set out for the year, and we remain focused on delivering against our financial targets. With that, I will hand back to Jesper for the final remarks. Jesper Søgaard: Thank you, Flemming. Let's dive into the highlights of the report. So please follow me to the next slide. To conclude, Q1 was a quarter in line with our expectations and a good start to the year. We delivered revenue of EUR 86 million, corresponding to 9% growth in constant currencies and EBITDA before special items of EUR 25 million, equal to growth of 14% Importantly, we returned to growth while continuing to build a stronger and more recurring earnings base. In North America, revenue share continues to develop favorably and in line with our expectations, supported by the ongoing transition towards pure revenue share. We also saw strong growth in value of deposits, which increased 15% year-over-year. This confirms the quality of our referred users and the continued health of our revenue share databases. During the quarter, we also took important strategic steps through our expanded partnership with X and our initiatives within prediction markets. Both represent attractive growth opportunities and are closely aligned with how we see sports engagement, social media and betting products developing going forward. Looking ahead, 2026 is supported by several drivers, including the FIFA World Cup, continued growth in prediction markets, the scaling of Playbook and the further development of our recurring revenue base. Finally, we continue to operate from a solid financial position. During the quarter, we bought back nearly EUR 7 million of shares under our share buyback program, while maintaining strong financial flexibility and a disciplined capital allocation framework. So overall, we are encouraged by the start to the year. We are back to growth. We are executing on our strategic priorities, and we remain focused on delivering on our guidance for 2026. With that, we are ready to open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] This time, there seems to be no audio questions, if you wish to proceed with the webcast questions.

I think we just got one audio. So if you could take that, it just came in, please. Thank you.

Your first question comes from the line of Poul Jessen from Danske Bank.

Maybe you have talked about because I came in a little late. About Brazil, first of all, you say in the report, I don't know what you said today about proposal or talk about a ban of betting in Brazil. You say it's unlikely, but you still mention it. Should we see this just because you're cautious mentioning it, but you are very strong believer that it's not going to happen. So could you put a little more on that? Jesper Søgaard: Yes. Thanks, Poul. Well, we mentioned that just, I think, as the Brazilian market is in nature, fairly unpredictable. And unfortunately, I think the net effect of this is the amount of gambling that actually then takes place in the unlicensed market. So it's a market where we obviously -- we have a solid business, but it is affected with political changes. There's also an upcoming election. We probably view that potential ban in light of that election. So honestly, not something we, by any means, expect to happen. But Brazil is just a difficult market in the sense that politically, there seems to be sort of changes despite the current regulation that is in place.

And if we take a worst-case scenario, let's say that they are going to ban it by sometime start next year or whenever, how would that impact you? Of course, you'll lose some revenue, but you will also save some costs. So in just the worst case, how will that impact you? Jesper Søgaard: Well, it's, of course, hypothetically, I do believe. But ultimately, we will see how then the operators will react to that. There was an existing dot-com market prior to the regulation. So obviously, we'll simply have to see how that develops and whether it will return to that format or what will happen with the market.

And I have a few here for Flemming about the free cash flow. I think in Q4, you said that the headwind on the working capital should reverse in the first half or first quarter of '26. As I look at the cash flow statement, I can't see the reverse. So how should we look at it? Will that be in Q2 then?

Yes. I think the cash flow for Q1 was, I would say, isolated a normal cash flow from that point, it was -- we had a cash conversion of 101%. But to sneak peek a bit into Q2, we expect to see even higher cash flow generation. And I think we can safely say that we have already seen that in April. So as usual, it's not something we are overly concerned about the cash flow. It is a fluctuation.

And then a question about the U.K. You said you had a stronger-than-expected development in the U.K. ahead of the changes on the taxes from April 1. If we look at Gambling.com, they said that it was worse than expected because of the new regulation or the tax. Do you have any idea of the differences in how you've been impacted totally opposite comments about the Q1 performance? Jesper Søgaard: Yes. I think overall for Q1, we had a very strong performance by our paid team. And I think, ultimately, it's a testament to the position we have with our paid business, which is very, very solid and something we are really excited about. And you actually see that in the U.K. where they just performed very well. It's too early to speak to sort of the U.K. tax changes. But Q1, I think, was just a testament to great performance by our paid business.

And coming to the X partnership, which you are extending to be global here. In the initial statement, you did not on print at least said that it was exclusive. Now it says in the press release that it's exclusive. Is that both way that you can't do this kind of service with others? Or are you exclusive on X? And if you can -- I don't know if you did it earlier, but a little more on the differences on the opportunities for the services in the new agreement, which you couldn't before? Jesper Søgaard: Yes. So in terms of sort of who we can partner with, there are no limitations. So we are by no means tied because of this partnership. On the features, I'm particularly excited about one feature like the private messaging that we couldn't do before, but users can do with this collaboration is that you, as an individual in a private message can reach out to our Playbook bot and get a deep link and comparison reply from the bot. So previously, everything was in the open, you would tag the bot and then you'd get the reply as a public comment. Now you can also in private messages, reach out to the bot. And I think that's a great addition and something users will really like.

Means that I can't see what you're doing anymore? Jesper Søgaard: Correct.

And then a final one, AI, again, referring to [ Gambling.com ], they were out saying that they are going all in on AI to cut cost. And in H2, they can take out 25% of all employees by automating solutions. What kind of -- to me, that seems quite extreme in such a short time. So how are you looking on implementing AI into the business? And what can actually be done? Jesper Søgaard: I will probably say we're not looking to implement AI, like AI is already adopted to a very large extent in what we do. That goes for the product side. Playbook, as we just talked about, a very good example, only possible because of the use of AI for image recognition and context understanding. Internally, all teams, all processes are supported by AI, and we are really pushing hard on the organization. So for me, AI is more or less table stakes in -- for all businesses these days and therefore, no different for us. And we are adopting and both on the product side, improving products, but we are also delivering continued efficiency utilizing AI. And then in our paid business, as I alluded to before, for the Q1, good performance, we're basically developing an operating model based on AI. So it's everywhere in our business. And I think it has to be like that in the world of today. And therefore, nothing special to Better Collective because it's just an imperative for all businesses, especially in the digital landscape.

[indiscernible] To offer new services and get new growth opportunities and then to grow more efficiently going forward. Jesper Søgaard: Yes, absolutely. And again, I think it's not different from a quarter ago or 2 quarters ago. It's just a very, very natural part of our business built into how we are developing products, what products can do and then obviously, on all processes internally as well. So yes, it's a natural thing.

There seems to be no further audio questions at this time.

Thank you. Then we go to some of the written ones. I can start -- some of them have already been answered, I believe. But whether we can give some flavor on revenue from prediction markets today and what we expect the revenue mix could be in the mid- to long term? Jesper Søgaard: Yes.

Yes. So the question is about prediction markets and more in general, like do we want to give some flavor on performance or by now or? Jesper Søgaard: Yes. So it's still early days, but taking a look at our brands, you can tell that we are working with the prediction market players. And we experienced strong demand from them, and it's in different parts of our business. So for the talent-led business, it's relevant for the web-based and performance-based business we drive business. So it's on all fronts, quite similar to the way we work with sportsbooks.

Thank you and then we have a follow-up on that, more specifically to the U.S. sportsbooks, whether we have seen increasing budgets from them towards prediction market customer acquisition by now. Jesper Søgaard: Well, we don't speak specifically to the Sportsbook part of and how we work with their budgets. But I'll just overall say that we definitely sense a stronger focus on customer acquisition overall, and that stems both from prediction market players and the sportsbooks.

Thank you. Then we have quite a few questions around our revenue mix going forward and the success that we're seeing right now from sponsorships. I don't know if you want to elaborate a bit on that, Jesper? Jesper Søgaard: Yes. I think probably just taking a step back here is that we've always operated in a fast-moving environment. And I think a core in Better Collective is our adaptability. That has been a strength since the foundation of the company. So we've been pursuing a diversification strategy more or less since the IPO in 2018, where we have scaled through M&A to build a stronger and broader platform to mitigate potential risk in the business, starting out with the risk listed in the prospectus back then. Around 2020, we have also been looking to reduce platform risk, lowering the dependency on Google by expanding into new audiences formats and the business models that we apply, again, reminding that we started out as a pure affiliate, almost solely revenue share-based business, now having several different kinds of business models in play. And what we have sort of more recently seen for the market that we're in is several external headwinds, including regulation. And in that environment, it's for us very natural and I think strategically important that we continue to diversify the revenue mix in our business. And I think talent-led media, which we have also highlighted in this quarter is a super good example of that. It allows us to monetize the strong media brands and audiences and especially content formats in a broader way. And it gives us exposure to new media formats and talent-led content, the distribution, which is very socially driven and sponsorship budgets from customers that are highly relevant, both from endemic, so like i.e. sportsbooks, but also other kind of blue-chip non-sports betting-related customers. And we have done this before. I just spoke about paid media. That was a diversification of our business. We have been doing media partnerships. Playbook that we have launched and also touched upon is another example of diversification. We are building more content and generating content for prediction markets. as the diversification of the business and adaptation of the developments that we see in the market. Podcast and video, social and sponsorships are all part of the same strategic direction. The common denominator for me in all of that we are doing here are a very strong monetization of online sports media across the different kinds of formats, channels and business models. So to come back to the starting point of the revenue mix, we do, over time, expect the revenue mix to evolve in line with the market changes. But the underlying strategic logic remains the same. We're expanding our total addressable market. We are increasing the resilience of our business and creating more ways to deliver value to our partners. So the short answer is we see it as a natural development of our business that the revenue mix will change over time.

Then we have a follow-up on prediction markets. Here, prediction markets look like a significant growth opportunity for BC. Can we expect strong LTV for BC and revenue share agreements in this sector? Jesper Søgaard: So again, the commercial agreements we generally don't speak to, but we have highlighted earlier on that the business we are driving here is early days, and we're basically assessing the value of this, and that will also direct the kind of agreements we'll do in the future. So I think it's a bit too early to speak to that.

Thank you. Then I have the last question here, it seems related to what our expectations are for the launch of online gambling in Alberta in Q3. Jesper Søgaard: There's nothing built into the guidance, and we'll have to see how Alberta pans out. But obviously, we're always happy to see a market expansion. So for me, it's, of course, a positive.

Thank you. And thank you very much for showing interest in Better Collective. That concludes the webcast. Have a nice day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.