Q1 2024 Paltalk Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Kara Jenny; CFO & Director; Paltalk Inc

Jason Katz; Chairman of the Board, President, CEO, & COO; Paltalk Inc

Presentation

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Paltalk first quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, CFO, Kara Jenny. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Kara Jenny

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Powell talk Operating and Financial Results Conference Call for the First Quarter ended March 31st, 2024. By now, everyone should have access to the earnings results press release, which was issued earlier today at approximately 8:30 A.M. Eastern time. This call is being webcast and will be available for replay in our remarks today, we will include statements that are considered forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including forward-looking statements about future results of operations, business strategies and plans, our relationships with our customers as well as market and potential growth opportunities. In addition, management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions.
Forward-looking statements are based on management's current knowledge and expectations as of today and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions related to factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. We offer no assurance that these expectations and beliefs will prove to be correct.
A detailed discussion of such risks and uncertainties are contained in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent quarterly reports on Form 10 Q and annual report on Form 10-K. You should refer to and consider these factors when relying on such forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake and expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.
On this call, we will refer to adjusted EBITDA a non-GAAP measure that when used in combination with GAAP results provides us and our investors with additional analytical tools to understand our operations for adjusted EBITDA, we have provided a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure in our earnings press release, which will be posted on the Investor Relations section of our website at Paltalk.com. And with that I would like to introduce Paltalk's Chief Executive Officer, Jason Katz.

Jason Katz

Thank you, Kara, and good morning, everyone. Greatly appreciate you taking the time to join us on today's call.
We will discuss our operating highlights and financial results for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2024. We will also provide an update on our business objectives and strategies after my opening statement, our CFO, Cara, Jenny will give a summary of our financial results for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2024. Following our prepared remarks, we will move into the Q&A portion and answer any questions that were pre-submitted prior to this call.
With that, I would now like to walk you through the recent financial and operating highlights and near-term business objectives. While we continue to look for additional revenue opportunities, we are encouraged by the slight increase in our revenue and a 33% reduction in net loss in Q1 as compared to the prior year period as we continue to enhance many CAM and expand its availability into our pallets of products and enterprise applications, although not representative of a large share of our revenue.
We are also excited about the rapid growth in our advertising revenue compared to Q1 of last year, which we attribute to new advertising partners and the rollout of our new advertising units. Our technology and business teams are working on additional features for our live video chat products and partnerships with large third party communities with the goal of increasing our number of customers, customer retention and monetization and potentially revenue.
We believe we remain in good position for both organic and acquisitive growth as our expense infrastructure has been optimized to support additional revenue and our cash position of $13 million at quarter end provides us flexibility for growth opportunities. Our trial against Cisco is now set to begin in August 2024, and we look forward to continuing to defend our intellectual property. Over the past year, our team has successfully executed on business objectives and strategies that have reduced our fixed operating expenses, streamlined our business to improve efficiencies and laid the groundwork both organically and potentially acquisitively to grow the business, leveraging our current platform.
The following are identified areas that we have started to implement to achieve revenue growth. The integration of many CAM product into our pallets of product through upselling initiatives, improve user experience with many can software and optimized features for both consumer and enterprise applications. Several enhancements to our live video chat applications, as well as the integration of card and board games and other features focused on retention and monetization, which collectively are intended to increase user engagement and revenue opportunities.
And lastly, develop our consumer application platform strategy by seeking potential partnerships with large third party communities so we can promote a co-branded version of our video chat products and potentially share in the incremental revenues generated by these partner communities.
Moving on to an update on our trial against Cisco. On July 23rd, 2021, wholly owned subsidiary of the company Power Holdings, Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Cisco Systems, Inc. in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. We allege that certain of Cisco's products have infringed US Patent 6683858 and that we are entitled damages a Markman hearing took place on February 24th, 2022.
On September 7, 2022, the United States. Patent Office issued a re-examination of US Patent 6683858. And on January 19th, 2023, the examiner issued an ex parte reexamination certificate, ending the reexamination and confirming the patentability of claims one through 10 of US patent number six six eight three eight five eight on June 29th, 2023. The court held a pretrial conference with the parties and denied Cisco's motion for summary judgment, trial is now expected to begin in August 2024.
Now I'd like to pass it to Kare for a financial summary of our first quarter ended March 31st, 2024.

Kara Jenny

Thank you, Jason. Revenue for the three months ended March 31st, 2024 increased by 1.3% to $2.59 million compared to $2.56 million for the three months ended March 31st, 2023. This increase was attributed to the increase in advertising revenue of 97%, loss from operations for the three months ended March 31st, 2024 decreased by 16% or $0.1 million to a loss of $0.8 million compared to a loss of $0.9 million for the three months ended March 31st, 2023. The improvement in the loss from operations is attributed to an increase in revenue and decreases in sales and product development and general and administrative expenses for the three months ended March 31st, 2024 net loss for the three months ended March 31st, 2024 decreased by 33% or $0.2 million to a loss of $0.5 million compared to a net loss of $0.7 million for the three months ended March 31st, 2023. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the three months ended March 31st, 2024, decreased by approximately 23%, $4.1 million to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $0.5 million compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $0.6 million for the three months ended March 31st, 2023.
Cash and cash equivalents totaled $13 million at March 31st, 2024, a decrease of $0.5 million compared to $13.6 million at December 31st, 2023, and the Company had no long-term debt on its balance sheet as of March 31st, 2024.

Question and Answer Session

Kara Jenny

We will now move on to questions that were previously submitted. The first question, do you have any upgrade plans or next-generation versions planned for power?

Jason Katz

Yes, Kara, we do. We're working on creating a version of the power torque products that is web-based that we expect will be easier to use and will not require users to download. It will simply go to the website then or into the chat.

Kara Jenny

And the next question, what do you think of the recent IPO valuations of Truth Social and Reddit? for example, Truth Social attaining a $6 billion valuation on just $5 million of revenue, and how has that affected your search for potential acquisitions?

Jason Katz

Well, clearly, the market has embraced these chat and interactive social media platforms, which may bode well for Paltalk.

Kara Jenny

And the last question we got, any comment on why the Cisco trial got pushed from April to August 2024?

Jason Katz

Yes, the Company was notified by the US District Court for the Western District of Texas located in Waco that the Court of its own accord decided not to hold any in-person trials during the week of April eighth, 2024, as a result, the trial date was reset for August 2024.

Kara Jenny

Jason, I'll turn it back to you to close out the presentation.

Jason Katz

Thank you, everyone, for your support and for joining us today. We are very grateful for your interest in our business. We look forward to updating the market and our stockholders with our progress in our business objectives, pending patent litigation against Cisco WebEx with the trial now scheduled to start on August 26th, 2024, and potential strategic accretive acquisitions, which we continue to identify. Now everyone have a great day.

Operator

Thank you, everyone. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.