SST
System1DDocument history
Earnings documents stored for SST.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-13System1 Announces First Quarter 2026 Financial Results
Business Wire
System1 Announces First Quarter 2026 Financial Results
Revenue of $37.2 million GAAP Gross Profit of $23.3 million, Margin of 63% Adjusted Gross Profit of $28.2 million, Margin of 76% GAAP Net Loss of $57.6 million Adjusted EBITDA of $2.7 million LOS ANGELES, May 12, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--System1, Inc. (NYSE: SST) ("System1" or the "Company"), which operates flagship internet utilities including CouponFollow, MapQuest, and Startpage.com, and a best-in-class customer acquisition and marketing platform powered by artificial intelligence, today announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2026. "This quarter marked an important reset for System1 as we narrowed our focus to where we see the greatest opportunities to win: the intersection of AI and consumer intent," commented Michael Blend, System1’s Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer. "With our best-in-class marketing platform and category-leading offerings, System1 is uniquely equipped to thrive as AI agents become a primary interface for shopping, search and travel. We are agile, focused, and ready to lead in the AI-driven future." Tridivesh Kidambi, Chief Financial Officer of System1, added, "The actions we took this quarter are expected to deliver meaningful cost savings, while also improving our financial profile going forward. We also continue to make meaningful progress on right-sizing our capital structure, which we believe will give us greater flexibility to invest across our highest-return opportunities. We view this past quarter as a clear inflection point for both the year ahead and the future for our businesses, and we are well-positioned to drive stronger operating performance and long-term shareholder value." Note: Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP metrics that are defined and reconciled at the end of this release. First Quarter 2026 Highlights Significantly reduced our marketing activities for search monetization during the quarter to enable the Company to operate with greater focus, improved execution and adopt a lower go-forward cost structure. CouponFollow.com further enhanced its Content Management System with AI-powered tools, delivering fresher content, smarter code testing, and higher-quality coupons to help users save more time and money. Startpage.com continued to add key features to its core consumer experience, including sports updates as well as flight status and booking functionality. MapQuest.com deli...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-03-12System1 Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results
Business Wire
System1 Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results
Full Year Results Demonstrate Strength of Platform in Challenging Operating Environment Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results: Revenue Decreased 23% Over Prior Year to $266.1 million Gross Profit Decreased 1% Over Prior Year to $100.4 million Adjusted Gross Profit Increased 1% Over Prior Year to $153.4 million Adjusted Gross Profit Margin Increased to 58% from 44% Year-Over-Year GAAP Net Loss Decreased 17% Over Prior Year to $81.2 million Adjusted EBITDA Increased 9% Over Prior Year to $41.9 million Fourth Quarter Financial Highlights: Revenue Decreased 31% Over Prior Year to $51.9 million Gross Profit Decreased 33% Over Prior Year to $21.3 million Adjusted Gross Profit Decreased 22% Over Prior Year to $34.9 million Adjusted Gross Profit Margin Increased to 67% from 59% Over Prior Year GAAP Net Loss Decreased 1% Over Prior Year to $17.8 million Adjusted EBITDA Decreased 54% Over Prior Year to $8.2 million LOS ANGELES, March 11, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--System1, Inc. (NYSE: SST) ("System1" or the "Company"), an omnichannel customer acquisition marketing platform, today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. "Our full-year 2025 results demonstrate the strength and resilience of our platform and the disciplined execution of our team." said Michael Blend, System1’s Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer. "While we experienced macro and market-specific headwinds in the fourth quarter, continued investment in our products and AI capabilities is positioning the business for long-term growth. We look forward to hosting a call in the near future to provide additional perspective on our strategy, performance, and opportunities ahead." Tridivesh Kidambi, Chief Financial Officer of System1, added, "Despite a challenging operating environment in the fourth quarter, our full-year performance reflects solid execution against our strategic priorities combined with prudent financial resource management. In collaboration with our key stakeholders, we are continuing to evaluate opportunities to strengthen our balance sheet and optimize our capital structure. We believe this balanced approach positions us well for the future, and we look forward to discussing our financial results and broader corporate updates in the near future." Note: Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP metrics that are defined and reconciled at the end of this...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-02-24Cannae Holdings, Inc. Q4 2025 Earnings Call Summary
Moby
Cannae Holdings, Inc. Q4 2025 Earnings Call Summary
Management is accelerating a shift toward sports and entertainment assets where the company maintains a proprietary competitive advantage and can actively drive value. The sale of Dun & Bradstreet for $630 million and exits from Paysafe, System1, and Sightline represent a deliberate move away from non-strategic public securities. Black Knight Football Club (BKFC) is now the primary value driver, with AFC Bournemouth achieving significant transfer profits while maintaining Premier League performance. The acquisition of the remaining 60% of FC Lorient consolidates BKFC's multi-club model to capture operational synergies across European football leagues. Management expressed dissatisfaction with the current stock price, stating it does not reflect the intrinsic value of the platform's private, proprietary assets. Operational improvements at portfolio companies are being paired with increased disclosure to provide shareholders better visibility into asset-level results. The company is exploring strategic alternatives for its Restaurant Group as part of a disciplined effort to redeploy capital into higher-returning opportunities. Phase 1 of the stadium renovation for AFC Bournemouth is expected to be completed by the 2026/2027 season, doubling hospitality capacity. Phase 2 of the stadium expansion is targeted for the 2027/2028 season, aiming for an 80% increase in total capacity to over 20,000 seats. A $55 million tax refund is expected in the summer of 2026, providing a near-term liquidity injection from realized losses on public security exits. The Board is prioritizing capital flexibility in the short term, which may lead to more selective and opportunistic share repurchases compared to previous levels. Future investments through the JANA Partners relationship will be constrained to a 'smaller box' focused specifically on sports and entertainment opportunities. Operating expenses for 2025 were impacted by $24 million in nonrecurring management charges, $14 million in noncash impairment charges at the Restaurant Group, and $5 million of increased professional fees associated with a recent proxy contest. In the fourth quarter of 2025, a $69 million loss from unconsolidated holdings was primarily driven by a large goodwill write-off at Alight. The Board was refreshed with four new independent directors in 2025 to improve governance and shareholder alignment follo...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-11-06System1 Announces Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results
Business Wire
System1 Announces Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results
Revenue Decreased 31% Year-Over-Year to $61.6 million GAAP Gross Profit Decreased 8% Year-Over-Year to $22.8 million Adjusted Gross Profit Decreased 4% Year-Over-Year to $36.1 million Adjusted Gross Profit Margin Increased to 59% from 42% Year-Over-Year GAAP Net Loss Improved 28% Year-Over-Year to $22.0 million Adjusted EBITDA Decreased 4% Year-Over-Year to $9.9 million LOS ANGELES, November 05, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--System1, Inc. (NYSE: SST) ("System1" or the "Company"), an omnichannel customer acquisition marketing platform, today announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2025. "System1's business shift towards our higher margin Products segment continued, as Products are now a majority of our gross profit. Integrating AI across our business continues to drive meaningful gains, as we saw a significant improvement in overall gross margin and a continued higher reduction in operating expenses," commented Michael Blend, System1’s Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer. "While our marketing business was challenged due to product changes at our largest advertising partner Google, we are making strong progress shifting our marketing focus to a newer Google product where we believe we are the market leader. I’m proud of how our organization continues to adapt, innovate, and position System1 for long-term growth." Tridivesh Kidambi, Chief Financial Officer of System1, added, "While recent results in our marketing business have been negatively impacted by product changes at our largest advertising partner, we remain confident in the underlying strength of our platform and strategy. Our ongoing investments in AI-driven automation and decision-making are already delivering operational efficiencies, and we believe these advancements position us strongly to navigate this dynamic landscape and deliver long-term value." Note: Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP metrics that are defined and reconciled at the end of this release. Third Quarter 2025 Highlights CouponFollow.com extended its reach in the European market, successfully launching beta versions of localized coupon content in Germany, France and Poland – marking key milestones in its global expansion strategy. MapQuest launched redesigned apps on iOS and Android, adding new features around route optionality, enhanced user preferences and CarPlay support. Startpage.com released Vani...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-11-06System1 Inc (SST) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Growth ...
GuruFocus.com
System1 Inc (SST) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Growth ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: November 05, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) reported strong growth in its product segment, with revenue increasing by 8% year over year. The company successfully launched new features across its major products, including MapQuest and StartPage, enhancing user engagement. System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) is making significant progress in integrating AI across its operations, with plans to launch new AI-powered products. The company is focusing on international expansion for its Coupon Follow service, launching language-specific sites in Germany and France. Despite challenges, System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) maintained healthy profitability with an adjusted gross profit of $36 million. System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) faced a significant disruption due to Google's reduction in monetization on its AdSense for Domains product, impacting its marketing business. The company's marketing revenue declined by 43% year over year, reflecting volatility in the segment. Revenue per session decreased, driven by weaker advertiser demand, particularly affecting the coupon follow-up business. The transition away from Google's AFD product occurred sooner than expected, causing short-term challenges. System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) identified invalid traffic from a large advertising partner, leading to ongoing disputes and potential legal action. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 3 Warning Signs with SST. Is SST fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: Can you talk about your efforts with Microsoft and if you're able to capitalize on Bing's market share gains? A: Michael Blend, CEO: We work closely with Bing, similar to our partnership with Google. Historically, Google's network outperformed Bing's, but recently, Bing's performance has improved. We've been shifting more efforts towards Bing as monetization increases. We maintain strong partnerships with Bing and Yahoo and aim to expand our business with them. Q: In your earnings release, you mentioned StartPage.com's efforts with ChatGPT and cloud. Are there other ways you're working with OpenAI and Anthropic? A: Michael Blend, CEO: We launched Vanish, a private AI product, addressing consumer concerns about privacy when using AI for sensitive matters. We're working with various AI models to...
TranscriptFY2025 Q32025-11-05FY2025 Q3 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 11 paragraphs
FY2025 Q3 earnings call transcript
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call for System1. Joining me today to discuss System1's business and financial results are our Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Blend; and Chief Financial Officer, Tridivesh Kidambi. A recording of this conference call will be available on our Investor Relations website shortly after this call has ended. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that during the call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements. This includes statements relating to the operating performance of our business, future financial results and guidance, strategy, long-term growth and overall future prospects. We may also make statements regarding regulatory or compliance matters. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied during this call, in particular, those described in our risk factors included in our annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2024 filed on March 10 as well as the current uncertainty and unpredictability in our business, the markets and the global economy generally. You should not rely on our forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. All forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on management's assumptions and beliefs as of the date hereof, and System1 disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Our discussion today will include non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted gross profit. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from our GAAP results. Information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures, including a reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to our most comparable historical GAAP financial measures may be found on our Investor Relations website. I would now like to turn the conference call over to System1's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Blend.
Thanks, Kyle. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining System1 on our Q3 earnings call. Q3 performance reflected solid execution across many of our strategic initiatives, including our ongoing push to integrate AI across our company and strong growth in our higher-margin product segment. Our strong execution was offset by a previously anticipated disruption in one of our primary monetization sources, Google. Specifically, in Q3, Google reduced monetization on its AdSense for Domains product, which we refer to as AFD, effectively sunsetting that product. AFD has historically been a significant part of our marketing business, and its effective deprecation had a negative impact on our O&O marketing and partner marketing business lines. While this Google volatility impacted results across our Marketing segment, our core operations remained strong and we continue to deliver healthy profitability. Revenue for the quarter was approximately $62 million with adjusted gross profit of $36 million and adjusted EBITDA of $9.9 million, each down 4% year-over-year as we navigated the marketing volatility. Without the Google disruption, we would have shown significant growth in both gross profit and our bottom line. The Product segment continues to show strong year-over-year growth with revenue increasing 8% from Q3 2024. Our Startpage, MapQuest and CouponFollow teams continue to introduce new features that extend our product reach and boost engagement, contributing to a 23% year-over-year growth in sessions. Now as I mentioned, our marketing business had a volatile quarter as we were no longer monetizing traffic through Google's AFD product as of the end of Q3. While we had anticipated Google's transition away from AFD and have been focusing our efforts on Google's replacement product, the AFD transition did occur sooner than we expected. While the timing was not ideal, it now allows our team to focus fully on Google's Related Search On Content product, which we refer to as RSOC. We are the market leader in RSOC and believe it represents a much larger and more durable opportunity than our legacy Google business. We continue to make great progress on the technology front. We're very excited at the pace that we are developing and releasing platform features and new products. And regarding AI-powered Agentic coding specifically, we are seeing increasing efficiency gains and are planning to launch some new products specifically addressing the AI space. More to come on that in the future. Now let's go into more details on our product segment, which continues to post strong year-over-year gains. Product revenue was $22.5 million and adjusted gross profit was $21.2 million, up 8% and 6% year-over-year, respectively. Sessions increased 23% year-over-year and were up 12% sequentially, reflecting continued consumer adoption of Startpage, MacQuest and CouponFollow. While we saw a significant increase in total sessions, revenue and gross profit fell sequentially due to a decrease in revenue per session. This decrease was driven by some weakness in advertiser demand, most acutely in our CouponFollow business, where certain advertisers pulled back due to tariff uncertainty. RPS fell 16% from Q2, driving a 6% sequential revenue decrease. On the product development front, we had significant releases across each of our major products, which I wanted to spend some time highlighting. CouponFollow, our promo code and couponing service, continues to execute on its plan for international expansion. In Q3, we launched language-specific sites in both Germany and France following a previous launch in Poland. We see international as a large opportunity for overall growth given most of our current CouponFollow business is currently domestic. CouponFollow also continues to grow the distribution footprint of our promo code browser extension called Cently and our cashback shopping business line via expanded partnerships. Moving on to MapQuest. The team has been quickly pushing out product enhancements to our consumer mapping offering that competes with Google Maps and Apple Maps. In Q3, we launched completely redesigned and re-architected apps for both iOS and Android. In addition to a UI refresh, new features included easier-to-read map styles and CarPlay support for iOS. In addition to core mapping improvements to our existing user base, MapQuest is adding new social features designed to attract a younger demographic. One example is building mapping features for younger users who increasingly use social media videos for things like restaurant recommendations or retail reviews. Users can now watch a video on TikTok or Reels and then import that video into MapQuest. MapQuest then uses AI to pause the video, extract any addresses such as retail stores or restaurants and then automatically build a customized map of favorites for the user. We're very excited at the pace of innovation at MapQuest and expect to see user features released at an increased cadence going forward. Startpage, our private search engine, also released a new AI-focused product in Q3, a new Private AI Chat product that we call Vanish. Vanish is a mobile app that offers access to ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity through Startpage's signature privacy proxy layer. Users' IP addresses, queries and conversations are not logged and conversations remain private. We believe Vanish meets an increasingly important consumer need, which is maintaining privacy while using AI to address increasingly private issues like health care and legal matters. These updates on our Products business have a common theme, which is significant investment in strengthening our core businesses. CouponFollow, MapQuest and Startpage are strategic assets, all having differentiated positions in large addressable markets with strong and defensible modes. And their growth is inherently more predictable than the marketing business. As a result, we plan to increase our investment in these products throughout the rest of the year and into 2026. Our specific focus is on acquiring more direct users who aren't one-and-done users sourced from SEO or at risk for AI-related disruption. The more people we have directly using our products, the less dependent we are on any third-party distribution platforms. In addition, we will continue to use our strategic assets as starting points to develop new products in the search, shopping and geolocation spaces. We're going to be aggressive in using Agentic coding to build and release new products, use our marketing expertise to quickly measure consumer demand, kill products when we don't see enough demand and rapidly scale them when we do. Rather than make expensive all or nothing bets, our goal is to essentially build an assembly line to rapidly roll out new products and then put real investments when we identify the winners. Now let's go into more detail on our Marketing segment, which includes both O&O and partner marketing-driven businesses. There's no way to sugarcoat it. Marketing had a difficult quarter. Marketing revenue came in at $39 million, down 43% year-over-year and down 28% sequentially. Advertising spend was down 54% from Q3 2024 and down 37% sequentially. Adjusted gross profit was $16.6 million, down 14% year-over-year and down 15% sequentially. The sequential decline was driven by lower traffic acquisition costs as TAC from both our O&O and partner business declined. Google's effective wind down of its AFD product has impacted both our O&O and partner marketing businesses. Our efforts to move business to Google's new RSOC product have been going really well, but AFD still represented a meaningful portion of our marketing business. For example, in Q2 of '25, AFD still made up 27% of total marketing revenue. As we complete the transition away from AFD, our O&O business has been focused on scaling advertising campaigns and have started exploring new initiatives using non-Google monetization.  Our Partner Marketing business continues to remain focused on adding quality partners. And in Q3, we had approximately 180 active partners. On a positive note, we now believe our transition to Google's new RSOC product is nearly complete. It has been very difficult navigating the last 2 years with Google, and you have seen that in almost continually declining revenue across our marketing business. Now that the transition is over, we can focus on getting back into growth mode. While we expect some near-term volatility with RSOC as Google continues to make product changes, we anticipate greater stability heading into 2026. We believe we're well positioned to return this segment to growth in the coming quarters.  I did want to cover one more point on traffic quality, which is an issue we take very seriously. Earlier this year, we identified the traffic we had sourced from a large advertising partner included significant invalid or nonhuman activity. After an internal review and an independent third-party verification, we requested reimbursement for this traffic from the advertising partner. While we are still in active discussions with them, as of now, the partner has not agreed to our request. We intend to vigorously pursue our claim against the advertising partner as well as the technology platform, which brokered the invalid traffic. We will use all possible means, including potential legal action. This type of traffic pollutes the overall advertising ecosystem. System1 remains committed to enforcing the highest standards of traffic quality across all of our traffic sources and advertising partners.  Looking ahead to 2026, we are focused on accelerating growth in our Products segment through product expansion and a robust pipeline of new launches. The marketing businesses will continue to diversify, supported by a platform built for automation and scalability. For example, we recently launched new initiatives to source traffic from premium publishers, lead generation partners and social media influencers, and we are actively working to scale each of these new channels. Our overall progress is masked a bit by the decline in our marketing business. That said, our teams are executing well, and we believe we are well positioned for the medium and long term. Our Products businesses continue to perform, and we believe that we are at a trough in the marketing business. We continue to believe that we are undervalued, and we'll continue to invest in opportunities that we believe can provide significant upside. System1's leadership team remains fully aligned with our shareholders and as a group, we remain one of the company's largest shareholders. As System1 continues our transition back to growth mode, we appreciate your continued support. With that, I'll hand it over to Tridi to go over our financials. Take it away, Tridi. 
 Thanks, Michael. As Michael made clear in his remarks, we experienced mixed results in the third quarter as continued volatility in the Marketing segment offset solid execution across other areas of the business. Delivering these results despite having one of our main monetization sources be effectively deprecated, underscores the strength of our diverse operations and the stability of our broader business.  Let's get into the details. Q3 revenue was $61.6 million, representing a 31% year-over-year decrease and a sequential decrease of 21%. Marketing GAAP revenue was $39.1 million, down 43% year-over-year and down 28% sequentially. Products revenue was $22.5 million, up 8% year-over-year, but down 6% sequentially. The sequential decline reflected softer monetization trends, which we view as more indicative of current market conditions than of execution. Adjusted gross profit was $36.1 million, down 4% year-over-year and down 12% sequentially. Product segment profit was $21.2 million, up 6% year-over-year, but down 7% sequentially. Sessions increased 23% year-over-year and 12% sequentially, reflecting strong execution by our teams driving more users to our products. RPS declined 12% year-over-year and 16% sequentially to $0.04, reflecting lower monetization driven by reduced advertiser demand. Product segment profit represents 56% of total segment profit, up from 51% in the third quarter of 2024.  Before diving further into gross profit trends for the Marketing segment, I wanted to add some color with respect to the AFD monetization channel and the impact of these changes on our financial results. As previously disclosed on the company's earnings calls for the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first and second quarters of 2025, the company noted that Google had previously announced it was going to opt advertisers out of the AFD product on a rolling basis and indicated the possibility that the AFD monetization channel could be eventually discontinued as part of industry-wide changes to advertising and traffic quality requirements.  For the 6 months ended June 30, 2025, the AFD monetization channel contributed approximately $94 million or 39% of Marketing platform revenue, $34 million or 32% of marketing revenue, and generated approximately $12 million of gross profit or 28% of marketing adjusted gross profit. The company expects the loss of this monetization channel to reduce marketing segment revenue and adjusted gross profit in future periods. The contribution of AFD to our financial results in Q3 was minimal with only a $1.5 million of gross profit contribution. And as Michael noted during his remarks, as of today, we have no active marketing efforts, neither through our Owned & Operated nor our partner lines on the AFD monetization channel going forward.  That out of the way, let's discuss the Marketing segment profit, which was $16.6 million, down 14% year-over-year and down 15% sequentially. The year-over-year decline was driven by a 24% year-over-year decrease in TAC, partially offset by an increase in return on TAC or RTAC. RTAC was up year-over-year, going from 118% to 120%. Total platform revenue for the marketing business was down 23% year-over-year, all driven by increased volatility and declines in the Owned & Operated marketing businesses. The Partner Network business was performing well prior to the AFD wind down. We view this disruption as temporary and continue to remain confident that the partner business will recover quickly and resume the strong growth trajectory we saw earlier in the year as it completes the transition to RSOC.  On to operating expenses and adjusted EBITDA. In Q3, operating expenses net of add-backs were $26.2 million, down 4% year-over-year and down 10% sequentially. We remain focused on expanding operating leverage and making disciplined investments for growth. Adjusted EBITDA was $9.9 million in Q3, down 4% year-over-year and down 16% sequentially. With respect to liquidity, we ended the quarter with $54.6 million of unrestricted cash on our balance sheet. As of 9/30, we had an outstanding balance of $265 million of term loan debt under our credit agreement, and our net consolidated leverage at quarter end was approximately 4.1x. We also have $50 million of availability under our revolver as of the end of Q3, which is currently undrawn. We are not providing Q4 '25 guidance at this time. That said, we believe the majority of the volatility tied to the Google Marketplace dynamics are behind us, and we anticipate being in a position to provide guidance again in the near future.  The Products segment is well positioned for continued growth and the marketing businesses are expected to rebound as the Google marketplace stabilizes. And as Michael discussed, new growth initiatives leveraging our platform and emerging technologies will drive further expansion of the business. Our consolidated platform continues to generate operating cash flows and coupled with our ongoing execution of cost-saving initiatives around operating expenses, we will have ample liquidity to invest and execute against our strategic initiatives and deliver sustained long-term growth and value for our stakeholders. Thank you for joining us today. 
[Operator instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Tom Forte with Maxim Group. 
I have one question and one follow-up. I'll go one at a time. So, on its earnings call, Microsoft highlighted its market share gains for Bing. Can you talk about your efforts with Microsoft and if you're able to capitalize on Bing's market share gains?
Yes. Thanks, Tom, and thanks for joining. Good to speak with you. So, we do work pretty closely with Bing in a way similar that we work with Google. What we found in the past was that the reason why we've been such a large Google Partner is the Google Network essentially outperformed the Bing network historically. What we have been seeing over the last, I would say, 2 or 3 quarters is performance on the Bing side is starting to improve. And as we're seeing monetization go up on the Bing side, we've been shifting a little bit more of our efforts over there. So, we do retain a pretty strong partnership with Bing. We had mentioned on our earlier remarks that the majority of our efforts on the marketing side are working with Google's new RSOC product, but we do have some business going with Bing and Yahoo! as well, which operate out of the same network. And we would love to increase our business with both those companies.
Great. And then for my second and final question, in your earnings release, you mentioned Startpage.com’s efforts with ChatGPT and cloud, cloud rather, which I thought was quite impressive. I was curious to find out if there are other ways you're working with OpenAI and Anthropic.
Yes. So yes, so just to reiterate, so on the Startpage side, we've got a new product called Vanish, which is essentially Private AI Chat. And we're pretty excited about the product. One thing we've been hearing from consumers is that people are very excited about using chatbots and using AI, but as they increasingly are using them for things like legal work and health care and kind of a lot of the private matters that they're trying to get answers from, they get a little bit concerned about their questions kind of going out and feeding the LLMs and just not being private. So we do think that a product like Vanish is going to potentially have some pretty good consumer acceptance. On a macro level, our company as a whole is working quite heavily with really all of the models. So we've got business going with Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT to rebuild our platform and get our Products built quicker. Specifically as it relates to AI-related products, we don't have anything more than Vanish to announce, but we do intend on over the next year, rolling out several consumer-focused agents in specific verticals that will be leaning quite heavily on AI to give the answers. So we think there's a really nice opportunity on the consumer side, and we intend to capitalize on it.
Thank you for your questions. I will now turn the call back to Michael Blend, CEO and Co-Founder, for closing remarks.
All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for joining us on our earnings call. We look forward to presenting hopefully some good results on our next earnings call and speak to you in about 3 months. Happy Thanksgiving.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-11-04What To Expect From System1 Inc (SST) Q3 2025 Earnings
GuruFocus.com
What To Expect From System1 Inc (SST) Q3 2025 Earnings
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) is set to release its Q3 2025 earnings on Nov 5, 2025. The consensus estimate for Q3 2025 revenue is $74.50 million, and the earnings are expected to come in at -$2.78 per share. The full year 2025's revenue is expected to be $302.13 million and the earnings are expected to be -$9.49 per share. More detailed estimate data can be found on the Forecast page. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 3 Warning Signs with SST. Is SST fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Over the past 90 days, revenue estimates for System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) have declined from $322.72 million to $302.13 million for the full year 2025 and from $349.79 million to $339.00 million for 2026. Earnings estimates have increased from -$9.80 per share to -$9.49 per share for the full year 2025, while they have declined from -$10.10 per share to -$10.38 per share for 2026. In the previous quarter of 2025-06-30, System1 Inc's (NYSE:SST) actual revenue was $78.12 million, which beat analysts' revenue expectations of $73.35 million by 6.50%. System1 Inc's (NYSE:SST) actual earnings were -$2.23 per share, which beat analysts' earnings expectations of -$2.60 per share by 14.23%. After releasing the results, System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) was down by 7.64% in one day. Based on the one-year price targets offered by 1 analyst, the average target price for System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) is $10.00 with a high estimate of $10.00 and a low estimate of $10.00. The average target implies an upside of 73.31% from the current price of $5.77. Based on GuruFocus estimates, the estimated GF Value for System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) in one year is $15.69, suggesting an upside of 171.92% from the current price of $5.77. Based on the consensus recommendation from 1 brokerage firm, System1 Inc's (NYSE:SST) average brokerage recommendation is currently 2.0, indicating an "Outperform" status. The rating scale ranges from 1 to 5, where 1 signifies Strong Buy, and 5 denotes Sell.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-10-23System1 to Report Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results
Business Wire
System1 to Report Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results
LOS ANGELES, October 22, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--System1, Inc. (NYSE: SST) ("System1" or the "Company"), an omnichannel customer acquisition marketing platform, announced today that it will report financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2025 on Wednesday, November 5, 2025 after the U.S. stock market closes. Management will host a conference call at 5:00 PM ET the same day to discuss the results. The live webcast and replay will be accessible on the Company’s Investor Relations website at ir.system1.com. About System1, Inc. System1 operates several flagship brands across multiple consumer verticals, including shopping, travel and search, and a best-in-class customer acquisition and marketing platform powered by AI and machine learning. The Company's platform is omnichannel and omnivertical, delivering high-intent customers to its advertising partners to maximize their reach and effectiveness. For more information, visit www.system1.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251022016528/en/ Contacts Investors: Brett Milotte ICR, Inc. [email protected]
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-08-10System1 Second Quarter 2025 Earnings: US$2.23 loss per share (vs US$3.80 loss in 2Q 2024)
Simply Wall St.
System1 Second Quarter 2025 Earnings: US$2.23 loss per share (vs US$3.80 loss in 2Q 2024)
Revenue: US$78.1m (down 17% from 2Q 2024). Net loss: US$17.5m (loss narrowed by 34% from 2Q 2024). US$2.23 loss per share (improved from US$3.80 loss in 2Q 2024). This technology could replace computers: discover the 20 stocks are working to make quantum computing a reality. All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 5.6% p.a. on average during the next 2 years, compared to a 11% growth forecast for the Interactive Media and Services industry in the US. Performance of the American Interactive Media and Services industry. The company's shares are down 9.3% from a week ago. What about risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for System1 (of which 2 are a bit concerning!) you should know about. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
TranscriptFY2025 Q22025-08-09FY2025 Q2 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 25 paragraphs
FY2025 Q2 earnings call transcript
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call for System1. Joining me today to discuss System1's business and financial results are our Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Blend; and Chief Financial Officer, Tridivesh Kidambi. A recording of this conference call will be available on our Investor Relations website shortly after this call has ended. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that during the call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements. This includes statements relating to the operating performance of our business, future financial results and guidance, strategy, long-term growth and overall future prospects. We may also make statements regarding regulatory or compliance matters. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied during this call, in particular, those described in our risk factors included in our annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2024 filed on March 10 as well as the current uncertainty and unpredictability in our business, the markets and the global economy generally. You should not rely on our forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. All forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on management's assumptions and beliefs as of the date hereof, and System1 disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Our discussion today will include non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted gross profit. These non- GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from our GAAP results. Information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures, including a reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to our most comparable historical GAAP financial measures may be found on our Investor Relations website. I would now like to turn the conference call over to System1's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Blend.
Thanks, Kyle. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining System1 on our Q2 earnings call. I'm happy to report Q2 was a very solid quarter for System1 with solid execution driven by our company-wide adoption of Agentic coding. Our adjusted EBITDA came in at $11.7 million, up 18% year-over-year. Second quarter revenue was approximately $78 million and adjusted gross profit was $41 million, representing a 6% year-over-year increase. Our Owned & Operated products continue to perform well and had a particularly strong Q2. Revenue increased 34% year-over-year and 8% sequentially. We saw great performance from each of our major products, which includes Startpage, our private search engine, MapQuest, our mapping solution and CouponFollow, our leading promo code service. We have strong momentum across the entire product portfolio. Our teams are rolling out regular product improvements and in turn, consumers are responding very favorably. In our marketing business lines, we continue to see volatility at our largest revenue source, which is Google. While the overall Google advertising market is relatively stable, the Google Partner Network we work with is going through significant changes. And while our team is doing a nice job navigating the Google volatility, our marketing businesses are not yet back in growth mode. On the technology front, our heavy investment in AI-powered Agentic coding is paying off. We set an ambitious road map for product development and platform expansion in 2025, and we've been executing ahead of schedule on everything. We believe that our investments are going to drive revenue growth while at the same time improving margins. I want to talk briefly about the skill set we have developed around Agentic coding. While many companies talk about engineering efficiencies gained from Agentic coding, System1 is one of the few that is using it to rebuild a sophisticated legacy technology platform. Now this is a very complex project as we have to essentially keep our trains running while rebuilding the engine and tracks at the same time. Looking forward, I think there's a real opportunity to leverage our early adopter Agentic coding skill set to help other companies in a similar way. There are literally thousands of legacy technology platforms that can benefit from this skill set, and there are several ways System1 can participate in the upside of modernizing their platforms. We intend to pursue this opportunity pretty aggressively in the future. Now let's get into more details on our products segment, which, as I mentioned, is on a strong run. We feel it is really important for investors to understand our products business as management believes this segment alone is worth significantly more than investors currently value our entire company. Products revenue was $24 million, up 34% year-over-year and 8% sequentially. Adjusted gross profit was $22.7 million, up 32% year-over-year and up 8% sequentially. This segment is performing very well and is well positioned to sustain this momentum going forward. I'd like to spend some time on each of our major product lines as I know many of our investors have been focused on our marketing segment and may not be as familiar with our product segment. Let's start first with CouponFollow, our promo code and couponing service. CouponFollow is comprised of 3 major product segments. First, we have our CouponFollow website, which is a leading couponing and promo code service in Google's organic rankings. Consumers visit our CouponFollow website when they're looking to find a promo code as they are completing online purchases. In addition to our website, we also have our [ Sinley ] browser extension, which is a patent protected solution that automatically inserts promo codes at checkout when shoppers are on a shopping site. [ Sinley ] operates under its own brand and also powers B2B promo code solutions for third-party web browsers. And finally, CouponFollow offers a nascent cashback shopping business that consumers use to obtain cash rebates when they shop online. Combined, all these businesses are on a roll and Coupon user sessions are up over 40% year-over-year. Now let's talk about Startpage, our private search engine that competes with DuckDuckGo. Startpage offers a search solution that enables consumers to search the Internet while maintaining their privacy. Our Startpage search technology is a sophisticated combination of search results from Google and Bing, proprietary search widgets like mapping and a privacy solution that protects our users' online identity and search history. Similar to CouponFollow, Startpage comprises several business lines. We have our core Startpage search engine, desktop browser extensions and a suite of private mobile browsers that integrate our search engine and maintain users' privacy while they're browsing the Internet. Startpage is growing very quickly, and our users are up 30% year-over-year. In addition to our core search engine, we recently introduced 2 new products in the search and AI space. First, we just launched a new AI privacy product called Vanish Private AI by Startpage. Vanish is a mobile app that allows people to maintain their user privacy while using a variety of popular AI chat bots like ChatGPT. We also recently leveraged our Startpage search engine technology to launch ONE.org, our new charitable search engine. ONE.org lets users support charitable causes like hunger relief and animal welfare just by searching the web. While we don't expect Vanish to displace ChatGPT or ONE.org to overtake Google, the search market is so huge and profitable that a small market share translates into meaningful high-margin revenue. We have shown that with Startpage, and we look to replicate our success with our newer offerings. Our last major product line is MapQuest, the OG of online mapping that I'm sure many of you have fond memories of. We acquired MapQuest several years ago from Verizon, and frankly, the brand was in significant decline when we acquired it. I'm really pleased that we've been able to turn around MapQuest and get it back into growth mode. MapQuest is made up of several complementary businesses. The most well known is our original MapQuest consumer-facing service, which includes both our website and a suite of mobile apps. MapQuest also offers a B2B mapping service where we power mapping for other companies and get paid a usage-based license fee. And finally, we operate a subscription-based mobile app called RoadWarrior, where we help delivery drivers more efficiently plan their driving routes. Like our other products, MapQuest usage is surging and visits from Google are up over 40% annually. Overall, our products business is doing really well. If you're a current System1 investor or considering investing in our company, it's very important that you understand this business segment. Our products business requires low CapEx and low OpEx, and as a result, it is highly cash generative. On a stand-alone basis, and this is important, we believe our combined product businesses are worth significantly more than the current enterprise value of the entire company. An investor in our current market price, you effectively are buying our products segment at a significant discount while holding an option on the upside as our marketing business rebounds. You should also remember that as a result of a corporate reorganization we did last summer, our products business segment is not collateral securing our credit agreement. Overall, we think that the market does not appreciate the true value of our product segment, particularly when you understand our overall corporate and capital structure. All right. Now let's go on into more detail on our marketing segment, which includes both our Owned & operated and partner marketing businesses. As you know, marketing has been going through a rough patch, but remains a significant profit generator. Overall revenue came in at $54 million, reflecting a 29% year-over-year decline, but we did see a 4% increase sequentially. The annual decline primarily was driven by a 36% decrease in our advertising spend. Adjusted gross profit was $20 million, down 17% year-over-year and down 10% sequentially. The sequential decline was driven by a lower return on TAC, or traffic acquisition costs, driven by volatility from the O&O businesses. Advertising spend was up 13% from Q1, but our return on spend decreased significantly. The decline in our marketing segment is solely related to issues in our O&O marketing business that we attribute to volatility in the Google Search Partner Network. O&O revenue has been a significant decline over the past couple of years with both revenue and gross profit down significantly year- over-year. While the decline in this business line has masked our success in our products group, we anticipate the recent declines in our O&O marketing business will begin leveling off over the next couple of quarters, and we're going to have some positive comps going forward. On a positive note, our partner marketing business has been performing quite well throughout the volatility. In our partner business, we work with Google Bing and Yahoo!, and that diversification has helped us weather the Google storm. The partner business continues to remain focused on moving partners to Google's new RSOC product, and we're seeing really good success with that migration effort. In Q2, average revenue per partner increased 29% sequentially, and we had approximately 220 active partners in Q2. While we wait for the Google volatility to stabilize, we've been busy using Agentic coding to re-architect and scale our proprietary marketing platform. These efforts are working. We have connected RAMP into more buy-side networks, and we continue to make large strides on advertising campaign automation. In Q2, we launched over 82,000 marketing campaigns, up 100% from Q1. This marketing campaign automation is going to be a critical part of going forward when we look to start scaling our O&O marketing business again. We are well positioned to capitalize once the Google volatility stabilizes over the next couple of quarters. Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, we remain cautiously optimistic. Our Owned & Operated products continue to show strong fundamentals, and we've been making large strides with our Agentic coding efforts. Our biggest challenge over the next couple of quarters is related to continued volatility with Google, which remains our largest revenue partner. That said, we're putting ourselves in a good position to capitalize on the marketing side as we see stability from Google. Overall, I believe System1 is really well positioned for the medium and long term. As I mentioned earlier, our product segment is growing, high margin and generates a lot of cash. As a result, we believe that segment alone is worth more than the value the market currently places on all of System1. And as the O&O marketing business stabilizes and starts growing again, I'm confident smart investors will realize how undervalued our business is. System1's leadership team remains fully aligned with our shareholders and as a group, we remain one of the company's largest stakeholders. Last quarter, I significantly added to my family's ownership stake in System1, and I continue to believe our equity is significantly undervalued. As System1 continues our transition back to growth mode, we appreciate your continued support and look forward to delivering long-term value. With that, I'll hand it over to Tridi to go over our financials. Take it away, Tridi.
Thanks, Michael. First off, I'd like to spend a little bit of time discussing the change in our segment reporting, starting with this quarter. Going forward, we are reporting our business across 2 segments: marketing and products. Our marketing business segment consists of our paid acquisition business lines, where we either deploy advertising spend directly to buy-side networks to acquire traffic to our Owned & Operated websites to monetize or we have network partners who acquire the traffic in exchange for a revenue share. This is a business we previously called our Partner Network. Through our marketing platform, we manage our acquisition channels holistically between our direct buy-side relationships as well as via the traffic sourced by our network partners. And so we believe it is more helpful to present these businesses on a combined basis. Our key drivers for this business are TAC or traffic acquisition costs, which we define as a combination of our direct advertising spend and the revenue share we pay to our partners. In essence, this is the total cost to acquire traffic to our platform. And the way we measure the efficiency of our TAC is our second driver, RTAC or return on traffic acquisition spend. This is defined as marketing platform revenue divided by TAC. Marketing platform revenue is defined as marketing GAAP revenue plus partner revenue share and represents the total revenue that flows through our proprietary platform from our advertising partners. Our product segment consists of our flagship consumer products, CouponFollow, MapQuest and Startpage. These products generate traffic primarily through organic means. And our key metrics here will remain the same as before, total sessions to the site and RPS or revenue per session. Shortly after this call concludes, we will be posting an updated supplemental financial information file on our Investor Relations website, which will include these updated metrics for the current period as well as historical information back to Q1 of 2024. Now let's move on to the financial results for the quarter. We had mixed results in the second quarter as volatility in the Owned & Operated portion of our marketing business offset some solid growth in the other business lines. Despite that volatility, we delivered good year-over-year growth in key financial metrics, including an increase of 18% on adjusted EBITDA. Unfortunately, Owned & Operated marketing volatility is impacting sequential trends and the overall progress we are making. Let's get into the details. Q2 revenue was $78.1 million, representing a 17% year-over-year decrease, but a sequential increase of 5%. Marketing GAAP revenue was $54.1 million, down 29% year-over-year, but up 4% sequentially. Products revenue was $24 million, representing a 34% year-over-year increase and a sequential increase of 8%. This growth shows the tremendous progress we have made over the last year and the overall strength of the businesses within this segment. Adjusted gross profit was $41 million, up 6% year-over-year and down 1% sequentially. Marketing segment profit was $19.6 million, down 17% year-over-year and down 10% sequentially. The year-over-year decline was driven by a 4% year-over-year decrease in TAC as well as a slight year-over-year decrease in our return on TAC or RTAC from 120% to 117%. As a result, total platform revenue for the marketing business was down 6% year-over-year, all driven by increased volatility and declines in the Owned & Operated marketing businesses. Offsetting this O&O volatility, we've seen real momentum in our Partner Network business in driving the marketing segment sequentially. While return on TAC dropped 8 bps from Q1 of '25, total TAC increased 34% for the first quarter, driven primarily by increased volume from the partner businesses. Marketing platform revenue also grew 25% sequentially. Products segment profit was $22.7 million, up 34% year-over-year and up 8% sequentially. This is driven both by a year-over-year increase in sessions of 12% as well as a year-over-year increase in RPS from $0.04 to $0.05. Products segment profit represents 54% of total segment profit, up from 42% in the second quarter of 2024. On to operating expenses and adjusted EBITDA. In Q2, operating expenses net of add-backs were $29.3 million, up 1% year-over- year and in line with Q1. Reducing costs in order to create greater operating leverage continues to be a focus, and we expect OpEx to decline in the second half of the year by roughly 5% versus the first half of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was $11.7 million in Q2, up 18% year-over-year and down 3% from last quarter. With respect to liquidity, we ended the quarter with $63.6 million of unrestricted cash on our balance sheet, which is an increase of approximately $20 million compared to Q1. Although the cash balance increased, working capital declined, largely driven by a buildup in short-term liabilities. As of June 30, we had an outstanding balance of $270 million of term loan debt under our credit agreement, and our net consolidated leverage at quarter end was approximately 4x. We also have $50 million of availability under our revolver as of the end of Q2 '25, which is currently undrawn. Based on the volatility we saw in Q2 in the marketing segment and the ongoing changes in the Google Marketplace, we will not be providing guidance for Q3 of '25 or for the full year. We believe it is prudent to continue to wait for greater clarity on these items before offering guidance. While we acknowledge the current volatility has created some near-term challenges, particularly in driving sustainable growth within the marketing segment, we remain confident in the strength of our platform and the ability to leverage new technologies for our marketing initiatives. The products segment continues to perform well, and we are focused on driving operational efficiencies. All in all, we are confident in the fundamental resilience of our business and remain committed to executing our strategic priorities to position the company for long-term growth. Thank you for joining us today.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Tom Forte with Maxim Group.
So Michael and Tridi, congrats on the quarter and the progress you're making in a challenging environment. I had 3 questions. I'll go one at a time. On the product side, I definitely think you have underappreciated, undervalued, nice portfolio there. How should investors think about the KPIs we should focus on such as for CouponFollow and MapQuest? Is it traffic, sales trends? What are the KPIs we should focus on?
Yes. Thanks, Tom, for the question. Thanks for joining. I appreciate your compliments on the product side, which we agree. We think we've got a great portfolio, which is underappreciated. And really each of those business segments is doing really well. Tridi, maybe you can talk a little bit about the KPIs.
Yes. Thanks for the question, Tom. Good to hear from you. So yes, I mean, you nailed it, and it's the KPIs you would traditionally think about for these types of kind of flagship online brands. So specifically, we think about traffic and we think about the rate at which we monetize that traffic. And so both of those are the metrics that we will be disclosing going forward. So sessions in terms of measuring traffic and then revenue per session in terms of measuring that monetization rate.
Excellent. And then for my second question, recognizing you're not providing guidance, can you at least provide high-level comments on the following. To the extent you're able to talk about the second half of this year, should investors think about the comparison of lapping last year's presidential election? I would think to the extent that you're both a buyer and seller of digital advertising, lapping the election will be favorable for you.
I think -- yes, I think you're right there, Tom. So as some of the political spending dies off, which has a tendency to drive pricing across all online marketplaces, we should be able to step in and get a bit lower pricing than what we would have seen last year. I would say that on the O&O marketing side, as we mentioned, a lot of that is not -- our issues are not really related to what's going on in the overall advertising market. It's much more specific to volatility in the Google Search Partner Network. So in the O&O segment on marketing specifically, we would expect as that volatility lessens and the Google product that we -- products that we work with there start maturing a bit more, that's really where we're going to see really sustained growth. We do expect that to happen over the next couple of quarters.
Great. All right. The last one for me. Historically, you've been able to engage in strategic M&A to advance your efforts, often buying things at just unbelievably great valuations. What are your thoughts on strategic M&A and your ability to access capital if necessary to take advantage of opportunities?
Yes. I appreciate you asking. You're correct. We've done, I think, 12 or 13 deals in our history. The vast majority of those have been pretty good deals that we ended up buying at effective low multiples, and we're able to put some substantial growth behind them. And I think you're seeing that with the 3 big products that we talked about, Startpage, MapQuest and CouponFollow, each of those good deals. We were able to layer marketing on top of them, rebuild their platforms and kind of go forward. So we think there's a pretty big opportunity for us on the M&A front going forward. Not only do we have the historical ability to buy companies, retool their platforms and get them growing again. The stuff that we're doing with Agentic coding, I talked about it briefly in my remarks, but I'll talk about a little bit more here. We were pretty much early adopters in terms of using Agentic coding to rebuild our technology platform. And while I talked about it for a couple of sentences in my prepared remarks, I'll riff a little bit here. It's really hard to take an existing technology platform and rebuild it on the fly. I've been doing this for, I think, 25 years, and we've tried to do it several times, and it's just always more challenging than you think and going to take longer than you would expect. With our Agentic coding skills, we've actually been able to do it really successfully already. We're doing it ahead of schedule. And I estimated about 25% of the time it would have taken us previously. And so specifically on the M&A front, what we're going to be looking to do going forward is really find those companies that have legacy platforms that could benefit from a real makeover of their platform, make those technology platforms more efficient, a lot more cost effective, reduce OpEx, a lot of the stuff we've been doing internally. And as I said, there's thousands of legacy digital companies out there, both on the digital publishing side, on the software side, everywhere. And so we think that within those thousands of companies, we're going to find some pretty good opportunities for us. As far as accessing capital, we do think on a go-forward basis, as our numbers are improving, and we're starting to show the business going, get some momentum behind it, we'll have fairly straightforward access to capital to do those deals. And Tridi, do you want to follow up on anything there?
No, I think you captured it. Again, I think for the right deal, we're confident that we'll be able to access the capital we need to execute on it. So to Michael's point, we're being very judicious about how we're approaching it, but we do think opportunities will be out there.
Your next question comes from the line of Dan Kurnos with Benchmark.
Nice continued progress here. Let's -- maybe I'll go a little bit in reverse, Michael, just in terms of what you just mentioned on Agentic coding, I mean, you kind of alluded to helping optimize others' coding platforms. I mean, are you going to white label an Agentic coding product? Are you planning on providing kind of back-end services to help optimize maybe some of the, I don't know, pick your vertical, SMB market, however you want to attack it, Michael. It just -- it's a super interesting opportunity since it's worked for you, and there's plenty of companies out there with all the vibe coders and everyone else that are trying to help advance this marketplace. So maybe just give us your thoughts on that on the [indiscernible] off base.
Sure. Thanks for dialing in, Dan. Good to chat with you. So I don't right now see us releasing a stand-alone Agentic coding product to help people redo their platforms. I guess that's a possibility in the future. But right now, our current strategy that we'd be looking at would be to partner with companies that don't have as much experience as we have kind of going through this process and really work with them so that they could probably keep their core teams operating on maintaining their existing platform and then bring in kind of a -- think of it as an Agentic coding SWAT team that can come in and rebuild that entire platform. And at the end of that process, you basically shift all of your business over to the new platform, which is essentially what we're doing here at System1. And so think of us almost as consultants coming in. But in the case of M&A, we're doing that on our own behalf. So we acquire a company, kind of rebuild their platform, rip out the old legacy platform and kind of go on with that business. We don't have to do it via M&A. So there's a few different models that we've been thinking about that don't require us putting our own capital to use. Instead, we participate in the upside that we bring to the companies. But in general, it's bringing our team in to help companies that don't have the experience that we have.
Yes, that makes sense, Michael. You just throw a big help button up on MapQuest. I'll come to you. The next question I have for you is, look, obviously, products has been on a great trajectory right now, really good in Q2. The SEO environment is a mess, as you well know. And given that -- given what Google is doing, and I'll get to Partner Network in a second, discoverability is just getting a little bit harder. Like how are you optimizing kind of your brand footprint? And how do you expect to continue optimizing it as kind of AI and Agentic browsing starts cropping up more and more?
Yes, we've been -- good question. We've been pretty fortunate in that the main products that we have are not the type of how to or informational products that typically are getting displaced by anything happening on the Google side. So for instance, Startpage has no SEO exposure. So Startpage is our search engine, which people are just coming directly to use it. MapQuest, in large part, that business, we've got an enterprise business in there, and we've got a direct consumer base, which is using our apps and websites. We do have some Google exposure where we do get placement in Google and same with CouponFollow as well. CouponFollow has got a lot of Google placements. But the nice thing about those 2 particular categories, both mapping and promo codes, they're not the kind of categories where Google can just provide a single answer. So when you look at what ChatGPT and obviously, the Google competitive products are, what they're really good at is you ask a question and it just gives you an answer. Mapping really isn't that kind of question. So if you're looking -- or driving directions to a place, you really need a mapping service behind that. And same with couponing. In couponing and promo codes, users are looking for a wide variety of promo codes that are working. They're not just looking for a single one. So it's a little bit harder to displace those products. So in some ways, we've been fortunate that the categories that we're in and those products we acquired were all kind of search and browsing related. So we just don't have -- we don't see ourselves as having the big exposure that a lot of knowledge-based companies have.
Yes. That resonates, Michael. I guess maybe the flip side is to the extent that e-com and other kind of pairing start taking place, I mean you guys are clearly savvy enough on the AI side to create whatever API is necessary or to work maybe with the Agentic guys to sort of help them learn on how to maybe attach some products to if they're sponsored results or things like that. I don't know if that's a crazy statement, Michael, since nothing has been developed yet, but just a thought.
Yes. No, we love -- I mean, we'd love to work with any of the platforms to integrate our mapping technology and our mapping expertise, our promo code technology. I don't think the search or Startpage search technology is something that would necessarily pop into those, but we do have like a lot of people coming to us to try to work with us on the search engine side as well.
And then just lastly, on the Google Partner Network stuff, I mean, yes, obviously, kind of sloppy over there right now. I mean the return on TAC was still pretty impressive in Q2. I assume that that's probably continuing to attrit. I mean, should we think of you pulling back on the O&O side in the near term until you get more favorable return again? Or are you going to kind of just weather the storm? And is it really -- how much of it is platform change? How much of it is just query volume? How much of it is data analytics? Just any additional color would be super helpful.
Sure. So what -- there are several questions in there. I don't see us pulling back. So what we're going to do -- essentially, what's happened just to kind of talk about a little bit higher level is Google has rolled out a new product that their Partner Network is shifting towards. It's called RSOC, which is an acronym for related search on content. And the idea behind that product is Google wants to ensure that there's a high quality of traffic going through that system and ultimately converting when those consumers get to the advertisers and sort of advertising through Google. This is a pretty dramatic change for Google to shift from their old -- their old partner advertising network called AFD over to RSOC. And it's just been a little bit rocky. A lot of that is Google figuring out the ecosystem. It's a new product that they're rolling out. And it's just kind of fine-tuning that product such that there's not volatility in it. So we don't anticipate pulling back in that business. What we would anticipate, though, is as Google is working the kinks out of its RSOC product, we do see continued volatility. And so what we are hoping and we are in close contact with Google is that over the next couple of quarters, that volatility is going to go away, at which point, we're going to be quite well positioned to get that business growing again. So that's kind of a long-winded answer, Dan. I don't know if I addressed everything in there and happy to answer any follow-ups on it.
No, it's fine. I mean so much for opt-in, right? We'll see how it plays out, Michael. I appreciate the color, and I was trying to keep it a little higher level without getting too much in the weeds, but that's really helpful color for me and we can also follow up offline.
I will now turn the call back to Michael Blend, CEO and Co-Founder, for closing remarks.
Well, thanks, everyone, for joining us on our Q2 earnings call. It was nice to be able to report another good quarter. We are banging away at the business. We feel like we've got a good opportunity ahead of us. And if you are a current investor or thinking about taking a position in us, please feel free to reach out to us for more color. We'll talk to you next quarter. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-08-08System1 Inc (SST) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Product Growth Amid Marketing Challenges
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System1 Inc (SST) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Product Growth Amid Marketing Challenges
Release Date: August 07, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) reported a solid Q2 with an 18% year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA, reaching $11.7 million. The company's product segment showed strong performance, with revenue up 34% year-over-year and 8% sequentially. System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) has successfully turned around MapQuest, which is now back in growth mode with visits from Google up over 40% annually. The company is leveraging AI-powered agentic coding to rebuild its technology platform, which is expected to drive revenue growth and improve margins. System1 Inc (NYSE:SST) has a strong cash position with $63.6 million of unrestricted cash on the balance sheet, an increase of approximately $20 million compared to Q1. The marketing segment experienced a 29% year-over-year decline in revenue, primarily due to a 36% decrease in advertising spend. Volatility in the Google partner network has significantly impacted the owned and operated marketing business, which is not yet back in growth mode. Adjusted gross profit for the marketing segment was down 17% year-over-year and 10% sequentially. The company is not providing guidance for Q3 2025 or the full year due to ongoing volatility and changes in the Google marketplace. Despite strong product performance, the market does not fully appreciate the value of System1 Inc (NYSE:SST)'s product segment, which management believes is worth more than the current enterprise value of the entire company. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 3 Warning Signs with SST. Q: What key performance indicators (KPIs) should investors focus on for System1's product segment, particularly for Coupon Follow and MapQuest? A: According to Tridevesh Kaabi, CFO, the KPIs to focus on are traffic and the rate at which this traffic is monetized. Specifically, they will disclose metrics such as sessions to measure traffic and revenue per session to measure monetization rates. Q: How should investors think about the impact of last year's Presidential election on System1's financials for the second half of this year? A: CEO Michael Blend noted that as political spending decreases, which typically drives up pricing across online marketplaces, System1 should benefit from lower pricing. However, the volatility in the Google search partner network is a more...
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-08-08System1 Announces Strong Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results
Business Wire
System1 Announces Strong Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results
Revenue Decreased 17% Year-Over-Year to $78.1 million GAAP Gross Profit Increased 7% Year-Over-Year to $27.9 million Adjusted Gross Profit Increased 6% Year-Over-Year to $41.0 million GAAP Net Loss Improved 38% Year-Over-Year to $21.5 million Adjusted EBITDA Increased 18% Year-Over-Year to $11.7 million LOS ANGELES, August 07, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--System1, Inc. (NYSE: SST) ("System1" or the "Company"), an omnichannel customer acquisition marketing platform, today announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2025. "Our strong performance this quarter reflects System1's continued turnaround driven by AI adoption across our entire company," commented Michael Blend, System1’s Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer. "Our organic products, led by Startpage, MapQuest, and CouponFollow, had another strong quarter marked by accelerating revenue growth and margin expansion. While our marketing division continues to navigate a volatile advertising landscape, our continued investment in our Marketing platform has put us in a strong position to deliver sustained value." Tridivesh Kidambi, Chief Financial Officer of System1, added, "We are pleased with our second quarter financial results, specifically our 6% and 18% year-over-year increase in adjusted gross profit and adjusted EBITDA, respectively. These results underscore the resilience of our business model, our ability to innovate in changing marketing conditions and our continued focus on long-term value creation." Note: Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP metrics that are defined and reconciled at the end of this release. Second Quarter 2025 Highlights Products segment revenue grew 34% year-over-year to $24.0 million and Products adjusted gross profit grew 32% year-over-year to $22.7 million. CouponFollow.com saw continued strong performance in Q2, posting a 44% year-over-year increase in organic sessions. System1 launched 1.org, a free charitable-focused search engine that allows users to support nonprofit organizations simply by searching the web. Startpage.com continues to build on its positive momentum, with more than a 25% increase in daily active users in June 2025 versus the prior year. In collaboration with Startpage, Mapquest created and launched a white-label consumer mapping solution for integration into third party websites and search engines. Given the current uncertainty...

