Lime Technologies Stock

A warm welcome to our Q2 call. My name is Tommas Davoust, and I've been at Lime since 2017, started as CEO the 1st of January this year. And with me, I have Anders.

Hello, everyone. My name is Anders and I'm the CFO at Lime and I have been at Lime since September 2024.

Feel free to write any questions in the chat, and we'll try to answer them at the end of the session.

Looking into the agenda, we will have an overview of Lime and the sum up of Q2. We'll talk about order intake, revenue, profit and we'll end up with a summary.

So let's get started. We have always been running Lime with a long-term perspective, and that has left us with a fantastic footprint. 25 years now, we have grown on average every year 18%. We've had an EBITA margin of 25% as an average as well each year. And that's, of course, something that we are really proud of. The biggest reason, I would say, why we have managed with this year after year is our people and our great corporate culture. And we know that in order to win in the competitive environment where we operate, we need to be a little bit better in everything we do.

And we believe in creating a culture that has a -- great at combining high performance with a lot of care. And no matter the times, if it's been good or bad, our goal has always been the same. And that is to help companies become really, really good at sales and customer care so they can help customers in a really good way. We create value by being a true partner to our customers. We do it by being local, close to our customers, and we combine our software and expertise.

And we have 2 revenue streams, which is the software and the services, the expertise. The ARR or annual recurring revenue, that stands for 68% today and the services for the remaining part. And we've done this for many years now. We started in Sweden. We've grown into the Nordic countries and also taken one leg down in Europe, Netherlands since 2020, Germany since 2021. And now we are present in 7 markets. We have 12 offices and almost 500 employees. Across our products, we have more than 7,500 customers and over 1 million users.

So let me give you a sum up of Q2. Looking at the number, we have 10% ARR growth, 25% adjusted EBITA margin and also EBITA margin is the same and 12% organic revenue growth.

And on the first bullet, I'm glad that we have been moving in the right direction, basically on all levels. We are now on 10% ARR growth, which can be compared to 9% in Q1, 7% in Q4 last year. The adjusted EBITA margin is 25.4%, which can be compared to 25.0% in Q1 and 24.6% last year in Q2. Organic revenue growth, 12% now compared to 8% in Q1. So I'm glad we're trending in the right direction. However, we are not satisfied, and I believe we still have more to give.

On the second bullet, we continue our traction in Germany, and we grow deeper into the utility vertical. During the quarter, we have expanded with some existing customers. We have started cooperations with billing system providers. We've closed a nice deal with Netz Leipzig Stadtwerke. That's one of the biggest Stadtwerke in Germany. We have also fully integrated the acquisition of [ E.ON ] One Portal and moved the customers to our Lime solutions, which opens up new possibilities to grow with them over time.

On the third bullet, we continue to make investments in our AI offerings. During the quarter, we launched workflows, an AI platform where users can build integrations and AI agents directly within their CRM environment or take help of IT services department to do the same. The customer reception has been very positive, and we have had record attendance when we have had webinars and customer events and so on.

Our Connect AI offering, that is now driving the growth in Lime Connect. We see a much higher win rate compared to our last AI offering, and we are expanding both on new customers and on existing customers. And one thing that I'm really excited about is Lime Go Agentic. It's a brand-new product. It's built from scratch with the latest technology. It has 30-plus years of European CRM know-how behind it. We shouldn't mix it up with Lime CRM. That's a much bigger and more complex platform. But this is more comparable to Lime Go, has the same DNA as Lime Go with -- prospecting with real-time company data, but now it's agentic.

So instead of just assisting, the AI agents actually to do the work. They could research accounts, they could prep meetings, log calls, write follow-up. And the salesperson, well, they should just focus on selling. Of course, human always got the final call if you want to make the acceptance and so on. And now we are in beta, and we're rolling it out. We will roll it out step by step, running alongside the current Lime Go as we see it.

Speaking of AI, the world of SaaS is changing faster than ever. That brings, of course, a lot of challenges. And more than anything, a lot of opportunities, especially for the ones that have a business that fit well in the new environment or are able to change with the new situation. And I dare to say that I believe that we really are built for this moment. And let me explain what I mean.

Three shifts are reshaping the entire SaaS market right now, all at the same time and all 3 play in our favor. First, we have the geopolitics. European companies are rethinking their dependence on American software. Gartner, the research firm, they expect that 75% of European companies will choose software based on sovereignty by 2030. That number is around 5% today. We are one of the biggest and largest European players out there. So of course, that is a real opportunity for us. And we're already having a lot of these conversations in our customer dialogues and deal processes.

Second, we have generic. Generic is not enough anymore. Companies, they want to verticalize, they want customer-specific solutions that are built around how they actually work. And we've got a flexible platform. We always have that, which makes it very easy to make customer adaptions and vertical-specific solutions. And we've also had a bet on the vertical offerings for a long time now where we build our core offerings. Utility, real estate membership and wholesale, that is more than 70% of our revenue. So also fits us very well.

Third, we have our AI offering and how we develop together with that. Everyone knows that they need AI, but few know how to do it in a great way. And we have always guided our customers through every tech shift before, if it's Internet, mobile, cloud, SaaS and so on. AI is no different. We are the partner who can help them hold their hands and we help them to use it. We do it in their industry on their terms. Add to all of this, our size and our mindset and culture. We are not the global conglomerate. We are not a startup.

We are an established European partner with a track record. We have thousands of customers, a lot of experience, and we're small enough so we can still move fast, thanks to both our size and our culture. And that's exactly the supplier or partner that can stand out in these times.

All right. So let's move into order intake. If we look at our customer concentration, you can see that it's really low. Our top customers stand for 1% of our revenue, our top 10 for less than 7%. And we've also done some nice deals. So let's talk a little bit about them. If we start in Lime CRM, apart from Stadtwerke Leipzig that I've already mentioned, we can also say welcome to Kjellberg & Moller in the real estate segment. We are expanding our solution together with FALCK to support them even better in their customer journey.

In Lime Go, we have welcomed [ Handiday ] during the quarter, and we have both Skelleftea Kraft and Jonkoping ENERGI who have chosen to integrate their Lime Go solution with a Lime CRM solution, which they also have, so they can work even more seamlessly.

In Lime Connect, I would like to highlight AXA as a new customer. They are a big Cologne-based insurance company, and they have more than 1,300 branches, and we are just starting with some of them. So of course, here, a big opportunity to also expand together with the customer.

For Lime Sportadmin, we can also say welcome to one of Sweden's most iconic sports clubs, Brynas [ IF ] which we, of course, are very proud of.

All right. Let's have a look at the revenue. Looking at overall growth, we reached 12%, as we've said, same organically, 8% if we look over the last 12 months, which is 9% organically. But if we break it down by geography, let's see how it looks like. Sweden grew 9% in Q2 and 6% in the last 12 months. If we look at the rest of Europe, here, we grew 19% in Q2 and 14% last 12 months.

So of course, it's a development also from Q1 and so on, which I said, but also development of the differences here. And as I said before, I'm happy to see that we are trending in the right direction and also that we grow faster in rest of Europe compared to Sweden. It demonstrates that our vertical strategy and our product offering resonate beyond Sweden, and that is critical for our long-term growth ambitions.

So with that, handing it over to you Anders.

Thank you Tommas. So I'll go over the profit. So adjusted EBITA increased by 16% to SEK 52.1 million in the second quarter, compared to SEK 45 million last year. The adjusted EBITA margin improved to 25.4% from 24.6% last year. Then looking at the last 12 months figures, the adjusted EBITA increased by 9% from SEK 179 million to SEK 194.7 million with a margin improving to 25.2% from 25.0%.

And now moving on to our cost development. Personnel expenses, which is our largest OpEx category, amounted in the second quarter to SEK 118.4 million, an increase of 9% compared with last year. The increase was mainly driven by a higher average number of FTEs and normal annual salary increases. On a last 12 months basis, personnel expenses amounted to SEK 443.5 million, an increase of 7%, reflecting the same underlying drivers as for the quarter. Personnel expenses as a share of net sales decreased to 58% in the quarter and to 57% on a last 12 months basis reflecting a positive operating leverage.

Moving over to our operating expenses. Operating expenses in the quarter amounted to SEK 36.6 million compared with SEK 32.1 million last year, corresponding to an increase of 14%. On a last 12-month basis, other operating expenses amounted to SEK 143.2 million compared with SEK 123.7 million. The increase, both in the quarter and on a last 12-month basis primarily driven by higher product-related costs and growth-related items, including cloud and hosting services and product licenses. It also reflects continued investments in AI across our products and operations as well as other investments to support continued growth in Sweden and in our international markets.

Back to you, Tommas.

Yes. So moving into the summary and turning to our financial targets. So as you know, by now, we have reached an ARR growth of 10% compared to the target of 18%. Happy with the trend in the right direction. At the same time, we are not where we want to be. We reached an EBITA margin of 25.4%, which is lower than the 27%, which is our target. As we said on our Capital Markets Day, this margin expansion will come gradually over time, and we expect full impact in the medium term, which we -- is around 2 to 4 years.

The net debt in relation to EBITDA is 0.4 compared to the target of being below 2.5, and that gives us significant financial possibilities to invest in growth going forward. And we are growing earnings per share. And for 2025, the dividend has been set at SEK 4.5 per share, which is around SEK 60 million or 54% of the net profit, and that's above our target of at least 50%.

So to sum it up, we keep moving in the right direction, both on revenue and profit. And with that positive trend and a stronger relevance than ever, we will continue to give everything we got to keep the momentum going through the rest of the year to start with, and then hopefully continuing.

And with that, we are happy to take any questions you might have.

All right. Let's see. So first question here. Can you elaborate on the drivers in, I think, I should say, ARR, which grows well in absolute terms?

Absolutely. I would say it is very similar to what we have seen before, where Lime CRM continues to deliver in a good way and it keeps being the engine of our growth and going forward. But also, what I'm really happy to see is that we have a positive trend in all the other 3 business units that are taking right steps. And we see that in leading metrics, but we also see that reflecting the ARR.

So I would say it's a combination of many different parts. And if we break it down to the countries, I mean, Rest of Europe are growing more than in Sweden, as we were saying. And if we want to say something there, I want to highlight Germany and Norway, who are the 2 countries that are contributing most to that. All countries are growing, but that's where we get the highest growth. So that's also really nice to see.

Okay. Next question, in terms of margin, when can we see higher margin expansion and improved operating leverage.

Yes, should you or I on this? I can start. We -- I mean, as we said, we believe that this expansion will come over time. We see it as a natural thing, and it is driven by the fact that -- I mean, we see the software being a higher part of the total revenue and that has a high gross margin. So that will help the leverage of the margin. And then we also have AI who is helping us being more and more effective, and we don't need to have the same growth in the personnel expenses. And yes, we are still growing. We're still investing, especially on the commercial side on recruitment, but not in the same pace that we've done before.

Okay. Next question then. Expert Services, which tends to be early cycle is growing at a good rate, but your market comment is relatively pessimistic. However, the comments focus on the last year rather than the present. What is your current market view?

Okay. So current market view. Well, I stated in the comment that we see a little bit of longer sales cycles in Q2. We don't see a difference in demand, and we don't see a difference in the win rate. But we have had a little bit longer sales cycle where it's -- the decisions has dragged out a little bit longer than usual. And yes, that's maybe reflecting the market a little bit, but it's nuances. So I would say the market for me, very similar as it's been in the last years.

So, yes, not better, not worse. But I should say, we have been better staffed in our Expert Services department. But it's more related to also a lot of things that we have done internally and that we worked on when we saw that we had a little bit lower staffing, okay, what can we do to change personnel around and change focus and so on. So market rather similar to sum it up.

Yes. Next question then. Did I get it right that Skelleftea Kraft and Jonkoping ENERGI have integrated Lime CRM and Lime Go. If so, how does that work?

Yes, [ Fredrik ] you actually got that right. We have around 50 customers that are using both Lime Go and Lime CRM. And then they have used Lime Go for prospecting and then they used Lime CRM for customer relationship in the long-term perspective or ticketing and marketing and so on. Now thanks to our new platform that we are having, integration platform. We have a very seamless integration between the 2. So basically, data can flow much easier than it's done before, and that's what these 2 customers have expandEBITDA their solution with.

Okay. Next question. EBITA margin increased with [ 18% ] compared to Q2 last year. Can we expect margins to keep increasing for the upcoming quarters?

Yes. So a little bit similar to the question we just had. But I'm happy we're moving in the right direction, and we are increasing also earnings per share. And we're looking at long term or midterm, as we are saying, we want to get up to 27%. And we see that we will do that over the 2 to 4 years and gradually over time.

Perfect. So we have another question coming in, and it's about the new AI product, and it reads, you have developed an entirely new AI product, Lime Go Agentic. What's your view in the potential for this product? And where do you think that most customers will come from existing customer base or new sales? And then third sub-question into this question is, what impact will it have on your revenue?

Okay. I'll try to answer it as good as I can. But we are in the beta phase of this, so it's a little bit early to say. But it is an AI-first product. It is an agentic product and it's built on our experience from the CRM industry from 30 years' experience, and we're using the latest API technology. So it's very interesting. We see big possibilities with it, but it's still a pilot. So we are doing it within Lime Go, our smallest business unit. But we're trying it now. We have 1 customer who is using it as we speak. We get feedback there. So that's fantastic, move it forward. And after summer, we will start to also -- and show it to customers, new customers and existing customers, and see what kind of traction that we can get.

Perfect. So next question then. Talking about digital sovereignty trend in what products and segments do you see the greatest effect of this?

All right. I would say CRM and Connect. That's the 2 business units where we have most competitors that are U.S.-based. It's also where we see that we have most customers in like the public sector that are more and more data-sensitive customers like in the municipalities, utilities, real estate and so on. And when we -- one example is that we had actually a tender where we lost it because we had Amazon as a hosting provider. And it didn't matter that we had servers located in Sweden, which we do. But this is what they wanted.

So of course, then if they ask that from us, we know that they haven't even looked into the bigger players out there that are American-based. So although this is, of course, said in the actual tender, this is a really interesting opportunity for us. We already today have a 100% European offering, but we don't have it cloud-based yet. And that's exactly what we are working on now. So we, during the autumn can also make sure that we have a 100% European cloud-based offering and very exciting to see what these will bring us. And when we look at it, we are actually one of the biggest, if not the biggest CRM player in Europe. So yes, very excited to see what this will be.

Okay. That sums up all the questions.

All right. So then as always, don't hesitate to contact us if you have anything you want to discuss further. And with that, we wish you all a happy and fantastic summer.

Thank you.

Bye.

[Audio Gap] And joined as CEO 1st of January this year. And with me, I have Anders.

Hello. My name is Anders, and I'm the CFO at Lime, and I've been at Lime since September 2024.

And feel free to write any questions in the chat, and we will try to answer them in the end of the session.

If we look at the agenda today, it looks like this. We'll start with an overview of Lime and sum up of Q1. We'll go into the order intake, the revenue, profit and end up with a summary.

We have always been running Lime with a long-term perspective, and that has left us with a really fantastic footprint. In 25 years now, we have grown on average per year around 18%, and we've had an average EBITA margin of 25%. And of course, that's something that we're really proud of. The biggest reason why we have managed with this year after year is our people and our fantastic corporate culture. And we know that in order to win in this competitive environment, we need to be a little bit better in everything we do. And we believe in creating a culture that is great at combining high performance with a lot of care. And no matter the times, good or bad, our goal has always been the same, to help companies become really, really good at sales and customer care and help their customers in a really good way. And as a supplier, we are strongest, we combine our software and expertise so we can be a true partner to our customers.

We have 2 revenue streams, the software and the services. The ARR or annual recurring revenue coming from the software today stands for 68% of our total revenue. And we have done this for many years now, scaling our business into several markets. We started in Sweden. We grew to the Nordics. And in 2020, we entered the Netherlands, 2021 in Germany. So now we are present in 7 markets, 12 offices and we have around 500 employees. Across our products, we have more than 7,500 customers and over 1 million users.

So let me give you a sum up of Q1 2026. If we look at the numbers, we have 9% ARR growth, 25% adjusted EBITA margin and 8% organic revenue growth. On the first bullet, as I said before, we have 2 revenue streams, the software and the services. And what I'm happy to see this quarter is that there is a trend in the right direction since last quarter in both these revenue streams. On the software side, we go from around 7% in Q4 to 9% this quarter. On the services side, we had a slight negative growth in Q4 last year, and now we have a 3% growth in Q1.

Second, AI. I mean we've continued to make investments here, and we are starting to see them pay off. November last year, we released our new AI offering in Lime Connect, and we already have around 10% of the customer base that have adopted it. If we look internally, we can see concrete real improvements in our departments. For example, looking at the engineering department, some teams are running 5x the speed that we had just a few months ago. And we are going to keep investing here, and I expect us to be more productive internally and also that we incorporate more offerings in our product over the next 12 months.

And finally, Germany, our biggest addressable market by far. And as you might know, this is a strategic market for us, and I'm happy to share that we have welcomed yet another 5 new customers in the utility vertical in Lime CRM this quarter, 3 bigger cases in the Lime CRM platform and also 2 smaller ones that will start to use the new Grid Connect solution. And that shows that the acquisition we did in the beginning of this year is already giving results.

The CRM team in Germany is actually the fastest-growing team that we have in any part of Lime, and the team has really done an outstanding job. And this momentum is also a result of the investments we've made in local presence and go to market for the past 3 to 4 years. And we're just scratching the surface.

So to wrap it up, a positive trend on both revenue streams, real traction on AI and an increasingly solid position in one of Europe's most important markets. So many good things that we bring with us.

As we noted at our Capital Market Day in March, AI is no longer a trend. It's a central part of our customers' expectation of their software. But before we go into AI, it's worth reminding ourselves what our customers actually buy from us because that's far more than just the software. Approximately 20% of our offering is the tip of the iceberg, the software meeting the customer. The other 80% is everything that is beneath the surface of the iceberg, where we deliver far more than just a code.

Our customers want us to help them to become better at customer care, whether that's sales, support or other parts of the customer journey. And we are a partner to them, and we own the entire value chain. So apart from our fantastic engineers, we also have a sales engine, we have consultants who advise and help, and we have free support included.

On top of that, 30 years of CRM and customer journey expertise. We have deep vertical knowledge. We have regulatory competence with NIS2, DORA, GDPR, AI Act and so on that we build into the software. We have complex integrations. We have thousands of customer relationships built up over decades. And that -- all of that, that's our moat, and it's not something that AI can replace. But what AI can do is make the 20% at the top dramatically better. And we have the tools to make that happen.

One of our biggest challenges as a CRM supplier has always been to get sales reps and other users to actually log into the system or log into the CRM. For example, after a sales meeting to write what's happened, put up what to do. But now we are moving towards a world where all of this actually happens automatically. That means better data flowing into the system, leading to deeper insights, leading to proactive signals and ultimately higher stickiness. I believe that this will increase the relevance and the value of the CRM system.

And when we look at our customers, what we see is that they want to invest in AI, but they don't know how it should be integrated into their operations. And this is where we are a natural partner, advising and guiding them through the entire AI journey to help them improve in existing business processes. It's precisely the same positioning we've always had where we have both the software and the services, but now applied in a new way with AI.

So let's have a look at the order intake. We have done many, many nice deals during the quarter. If we look at our customer concentration to start with, you can see that it's really low. Our top customer stands for 1% of our revenue and our top 10 for less than 7%. And in the deals, starting with Lime CRM, we continue, as I said, our nice streak in German utility with 3 more customers joining, big ones, 2 of them on this slide with Hilden and Torgau. We have -- in the Membership segment, we welcome Fastighetsagarna, and when we look at the existing customers, we have [indiscernible] starting to work with the work order module. We have Varberg Energi, who started to work with the AI solution for their customer support. And last but not least, we also actually make our biggest deal ever with Goteborg Energi.

And if we go to Lime Connect, we continue to grow with our customer INTERSPORT in Austria with the Connect AI offering. We also welcome new customers, among the DPD Deutschland, which just like DHL, and also using the customer service and AI. And one nice deal to highlight in Lime Go, it's Ligula Hospitality, which is a hotel and restaurant group. They will use Lime Go for processing, pipeline management, sending quotes and signing agreements. So a great customer profile for us.

In Sports Admin, among many organizations, we have welcomed, for example, Helsingborg Hockey, [indiscernible] Vikings and [indiscernible].

And going into our revenue a little bit more deep. This slide shows the revenue stream development since 2019. And if we go actually back to 2015, we have completed several strategic transformations. First, moving new customers from upfront sales to subscriptions and later, converting existing customers from service agreements to subscriptions.

Now we are in the middle of another transformation where the software side is increasing as a share of our total revenue, which is a result of us being able to deliver technical services more efficiently. And when AI is helping us to drive the time down in our technical implementations, we can, as a result, deliver our projects faster, and that makes us even more competitive, thereby, we can leverage our software business. However, our position is the same as it's always been, and our service side is still something that is very needed and highly valued by our customers.

And if we look at the Expert Services, we are better staffed now in the department compared to the same period last year. And I expect that, that will continue to have a growth during 2026, but still that the services will decline as a share of the total revenue over the long term, consistent with our strategic shift towards higher software share. And in total, recurring revenue represents 68% of the total revenue, as I said.

And if we look at the overall growth, we reached 6% in Q1, 8% organically, and 7% or 8% organically over the last 12 months. If we break it down by geography, Sweden grew 6% in Q1, 5% last 12 months. Rest of Europe grew 8% in Q1 and 10% last 12 months. And as I said before, I'm happy to see a trend in the right direction since last quarter, and we continue to grow faster in the rest of Europe compared to Sweden, and that is also encouraging. It demonstrates that our vertical strategy and product offering resonates beyond Sweden, and we can take our offering outside of Sweden. That is critical for our long-term growth ambitions.

With that, handing over to you, Anders.

Thank you, Tommas. So starting with the profit. The adjusted EBITA in the first quarter amounted to SEK 49.9 million, corresponding to a margin of 25.0% compared to 25.1% for the same quarter last year. Looking at the LTM figures, the adjusted EBITA amounted to SEK 187.6 million compared to SEK 175.9 million, corresponding to an EBITA growth of 7%. Adjusted EBITA margin amounted to 25%, same as last year.

Now moving over to our cost development. Personnel expenses, which are our largest expense within OpEx, amounted in the quarter to SEK 115 million, an increase of 3%. Last 12 months personnel expenses amounted to SEK 433.7 million, an increase of 6%. The increase, both in the quarter and last 12 months, is mainly driven by a higher number of employees as well as normal salary indexations. Even though we have continued to invest in talent in Q1 to support our continued development of the business, the FTE growth rate last 12 months has slowed. Personnel expenses as a percentage of net sales have improved amounting to 58% on LTM basis.

So moving over to our operating expenses. Operating expenses in the quarter amounted to SEK 37.7 million compared to SEK 32.7 million last year. Expenses last 12 months amounted to SEK 138.8 million compared to SEK 124.3 million last year, corresponding to an increase of 12%. The increase both in the quarter and last 12 months is primarily driven by product-related costs and growth-related items such as AI, cloud and hosting services and product licenses as well as investments to support continued growth in Sweden and across international markets. Back to you, Tommas.

Yes. So a summary and turning to our financial targets. As you know, by now, we have reached an ARR growth of 9% compared to the target of 18%. And as I said, we're happy with the trend in the right direction. At the same time, we are not where we want to be. We reached an EBITA margin of 25%, which is lower than 27%, which is our target. And the margin expansion will come gradually over time, and we expect full impact in the medium term, which, for us, is around 2 to 4 years.

The net debt in relation to EBITA is 0.4 compared to the target of being below 2.5, of course, giving us significant financial headroom to invest in growth. We increased the result per share. And for 2025, the Board of Directors proposed a dividend of SEK 4.5 per share, which equals SEK 60 million and 54% of net profit, which is higher than our financial target of at least 50%.

To sum it up, we have really taken steps in the right direction and the trend of the growth on both the services and the software is going in the right direction. We continue to expand in Germany, and we see real and concrete value from AI, both for ourselves and our customers. And we are really looking forward with excitement towards the rest of the year.

And with that said, we open up to questions.

Yes. Perfect. So first question coming in reads, software sales in Q1 showed a positive step change in sequential growth rate. Does this reflect the rate expected for the rest of 2026?

Well, we are happy, as I said, with the growth rate going in the right direction. But I mean, if we look at our target, that is 18% on the software side and the ARR. So while we are happy with us taking steps in the right direction, I don't think it's where we want to be. Of course, the 18% is a combination of both the organic and the acquired growth, but the lion's part or the biggest part here should come from the organic growth. So no, we are not happy with this as the end goal.

Next question then. Other external expenses were up 17% year-on-year, excluding one-off items. Could you elaborate a bit around this increase? And should we expect similar increase going forward?

So as I've just mentioned, we have, in the quarter, continued to invest in our product, and at the same time, we have had costs that relate to higher sales. So you can say going forward, we will naturally have increased costs. However, they will scale over time more in relation to sales growth.

Next question. And it reads Expert Services back to growth in this quarter. Is Q1 Expert Services growth representative of our expectations for the rest of the year? Or do you expect further growth improvements?

No, I'm happy to see that the Expert Services department are better booked and that chargeability levels come up to levels that we expect. And I mean, we can't really foresee the rest of the year, but we can at least look into Q2. And if we do that, I mean, we see that we have a pace in us, and I believe we will continue to have a similar pace. So -- and the biggest difference is probably the numbers that we meet from last year, where Q1 was pretty strong last year and Q2 was not as strong last year.

Okay. Next question then. Can you quantify the value of the major German contracts and the large Swedish contract? How large are these in total?

Yes, but absolutely. And I mean, let's go into the utility segment then because that's where we proactively are focusing in Germany. And to start with, I mean, the actual market in Germany, as I said, is really, really big. So that in itself gives us a really, really interesting market. If we look at the municipalities there compared to Sweden, they are also bigger for natural reasons. And hence, the deals become bigger as well. So if you -- some kind of average, maybe double the size than a big deal in Sweden. So it's definitely something interesting. And also, what we see is actually the, what do you say, the sales cycle goes a little bit quicker in Germany compared to what it's been in Sweden. So there are a little bit different rules when it comes to tenders and so on. So that's also something that's really positive.

Okay. Good. Can you see that the utilization rate in Q2 is in line with Q1 or better for Expert Services?

Yes. So that answer is pretty similar to what I said before. I see that the utilization rate will probably be similar to what we've had during Q1. So we have a good pace. We are pretty good -- well staffed. And for what we see now is that this will continue during Q2.

Great. Next question then. What are your recruitment plans like for 2026? Will you be able to show operating leverage on the margin?

Yes. I mean, if we take the margin expansion, I would say that, that comes from 2 parts. One is that while we are getting more and more parts of our revenue coming from the software, we see a natural margin expansion since the software has a higher gross margin. And the other one is connected to AI and the fact that we are getting more and more productive with that. So we see that with the personnel that we have, we can still make a lot more and really be efficient. So yes, we don't expect our net recruitment and personnel costs to grow in the same pace as it's done before, and that will lead to the margin expansion over time.

Yes. Good. And then we have another question related to just recruitment, and it reads basically what roles have you accelerated, if any?

Yes. So we actually are telling ourselves now when we recruit, okay, but do we really need to recruit? Or can we look at an AI agent or any other way of making this more efficient instead. Where it stands out that we still really need personnel is on the commercial side and on the sales side. So if we take one part that is we recruit more in percentage-wise, definitely that's on the commercial side.

Next question then. Do you see any increased momentum outside of the utility vertical in Germany following the reference customers within utilities?

So if I understand the question correctly, it's maybe utility outside of Germany. Yes. So one other market that we really have a good growth and traction within the utility vertical is in Norway. So the biggest growth in Norway comes from the utility vertical, and we've also something that we invested in for a long time. And it's, just as in Germany, taken us a long time to be there. But we have really come in there. We are part of the tribe. And yes, we continue to make really nice deals.

Okay. Next question then. What is the feedback from the early AI adopters so far?

Yes. And we can -- let's start with Lime Connect. As I said, that we had a new AI offering in November. We actually had 3 to 4 years ago, that's when we started with the AI offering in Lime Connect, but we made it ourselves instead of a third party as of November. And it's been really, really well received, both on existing customers and new customers. And one evidence of this is, okay, we have 10% of our customer base that is actually using it now, but also that the win rate in the deals that we are in are actually around double the size compared to the last AI offering.

If we look at Lime CRM, we've gotten a very good feedback that we are really helping out in existing processes, not just putting AI on something new, but we're actually helping to make existing processes better. If you have leads coming in, okay, can we help qualifying and prioritizing those leads, for example, could we help predict any customers that might churn. It becomes very relevant to the business-critical processes that our customers have.

Great. Next question. When do you expect the improvements in the 3 smaller areas; Go, Connect, Sports Admin to contribute to higher overall ARR growth?

Yes. So what I'm really happy with is that we have really started to see the trend in the right direction for these 3 business units. As you're saying, I would like more in order for them to contribute to the growth in a better way. But if we take them one by one; Lime Go, we are really in a transformation where we are going from a small customer segment to a little bit bigger customer segment. And we are seeing kind of the tail of the churn for this smaller segment. So that is really nice, and it's helping us.

When we look at Lime Connect, I've already talked about the AI offering. That's the big thing that will help us drive that. And in Lime Sport Admin, we have really been able to focus in 2026 on prospecting, on talking with a lot of new customers and also to get the development speed really up that can help us get new modules out and also help us with the expansion and internationalization in the Netherlands. So that's how I see it coming.

Perfect. Next question then. You have launched several agents recently, including in customer support, sales and marketing within Lime CRM. How strong is the business case for customers adopting them? Can you share some flavor on adoptions rate or potential upsell?

Yes. I mean what is really -- what I really like, as I said, is that we see a positive feedback from the ones that have started it, both as you were mentioning here, the agents that are helping out in the prospecting, in churn prevention, in customer support and so on. We don't disclose exact numbers on it. But what we can say is that we build not only the generic agents, but also go down into each vertical to see, okay, how can we improve the processes for utility companies, for real estate companies and so on. So that makes it, of course, even more focused, and we get good feedback on that as well.

Yes. Perfect. I think we have answered all the questions that -- there are some questions that are similar. So that's why we have already answered them. So that's it.

So with that said, then, thank you so much for listening in, and wish you all a great day.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Q4 update with Lime Technologies. My name is Tommas Davoust. I've been at Lime since 2017 and joined or started as CEO 1st of January this year. And with me, I have Anders.

Hello, everyone. My name is Anders. I've been at Lime since September 2024, and I'm CFO.

Fantastic. Feel free to write any questions in the chat, and we will try to answer them in the end of the session. If we look at the agenda, we'll start with an overview of Lime and the sum up of Q4 and 2025. We'll go into the order intake. We look at the revenue. We'll go through the profit, and we'll finish off with a summary.

And let's start with an overview of Lime. We have always been running Lime with a long-term perspective, and that has left us with this fantastic footprint. In 25 years now, we have grown on average with 18%. We have had an average EBITA margin of 25%. And of course, that's something that we are really proud of. And I would say that the biggest reason why we have managed with this year after year is our people and our great corporate culture. And we know that in order to win in the competitive environment that we are playing in, we need to be a little bit better in everything we do. And we believe in creating a culture that is great at combining high performance with a lot of care. And no matter the times, good or bad, our goal has always been the same, to help companies become really, really good at sales and customer care so they can help their customers in a really good way in their customer journey.

And as a supplier, we are strongest when we combine our software and our expertise so we can be a true partner to our customers. We have 2 revenue streams, the software and the licenses. And if you look at the software side, the ARR coming from that, it stands for 68% of our total revenue. And we have done this for many years now, starting in Sweden and scaling our business into several markets, now growing into Nordics; and since 2020, also entered the Netherlands; and 2021, in Germany.

Now, we are present in 7 markets, 12 offices, and we have around 500 employees. Across our products, we have more than 7,500 customers and over 1 million users. And let me give you a sum up of Q4 and the full year of 2025. We delivered another quarter with profitable growth in a challenging market. Market conditions have been difficult for a couple of years now, and we entered 2025 believing it would improve during the year. We can conclude that it did not, not in a major way anyway.

And in Q4, revenue growth amounted to 5%, EBITDA margin to 25% and our ARR growth to 7%. However, adjusted for currency, the ARR growth was 10%. And if we look at our overall revenue growth, it was held back by the services side. On the services side, we see that the revenues declined 3.9% in the quarter and 2.3% for the full year. But if we zoom in on the software side, that was 10% growth in Q4, 13% for the full year, showing that despite headwinds, we continue to have a competitive offering and grow faster than the market.

And despite a modest sales growth, we increased our results per share, and our overall financial position allows us to increase dividend. The Board of Directors proposes a dividend of SEK 4.5 per share, which equals SEK 60 million and 54% of the net profit. If we go into the highlights, one that I want to point out is that we continue our expansion in Germany and the utility segment. We made another 2 deals. I will come back to them on the order intake. And we also made a smaller strategic acquisition of a portal solution with an established customer base in the German utility sector. This solution simplifies the process of connecting new customers to various utility networks, and that will further strengthen our position with both new and existing customers.

Second bullet, in order to accelerate, I mean, our execution, we are clarifying mandates and growth agendas for all business units. Each unit is expected to meet the Rule of 40, meaning a combined growth and profit margin above 40%, some will prioritize growth acceleration, others margin expansion, but all should contribute to our overall value creation for customers and for the Lime Group. I'm also happy to welcome 2 new business unit directors: Lime -- Lukas in Lime Go, bringing strong sales expertise; and Hanna in Sportadmin with a deep experience in M&A and international expansion, both critical capabilities for our next phase of growth.

And AI, and where many see AI as a threat to established software solution, we see it as a great opportunity. We have genuine competitive advantages that generic AI cannot replicate. If we take the combination of our software and the expertise, where we have the human touch, we have our vertical experience, we have a lot of compliance and regulations that we need to live up to. We have the data that is owned by the customer and that we can work with, and we have deep integrations.

So with AI, we see that we can deliver more value faster, both internally and to our customer. And we are continuously working here to launch new value, new features, and they are met with really, really good interest. In Lime Connect, we released our own AI platform in November, and we've already closed around 40 deals there. We have introduced AI agents in Lime CRM. We have introduced AI-powered sales features in Lime Go. And I believe that 2026 is the year where AI is moving from investment to even more of a revenue driver.

So going into the order intake. And if we look first of our customer concentration, you can see that, that is really low. Our top 10 customer stands for less than 7%, and our biggest customer stands for less than 1%. And we've also done some really nice deals in the quarter, and we can start with Lime CRM. We continue our streak in German utility, as I said, and 2 more customers joining. Iqony is our biggest deal of the year. And Langenfeld is another Stadtwerke, rather close to Cologne, where we have our office.

In the real estate segment, we welcome CATENA and Heimstaden, who both will use our commercial real estate solution, helping them manage the leasing of commercial properties. The highlight in Lime Connect is that we've also gained some traction in the utility segment, and we have done 2 nice deals here, Stadtwerke Julich and Enpal. Enpal is actually one of the biggest deals ever done in Lime Connect.

One deal to highlight in Lime Go is Wexman. They sell professional workwear. They have a sales team of around 10 persons and a lot of volume in the sales transaction. That is a really great customer profile for us in Lime Go.

In Sportadmin, among many others, we welcome Falkenbergs and Vaxjo Vipers. And Vaxjo is a bit of extra fun for me since I've met them a lot of times playing floorball in younger days.

All right. Moving on to revenue. So this slide shows revenue stream development since 2019. And starting back in 2015, we have completed several strategic transformations. First, moving new customers from upfront sales to subscription, later converting existing customers from service agreements to subscription. And subscription revenue is growing steadily. In Q4, we had a 12% growth for that. In the last 12 months, we have 15% growth. Service agreement is going down and now stands for only 2%. In total, the recurring revenue represents 68% of our total revenue, and that is up from 65% in Q4 last year, bringing us closer to our target of 70% subscription-based revenue.

And as I said, Expert Services declined. And in Q4, we had minus 3.9% and minus 2.3% for the full year. This reflects 2 factors. One is the softer market condition that we have in professional service that we are seeing. And the other one is our own efficiency improvements. AI is helping us deliver implementations faster, of course, then reducing implementation time, making us more competitive. So services, they remain highly valued by our customers, and they really want us to help with holding their hands, with project management and so on. But when we can do technical deliveries faster, it allows us to drive more leverage through our software business.

And if we look into 2026, I expect Expert Services to have a modest growth with services continuing to decline as a share of the total revenue in the long term, consistent with our strategy towards a shift with higher software share. And our revenue, as I've said, 5% in Q4, 8% over the last 12 months. If we break this down by geography, Sweden grew 2% in Q4, 6% the last 12 months; rest of Europe, 13% in Q4 and 12% last 12 months. As I said before, a modest growth overall, but strong performance in rest of Europe is really encouraging. It demonstrates that our vertical strategy and product offering resonates beyond Sweden, which is critical for our long-term growth ambitions.

And with that, over to you, Anders.

Yes. Thank you, Tommas. Thank you, Tommas. So looking into the profit, the adjusted EBITA in the fourth quarter reached 25.3% compared to 25.8% for the same quarter last year. The EBITDA margin of 25.3% compared to an even stronger margin last year is explained by lower sales in Expert Services, partly offset by an increase in software-related revenues.

Looking at the last 12 months figures, adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 184.9 million compared to SEK 172 million. Last 12 months adjusted EBITDA margin amounted to 25%, in line with our financial targets.

And then going over to our OpEx development. Looking on the left-hand side first, personnel expenses in the quarter amounted to SEK 112.9 million, an increase of 7%. The increase is mainly due to higher number of employees compared to last year. Last 12 months, personnel expenses amounted to SEK 430.4 million, an increase of 9%. Adjusted for the acquisition of Plan Plan made in December 2024, personnel expenses increased by 8%. The increase in the last 12 months as for the quarter is explained by a higher number of employees. Cost per employee has remained stable, increasing broadly in line with inflation.

Going forward, we will continue to invest in growth and talent, but at a slightly slower pace than the current increase. As the share of recurring revenue grows, we expect our cost base to develop more efficiently relative to revenue, strengthening our long-term margin profile.

Then, on the right-hand side, we have our operating expenses. Operating expenses in the quarter amounted to SEK 34.9 million compared to SEK 32.4 million last year. Last 12 months figures amounted to SEK 133.7 million compared to SEK 120.2 million last year, corresponding to an increase of 11%. Adjusted for the acquisition, the increase was 10%. The increase both in the quarter and last 12 months is primarily driven by external product-related costs and growth-related items such as cloud and hosting services and product licenses as well as investments to support international expansion.

Back to you, Tommas.

Yes. So turning to our financial targets. So as you know, by now, we have reached a growth of 8% over the last 12 months compared to the target of 18%. We have reached an EBITDA margin of 25% over the last 12 months, in line with our target. The net debt in relation to EBITDA is 0.6 compared to the target of being below 2.5. We increased the result per share. And for 2025, the Board of Directors proposes a dividend of SEK 4.5 per share, equals around SEK 60 million and 54% of our net profit, which is higher than the financial target of at least 50%.

And to sum it up, Q4 closed a challenging but important year for us. We delivered profitable growth with a 25% EBITA margin. We won several strategic customers and deals with not least within our core verticals. We are not 100% satisfied with the growth rate in all our business areas, but we now have a really strong team. We have a clear focus and a good foundation to build on in 2026.

And with that, we open up for some questions.

All right. So we have the first question here. Some lower software-related revenue growth in Q4. Do you think this is related to expert services and upselling or new sales? Do you still see new sales performing well? How was the beginning of Q1 started? So 2 questions.

Yes. But let's give you some flavor on that. Well, first and foremost, we had some currency effect as in the ARR, as I said, 7%, but 10% adjusted for currency. But -- I mean, we continue to have a rather stable, I would say, growth. If we look into our business units, Lime CRM continue to have solid growth, both on new sales and on existing customers. We're not 100% happy with -- if we look into Lime Connect, where we have been a little bit hit by AI that we have had with a third party before, our solution. We have changed that, as I mentioned, quickly as well in November to our own AI solution and AI platform.

And as I said, 40 deals closed since November. So we're seeing a nice trend there. And if we look at Sportadmin, what in -- for last year, we also were hit by the criminal hacker attack and that has had some effect on us. And we see that we haven't been able to spend as much time on new customers, but we have spent and holding our hands of our existing customers. So in both wise, it also has some effect.

Okay. Perfect. So second question then, can you elaborate on how you're transforming Lime CRM with AI agents?

Yes, absolutely. So when it comes to the AI agents, we are really focusing on building something that gives a lot of value for our customers. So looking into specific processes that they are already working on, how can they make that even more efficient. So for example, say, in the ticketing and help us, when you get a ticket and if you can help them set up a solution that helps them summarize the ticket, suggest the category that you should place it in, suggest maybe an e-mail answer that, of course, makes things easier for our customers and gives a really hands-on value. And then, we try to -- we take it into our verticals to build vertical-specific solutions, and you can build up a lot of different value when it comes to the AI agents.

Perfect. Next question then, do you have any comments on the currency effect? It seems to have a fairly clear impact on the results.

Yes, there was a currency effect in the quarter. Our sales growth, adjusted for currency impact, was 7%, that's 2% higher than reported sales. The euro is our biggest foreign currency amounting to about 20% of total revenue, followed by other currencies, I would say, around 10%. As a result, movements in the euro have the most significant translation impact on our reported figures.

And then, next question we have, it reads, despite rather soft market conditions, you add more new employees this year in January compared to last. Why is that?

When it comes to recruitment, we always are investing in that to be able to grow long term. And when we dig into it, we, of course, also have people that are leaving us throughout the year. So the net though is not necessarily higher this year. We have -- don't have that many more employees going into this year compared to last year. And you can also see a shift in how we are focusing more to get on the sales side, as we've talked about as well to see a higher portion of the ones coming in to working on the sales side.

Okay. Good. So our next question, what's your view on the future of the seat-based pricing model? And how that fits into future where agents do a lot of work that was done manually before?

Yes. Good question. And we'll follow this for quite a few years, to be honest. And first and foremost, we have started to do some transformations. If we look into our verticals, for example, the real estate segment, instead of seat-based, we can offer solutions that is more based on the real estate number of houses that they have. And same when you look at membership, for example, instead of looking at seats, we can offer based on how many members do you work. So we are doing that. At the same time, we are actually looking into how it fluctuates here because we also see that we still have a lot of increase in seats. And in most segments, we have more increase in seats than what it actually takes us down. So we are watching this one closely and making changes over time and in a very strategic and proactive way, I would say.

Good question. All right. Let's see if we have another question. Yes. As new CEO, what's your main focus going forward? What will change with you as a leader?

Yes. I mean, I've been here for almost 10 years and a part of the management team for the past 6 years. And last, I've been responsible for Lime CRM, which stands for more than 70%. So having that said, I feel like I've really been a part of the strategy and what the choices we have done. But of course, there are a few things that I would like to focus on. And to highlight a few, as I mentioned, push out mandates and decisions and responsibility even more to our business units and also to our different countries, our different verticals and so forth.

If we can do that, I believe we can run faster, we can be even more engaged and be closer to decisions. So that's one thing. Second one is to continue to really be the expert everywhere we can, continue with our verticalization, where we see we have a really nice traction. We see that our customers stay with us for a long time. We see that we have higher win rates and so on. So continue that journey.

And then, we have also, I mean, the transformation. We talked about that today as well that where the software is growing as a part of the total revenue share. And first goal now is to take it up to 70%. And I believe that that's a natural development that we will see over time.

Okay. Perfect. So we have another question coming in. It reads, you made a small acquisition in January. What does the acquisition pipeline look like in 2026?

Yes. So we have a small team working with this. And we are meeting new prospects or possible acquisitions every week. So we have a continuous pipeline in this, and we have 2 main strategies. One is on the international expansion of Sportadmin. And as you know, with the Plan Plan is according to that strategy, where we entered the Netherlands in Sportadmin. And we continue to look for similar types of acquisitions around Europe.

And the other one is for Lime CRM, when we are looking at different ways of completing our whole offering, making it even better and maybe more competitive. So we're looking into that, but we are not rushing. It needs to be the right fit. We, of course, need to find the right culture. We need to find the right product fit and the right valuation. So we're not rushing it, but definitely high on our agenda as well.

Okay. Perfect. So next question then, the privacy protection authority, IMY it is in this case, has imposed sanctions of SEK 6 million on Sportadmin following the last year's cyber attack. How does this affect the organization, is the first one? And the second question in this is, how are customers reacting?

Yes. I mean, as I think most know, we were attacked by a criminal network here around a year ago. And first and foremost, we are really sorry for everyone affected, both our employees and our customers. And as you said, we reached -- or got an imposed sanction. And we do not agree with the IMY's decision, and we are currently investigating whether we will appeal or not.

IT security has always been high on the agenda for us, both now and then. And despite that, they did manage to reach into our systems. So at an even higher pace, we have implemented necessary changes, and I mean, now stand stronger than ever. And if you take, as you said, internally as well, of course, this has been something that we have focused on a lot, really holding our customers' hand during the year. And that has taken a focus and energy from everyone involved. But I think we're all looking forward to really turn the table, so to say, and look forward.

Okay. I think we have one more question in the chart here. So you have a clear goal to become more international. Could you comment on the split between Sweden and rest of Europe?

Yes, sure. So I mean, first and foremost, all markets that we go into, we know we've done that organically more or less on the CRM side, and then, we have had a few more outside of Sweden in the end. But all markets should help us grow in the next 5 to 10 years when we go in there. And when we have done it, we've done it better and better for each market. If we take from standing from point zero, so to say.

And our goal is to be market leaders in each different markets that we go into for our specific verticals. And we have been better and better to go in more focused. So -- I mean, with the latest now, the traction that we see in Germany, I think, is a really, really good example of this. We really said from the beginning, let's focus on the utility segment, and it has taken time, but it has really paid off. And now, we are really someone who is taking ground on that market.

If we look at the other one, just some more flavor. Norway, also good traction, both in the utility sector and in the wholesale. Finland has had a tough market for some years, but we have seen a little bit better trends in the last period. And actually, we also had a quite stable growth. We are not happy with the Netherlands and Denmark, where we can accelerate the growth from where we are and looking into being more specific in our verticals there.

All right. Perfect.

That was it. Fantastic. So if you haven't seen it yet, then we have a Capital Market Day coming up, 4th of March. And really hope that if you haven't already registered, please do so. And hopefully, we can meet there. And -- yes.

Yes. With that, we would like to say thank you for listening in. And please touch base if you have any further questions to either Tommas or myself. And that's all.

Perfect, as always, don't hesitate to contact us if you have any things that you want to discuss further. Have a fantastic day, everyone.

So good morning, everyone, and welcome to Lime Technologies Q3 update. My name is Nils, and I've been with the company since 2006, and been running as CEO since 2021.

And we also have Anders here.

Yes. And my name is Anders. I've been at Lime since September last year.

Perfect. Thanks for that, Anders. And I mean, if you have any questions, just feel free to write them in the chat in the end, and we will answer them at the end of this call.

So before we jump into the more details of Q3, let's always start with this fantastic overview. And as you know, we've been always been running Lime with a very long-term perspective, and that has left us with a fantastic footprint. In more than 20 years now, we've been growing, and in average, 19% per year, with an EBITDA margin of 25% in average per year. And that's something that I'm really, really proud about.

But no matter how, more or less, big we've been, how many markets we had, how many customers we had, we more or less always have had the same goal. And that is to help our customers to become really strong in sales and marketing and in customer care, so they can help their customers in a good way. And we do it at our best, I would say, when we combine really strong software and our expertise within specific verticals. So we can help -- really helping our customers within their core processes.

We've been doing this for many years now, and we've been scaling our business more or less international from 2010, we opened up Norway and Finland. We opened up Denmark in 2014. And also went a little bit more south into Europe in 2020, starting up Netherlands and then in '21 in Germany. And the latest years here with the acquisitions, we have welcomed Lime Connect in '21, Sportadmin and Plan Plan in '24 as a part of the Lime Group.

So looking at this today, we have over 1 million users of our software. We have a long tail of customers, over 7,500 customers. Today, we are present in 7 countries, 12 offices, with more than 500 employees. And looking at some of our key success factors, I think that more or less starting from the bottom, I think what makes Lime really unique is the strong corporate culture. That's something that we fuel with the onboarding programs every year, and something that is really key for our growth going forward.

As I said, we have a big customer base, but also a sticky customer base. So the top 10 customers stands for less than 7%. We are also increasing the share of recurring revenue. So today, it's 76% of the total revenue or recurring revenue. So it's a stable foundation in the bottom, and something that we believe in is long-term profitable growth combining growth and profit over time, and that has left us with this footprint.

So let's dig in then to the Q3 report. And starting with the numbers, of course. We have a revenue growth in the quarter that amounts 11%. We have an EBITDA margin of 25% and an ARR growth of 13%. And putting some color on the quarter. I would say, in general, I'm happy to see a good progress in Q3. The market climate in general is a little bit challenging given the global situation. But if we're more or less focusing on what we can control, what we can affect, we are ramping up our sales activities in a really good way, direct after the holiday period, and also ending the quarter with winning, I would say, several key customers, both on the domestic market but also on the international market.

Over the last quarters, we've been having a good momentum in new sales, and that's something that I've been talking about more or less in all these calls. We see a little bit different this quarter, where we also see a little bit better activity among our existing clients. And this combination leads to an improved overall growth, which, of course, I would say, is really positive.

Going in a little bit to our products and looking into our flagship product, Lime CRM, I think we continue to demonstrate a really competitive strength in the product, and that we also can see that we are validating our vertical strategy, which is focused, as you know, on utility, real estate, wholesale and membership organizations.

Looking at our offerings too, and yes, going in a little bit on the utility market. We've been doing the Nordic offering for many years, and the offering towards Nordic utility companies remain highly competitive. We will come back to show you a couple of deals later on. But this is also true in -- on the German market, where we both have like the individual deal sizes are bigger. But also if you look at the overall market size are sustainably larger than the Nordic region. And in Q2, we had a great success with winning 2 utility companies on the German market. And now we are very happy to welcome another one, ÜZ Mainfranken, an all-time high deal when it comes to actually scope. So that's something that I'm really happy about in the quarter.

Something that I said also makes, I would say, more and more clarity, is the verticalization. And that truly is a successful combination of when you combine software and deep industry expertise. This enable us to address mission-critical processes for our customers. And then it's also there, we create real value, strengthening both, I would say, our own, but also our customers' competitiveness.

At the same time, the approach directly supports when it comes to AI, and it's been a lot of talk and discussion about that the last couple of months because when you are -- when we understand the specific processes, the decision points that are defined in each vertical, we know exactly where AI can help out and make the biggest difference for our customers. And that allow us to, more or less, to embed AI as a natural part of our platform, rather than just adding 1 or 2 or 3 features in the software.

So the increased software -- increased efficiency that we've had and what we can offer our customer also opens up, I would say, and that's another discussion for new pricing models. We are talking about, okay, the way that the software industry has been working for many years with a seat-based pricing model, where we are elaborating and looking into, okay, how can we do the pricing going forward in different verticals? Should it be based on property portfolio? Should it be based on number of members in the membership organization? And that's something that we will continue to elaborate with going forward.

So let's then look into the agenda. And as you know, we are always looking into the order intake. We are looking into the revenue. Anders will talk about the profit, and then we will do a sum up in the end before we hand over for Q&A.

So looking into the order intake then. And as I've communicated, our customer concentration is still low. Today, our top 10 customer stands for around 6.2%, and our biggest customer stands from 0.8% of the total revenue. And I continue to say this, that in this kind of tougher market climate, I think it's very good because we're not depending on 1 or 5 or 10 big customers. Instead, we are doing deals with many customers each month, each quarter, every year in different regions, in different verticals.

As I mentioned, the market climate more or less remains the same as before. In general, we have seen good development in new sales in some quarters, especially on the Lime CRM side. And this quarter, we see a little bit more business activities towards existing clients. And of course, that's something that has that kind of positive effect on the growth side.

We are welcoming several important new customers in Lime CRM, both in the home market and internationally. And I'm really, really glad to see that the long-term strategy and efforts are paying off when it comes to verticalization. This quarter, as I said, we are welcoming the big utility company in Germany, ÜZ Mainfranken. But also if we look at the other regions where we're focusing on utility, we have in Norway, R-nett AS, a really nice utility deal. But also here in Sweden, where we have a really good market share, Sörmland Vatten och Avfall, also a very nice customer. If we look also in -- more on the Danish market where we have a different focus on verticalization, we're more focusing on membership organization, I'm pleased to see that in Q3, we are welcoming 2 strong brands in the membership organization.

And from a Connect perspective, where we see that we are mostly in Germany, we are welcoming important customers [ TUI Cruises ]. And also, I would say something that I think is quite interesting going forward, where we're also in Lime Connect, are winning Stadtwerke [indiscernible]. That's also something, okay, how will we then elaborate this going forward with Lime CRM and Lime Connect.

If we focus a little bit on Lime Connect, I think that we have a big and important launch of our new AI service coming up here. And that's something that will be important going forward this fall and also, of course, in the beginning of next year, that we have a good rollout of that new services. We will help the customers with faster response times. We will have smarter assistance and a more intuitive, I would say, user experience. Looking into the feedback, of course, we tried it with several customers. And so far, the feedback is good.

From a Sportadmin perspective, you'll see some nice logos at the bottom of the slide. We see that we have started the Q3 -- that we started the Q3 with a better new sales compared to the spring. And I think that's very positive to get back in that kind of momentum. I'm also pleased to see that we are closing deals both on the Swedish market, of course, where we have a very strong position, but that we also started the fall with closing a couple of new customers in Netherlands.

From a more feature perspective and functionality, we have that kind of combination that we would like to both serve the grassroot clubs, which is the majority of all, but also, of course, the elite clubs. Therefore, it feels really good, from a product perspective, that we can now support the leisure activity card. Maybe from a Swedish perspective, you'll know Fritidskortet if you have kids, to make more kids be able to do sports. And also from more like, okay, more -- a little bit more focusing on the elite side, improved scheduling and match booking functionalities in the software.

So moving over to revenue and starting with the ARR. And as a product company, of course, as you know, it's very important to look at the ARR growth. And this is something that we will follow even more closely as we -- as one of our core KPIs going forward. We are continuing our long-term transition more or less, where we are constantly improving our platform. And because of this, we can deliver customizations, integrations and workflows much faster to our customers. This gradually reduces the proportion of Expert Services and strengthen our recurring revenue.

As a part of this strategic shift, we are welcoming 35 new employees in August. And the big difference here is it's a little bit more emphasized on the sales side compared to previous year where we have a lot of -- have had a lot of focus on the Expert Services side. And this investment, in general, is aimed to more or less fuel the future growth and also where we hope to improve margins going forward.

Looking into our subscription alone, we are growing that by 16% compared to Q3 '24. For you who have been following us for a while, you see that we have a decline there of 39% when it comes to service agreements, and that's according to plan. We are still transferring customers from the old service agreement into subscriptions, and that is something that we will continue going forward as well. In total, this builds up to a growth of ARR of 13%.

Looking at the recurring revenue, and this more or less shows the development of our different revenue streams since 2018. As I said, subscription is growing 16% in Q3, last 12 months, 20%. Service agreement stands for 2%, and as I said, continue that kind of transformation. And in total, that adds up to 67% recurring revenue. Upfront, more or less same as previous quarters, less than 1%.

And in Expert Services, we see an improvement in relation to Q2 '25. In Q2, we delivered, more or less, flat growth. I think it's a little bit positive, which is nice, of course, of 1%, compared to the drop there in Q2. And today, Expert Services stands for around 32% of the total revenue. And we want Expert Services to continue to grow, but in the long run, decrease as a part of the total net sales.

So looking into the review and give a little bit flavor on that as well. And as I mentioned, we have 11% in Q3, and the last 12 months is also 11%. If we look at the split between the segments, Sweden is growing by 8% and the Rest of Europe, 18%. And looking, I mean, we are still a little bit behind our target here, and deviation between outcome and expectations are mainly in Expert Services, where we see that, yes, a little bit growth of 1% or so in the quarter.

The main reason for that is still the same as before, mainly affected by the technical development that I mentioned, that our platform makes it easier to do implementation, integration, customization, which is very positive from our customers' point of view. But of course, it's also that we are affected by the macro climate where we are having harder time. And still, that's true making sales towards existing customers, even if Q3 was slightly better compared to previous quarters. So looking at the last 12 months, we grew 11% in Sweden and 12% in Rest of Europe.

So Anders, let's talk a little bit about profit.

Thank you. Then I go over to the profit slide. We have the adjusted EBITDA in the quarter. Third quarter reached 25% compared to 24.8% for the same quarter of the year before. The increase in EBITDA margin in the quarter is mainly driven by a higher share of recurring revenue in relation to total revenue.

Looking at the last 12 months figures, EBITDA amounted to SEK 183.5 million compared to SEK 164.5 million. Last 12 months, adjusted EBITDA margin amounted to 25.1%. Thus, we continue to deliver an EBITDA margin in line with our financial targets.

Going over to the OpEx development. Personnel expenses in the quarter amounted to SEK 90.1 million (sic) [ SEK 97.2 million ], an increase of 8%. The increase is explained by a higher number of employees compared to last year. Last 12 months, personnel expenses amounted to SEK 422.5 million, an increase of 11%. Adjusted for the acquisitions of Sportadmin and Plan Plan, the last 12 months personnel expenses increased by 8%, which is again, explained by a higher number of employees. The increase in personnel expenses, both in the quarter as well as last 12 months, reflects our continued investments in staff and employee activities that enable us to further grow our business both in the short and long term.

Then on the right-hand side, you can see our operating expenses. Operating expenses in the quarter amounted to SEK 34 million compared to SEK 26.5 million last year. The cost is higher compared to last year, but it's in line with our -- with previous quarters this year. Operating expenses in the last 12 months amounted to SEK 131.2 million, which is an increase of 15%. Adjusted for the acquisitions of Sportadmin and Plan Plan, the last 12 months increase amounts to 13%. The remaining cost increase primarily reflects investments in marketing and sales activities to support our international expansion journey. Furthermore, expenses related to growth, such as cloud and hosting services, product-related licenses and IT systems and the larger workforce also contributed to the increase.

Perfect. Thanks a lot for that, Anders. And last slide before we jump into the Q&A. And as you can see, we have the last 12 months, a growth of 11%, and that could be compared then to the medium target of 18%. We reached an EBITDA margin of 25% over the last 12 months, more or less in line with target. Net debt in relation to EBITDA is 0.6 compared to the goal there of 2.5. And as for '24, we have a dividend corresponding to 60% out of net profit compared to the goal of at least 50%.

So more or less to sum it up then, and starting with zooming out a bit, I would say our goal going forward is clear. We, of course, want to strengthen growth. I'm happy to see that we are moving in the right direction here and making improvements in Q3. Two, I think that we are -- we would like to increase the recurring revenues over time. And three, that we would like to continue to deliver mission-critical value to our customers across Europe, especially focusing on specific verticals. That's the long term.

Zooming in a bit on the third quarter, we see, which I'm really happy about, that good levels of activities towards our customers direct after the vacation period, several nice deals and strategic important deals, both domestic and international, and modest increase to willingness to invest among existing customers. And that we are seeing that we are continuing already this quarter to do the shift towards increased recurring revenue.

I would say that all of these are things that I feel that, yes, let's continue doing them and bring with us that into the last quarter, and that will help us to close the year in a good way. So let's -- thank you, everyone, for listening in, and let's go over to some questions.

Yes. And we have one question -- first question coming in. How large is the German deal on average compared to the Lime Germany?

How -- could you take that again?

How large is a German deal on average compared to Lime?

No. But I think that we, more or less, in some areas, of course, it depends on the segment. Now we -- but I think we are referring to this utility deal. I think that we see more or less that it's double size compared to many of the deals that we do on the domestic market, which is, of course, very positive for us.

We see that in the German market, it remains a lot of the Swedish market or maybe also the Norwegian in one way or another, that -- but we see a little bit like shorter sales cycles, which is really strong. We see that as the question was about, the deals are bigger. And we also see that we have a very big market on the German market. So I think all these 3 is positive.

Okay. Next question then. Shouldn't you increase your investment into Germany, considering the momentum there?

Good question. Yes, we should, and that's something that we are working on. So we would like to increase both on sales and on consultancy when it comes to implementation because it's really important now in the beginning to really like -- of course, it's always important. But to really help our customers, holding their hands throughout the process and be close to the customers. So we need to both increase capacity on the sales side and in Expert Services. We have also more or less hired more now a local marketer that can help us to build on this going forward. So I think that -- I totally agree, investment should be focused on that area, and that's something that we are working on.

Looking into the recruitment, of course, we have a stronger brand on the Swedish or Nordic market, from a recruitment perspective. Therefore, we are actively looking all the time. It's more like, more outbound in that area. Still, I think it's really important not only to look for resources, but continue to build a really strong foundation when it comes to culture. So even if we would like resources now, don't stress it, we need also to build a great company over time.

Perfect. Next question then. Do you think the better activity among existing clients that you saw in Q3 could be specific to this quarter or a sign of better times ahead?

I mean, of course, you are always optimistic in that sense that you always hope that this is something that will continue. I think that we've been hoping that for a very long time period now, if you go back like 6 months or even 12 or 18 months back, that yes, now we see something changing.

What I feel that, yes, we had a better momentum, but I think that we just need to focus on the things that we can impact. And that's [indiscernible] seen in Expert Services, staying close to our customers all the time. That's when we help our customers at our best. [indiscernible] side, we focus on activities, customer meetings. And one thing that we've done a little bit different now in Q3 was more fares in all our business units. So hard to say if the market will stay in this shape or even get better or worse.

All right. Next question then. There was a good growth in Expert Services outside Sweden during the quarter. What would you attribute this to? And is it related to any specific markets?

It's more or less that when we do good deals, we've been doing that both on the Norwegian market, we've been doing it in Germany, we've been doing it in Finland. I think, of course, that helps out to gain growth on the Expert Services side, which is very positive.

Something that we see in that kind of kind of area where -- I'm happy to see the progress in these 3 markets that I said. I still think that we can do better, both on the Danish market. Now we have good progress with the deals that we closed, the 2 membership organization, but that's a market where we can have more pacing. And also, if we look at the market in Netherlands, that's also one market where I think that we can improve going forward. Norway, Finland and Germany, from a Lime CRM perspective, I think we see better progress.

Okay. Next question then. Can you elaborate on the cash flow from operating activities in the quarter?

Yes. The difference is primarily explained by the changes in working capital, where the corresponding quarter last year was positively impacted by calendar effects. Specifically, as June 30 last year fell on a weekend, some customer payments were received in early July, which benefited cash flow in Q3 last year. In addition, cash flow in the quarter was negatively impacted by approximately SEK 5 million related to paid social security costs, following the completion of the share savings program this year.

Let's see next question. Yes. You are quite optimistic regarding both new sales activity and demand from current customers. Is this is mainly due to a general improvement in the market or rather a result of things Lime has done?

It reminds a little bit on the last question. But I think that we should be proud on actually how we act because I think that's the difference on how you restart the organization is very much up to yourself after when you come back from vacation in August. And that I would like to really praise, I would say, the organization for having that kind of -- starting with competition, starting with a high level of activity already more or less from the first week back. So that's something that I think that I'm really proud of.

As I said, we saw a little bit signs that, yes, the market is a little bit better towards existing clients. But I also think that we should be humble to that and say, okay, let's see if that's one quarter or if that is something that will continue going forward. So I'll leave that for now.

Let's see if we have some maybe a final question here. This one here. Sweden grew 8% year-on-year, while the Rest of year grew 18% year-on-year. Do you feel like these are normalized growth numbers for each region that should be expected going forward as well?

I think, I mean, in some markets, I mean the Sweden stands for still the majority of all revenue. So I think it's -- of course, that's the big part. And if some deals are done and also big implementation projects are done in the Rest of Europe, that will, of course, affect the growth numbers going forward on these markets as well. So -- but normally, I mean, we should have a higher growth. That's what I expect, that we should have a higher growth in Rest of Europe compared to the Swedish market. That's the fuel that we put in, and that's the market that should serve us for a very long time when it comes from a growth perspective. Still, I think that the Swedish market has a lot of growth potential as well. But since the other one comes from smaller numbers, I think that, of course, should we have a higher growth.

Good. Thanks a lot for listening in. And I mean, if there is more questions that you feel that you would like to have answered, never hesitate. Then you can just give me or Anders a call or send an e-mail, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

So thanks again for listening in, and see you soon. Bye-bye.

Thank you.