~Company Issues 2023 Shareholder Letter~
~Record Contract and Pipeline Expansion Pave Way for Profitability in 2024~
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Super League (Nasdaq: SLE), a global leader in providing immersive experiences across the world's largest digital social platforms, today announced preliminary fourth quarter revenue grew 32% year over year to a company record of approximately $9.4 million. In association with the announcement of preliminary fourth quarter 2023 revenue, the Company has issued the below letter to shareholders from Chief Executive Officer, Ann Hand.
Dear Fellow Shareholders,
2023 turned out to be a year of strong momentum for Super League, highlighted by accelerated growth, streamlined operations, and the largest contract in the company’s history leading to record annual revenues of approximately $25.0 million. With additional cash from our recently secured financings, we are now, more than ever, in a better position to drive significant revenue growth leading to profitability in 2024.
Super League’s core mission is to help brands speak the language of 3D engagement, the new language of the internet, and the inevitable way the majority of digital advertising dollars will be directed in the future to reach new audiences and deepen engagement. We strive to be the leading provider for brands’ digital advertising as this 3D engagement materializes, and through years of developing our capability and proprietary IP, we are creating an operating system for the 3D Web. During 2023, we further solidified our leadership position as builders of immersive 3D experiences—a dominant form of digital social interaction—across world-class platforms including Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite, among others where the seismic shift of audience has already occurred with more than a half a billion users and growing. These platforms drive the future of advertising and have enraptured Generation Z and Alpha with the average Roblox user spending approximately 156 minutes a day on the social platform (more than 1.5X the time spent on TikTok). With Super League as their usher, more global brands are following suit with their ad spending into this transformative nascent marketing channel. While in-game advertising is expected to reach a market size of $56 billion in 2024, that represents a small slice of the global advertising addressable market. Our opportunity set is much larger. Today we compete for traditional internet and social media advertising dollars because 3D virtual world platforms like Roblox behave more like the next generations of social media rather than traditional video gaming.
As well, while Super League brings brands into virtual environments on other platforms’ turfs, we are also the strategists and innovators to transform a brand’s home-turf web domain into 3D experiences that allow for personalized conversations with consumers to ultimately increase brand loyalty and conversion. Super League is uniquely poised to be the omni-channel solution for a brand’s 3D engagement and to be a primary beneficiary of this growing market that will become the dominant form of digital advertising.
In 2023, Super League served almost 100 brands and IP owners with astounding highlights:
- 11 custom builds with peak engagement times as high as 30.5 minutes
- 15 custom integrations into popular experiences on Roblox, Minecraft & Fortnite, generating more than 330 million visits and peak engagement times of 25 minutes
- 180+ media campaigns on Roblox & Minecraft ranging in size from mid-5 to 7 figures
- 40+ supportive media campaigns across digital and OTT video, mobile, social media, and influencer, also ranging in size from mid-5 to 7 figures
- 340 pieces of video content generating tens of millions of views across Tik Tok, YouTube, & Snap
- 81 million Try-ons of Branded Avatar Items
As a gold standard with a vertically integrated one-stop shop suite, every week we create powerful, high-impact immersive experiences for brands with our proprietary technology and capabilities. As an example, during the year we launched the Hamilton Simulator presenting the show’s groundbreaking music through an interactive discovery of the magic of Hamilton. The experience went viral with over 1 million visits in the first two weeks, surpassing top Roblox experiences in terms of average session time (~21 minutes) and overall rating (97%). Ultimately, this led to a staggering 429 pieces of media coverage reaching an audience of 6.5 billion.
As we look ahead, our unique capabilities have positioned us to transition from an advertising model of short-term campaigns to larger deal sizes, as evidenced by our record-breaking approximately $4.0 million deal secured in the third quarter of 2023. Not only are our average deals getting much larger, but they provide high repeat percentages with revenues that are more recurring and forecastable with customers such as Visa, Disney, Mattel, Kraft Heinz, Hershey’s, Wal-Mart, Chipotle, Universal and Publicis, among others.
Additionally, we have identified four key steps of a brand’s journey into these new marketing channels that allow us an opportunity to achieve scale:
- Introduce brands to our 3D engagement offering to achieve singular campaign objectives measured by new brands entering our funnel and larger deal sizes.
- Become the 3D platform of choice for brands’ various ongoing campaigns measured by repeat percentage and larger annual advertiser spend.
- Guide brands to create persistent presences on 3D platforms measured by brand partner revenues that become more recurring and predictable in nature.
- Build omni-channel 3D strategies for brands with crossover to their own 3D web experiences measured by revenues that go beyond advertising including technology licensing, first party data and direct-to-consumer monetization.
We have notable brands engaging with us at various stages of the first three steps with emerging conversations that will elucidate the potential fourth step of our operating system to deliver a multi-layered, persistent 3D Web solution for brand partners:
To support these world-class customers and drive continued growth, over the course of the year we successfully raised gross proceeds of $24.8 million and secured a $4.0 million accounts receivable facility. Ultimately, our significantly improved balance sheet provides the capital required to drive meaningful revenue growth and achieve profitability in the near term.
Looking ahead to 2024, our core focus is to build upon the operating leverage experienced in 2023. We delivered an approximate 26% reduction in proforma operating costs over the course of the last 12 months, and this lean cost structure coupled with larger, recurring brand and IP programs tees up 2024 to be a transformational year. As noted above, we will continue to transition our model from one that is built on short-term, campaign-based revenue streams to one that supports brands’ persistent, long-term strategies leveraging our 3D Web operating system. So now, we turn our attention to scaling our business to achieve the previously mentioned goal of profitability in 2024, while driving shareholder value over the long-term.
Thank you to all our shareholders, partners, and talented team of Super Leaguers for your support on our journey as we step into another exceptional year.
Warm regards,
Ann Hand
CEO of Super League
About Super League
Super League (Nasdaq: SLE) is a leading strategically-integrated publisher and creator of games and experiences across the world’s largest immersive digital platforms. From metaverse gaming powerhouses such as Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite, to the most popular Web3 environments such as Sandbox and Decentraland, to bespoke worlds built using the most advanced 3D creation tools, Super League’s innovative solutions provide incomparable access to massive audiences who gather in immersive digital spaces to socialize, play, explore, collaborate, shop, learn and create. As a true end-to-end activation partner for dozens of global brands, Super League offers a complete range of development, distribution, monetization and optimization capabilities designed to engage users through dynamic, energized programs. As an originator of new experiences fueled by a network of top developers, a comprehensive set of proprietary creator tools and a future-forward team of creative professionals, Super League accelerates IP and audience success within the fastest growing sector of the media industry. For more, go to superleague.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements involve substantial risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements in this communication include, among other things, statements about Super League’s growth strategies, the ability to actualize the benefits of the acquisition of Melon, our possible or assumed business strategies, new products, potential market opportunities and our ability to secure adequate working capital. Risks and uncertainties include, among other things, our ability to implement our plans, forecasts and other expectations with respect to our business; our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of events that took place during and subsequent to the quarter ended September 30, 2023, including the possibility that the expected benefits, particularly from our acquisitions consummated in 2021 and 2023, will not be realized or will not be realized within the expected time period; unknown liabilities that may or may not be within our control; attracting new customers and maintaining and expanding our existing customer base; our ability to scale and update our platform to respond to customers’ needs and rapid technological change; increased competition in our market and our ability to compete effectively; and expansion of our operations and increased adoption of our platform internationally. Additional risks and uncertainties that could affect our financial condition and operating results will be included in the section titled “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and other filings that we make from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) which, once filed, are available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, any forward-looking statements contained in this communication are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons if actual results differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.
Information About Non-GAAP Financial Measures
As used herein, “GAAP” refers to accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. To supplement our financial statements included in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC, which financial statements are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, this earnings release includes pro forma net loss, a financial measure that is considered a non-GAAP financial measure as defined in Rule 101 of Regulation G promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Generally, a non-GAAP financial measure is a numerical measure of a company’s historical or future performance, financial position, or cash flows that either excludes or includes amounts that are not normally excluded or included in the most directly comparable measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. The presentation of this non-GAAP financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP.
We use pro forma net loss, pro forma earnings per share (EPS) and other non-GAAP financial measures for internal financial and operational decision-making purposes and to evaluate period-to-period comparisons of the performance and results of operations of our business. Our management believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding the performance of our business by excluding non-cash goodwill impairment charges, non-cash stock compensation charges, non-cash amortization of intangible asset charges, and non-recurring, non-cash credits, that may not be indicative of our recurring core business operating results. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate management’s internal planning and comparisons to our historical performance and liquidity. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors as they allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision making and are used by our institutional investors and the analyst community to help them analyze the performance and operational results of our core business.
Pro Forma Net Loss and EPS. We define pro forma net loss as net loss calculated in accordance with GAAP, but excluding non-cash goodwill impairment charges, non-cash stock compensation charges, non-cash amortization of intangible assets, and non-recurring, non-cash credits. Pro forma EPS is defined as pro forma net income divided by the weighted average outstanding shares, on a fully diluted basis, calculated in accordance with GAAP, for the respective reporting period.
Due to the inherent volatility in stock prices, the use of estimates and assumptions in connection with the valuation and expensing of share-based awards and the variety of award types that companies can issue under FASB ASC Topic 718, management believes that providing a non-GAAP financial measure that excludes non-cash stock compensation allows investors to make meaningful comparisons between our recurring core business operating results and those of other companies period to period, as well as providing our management with a critical tool for financial and operational decision making and for evaluating our own period-to-period recurring core business operating results.
Due to the use of estimates and assumptions pursuant to the guidance set forth in FASB ASC Topic 805 in connection with the valuation of assets acquired and liabilities assumed in connection with business combinations, for merger and acquisition transactions that include the issuance of common stock as all or a component of the purchase consideration, management believes that providing a non-GAAP financial measure that excludes non-cash goodwill and non-cash amortization related to these assets acquired for the applicable reporting period allows investors to make meaningful comparisons between our recurring core business operating results and those of other companies period to period, as well as providing our management with a critical tool for financial and operational decision making and for evaluating our own period-to-period recurring core business operating results.
There are several limitations related to the use of pro forma net loss and EPS versus net loss EPS calculated in accordance with GAAP. For example, non-GAAP net loss excludes the impact of significant non-cash stock compensation charges that are or may be recurring for the foreseeable future. In addition, non-cash stock compensation is a critical component of our employee compensation and retention programs and the cost associated with consideration issued in connection with mergers and acquisitions is a critical component of the cost of those acquisitions over the useful lives of the related intangible assets acquired. Management compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from non-GAAP net loss and evaluating non-GAAP net loss in conjunction with net loss and EPS calculated in accordance with GAAP.
The accompanying table below titled “Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Information” provides a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures presented to the most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP.
Investor Relations Contact:
Shannon Devine/ Mark Schwalenberg
MZ North America
Main: 203-741-8811
SLE@mzgroup.us
Media Contact
Gillian Sheldon
gillian.sheldon@superleague.com
Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7a2e138a-f37d-48ef-beef-63e04fb8d8c3
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/27f06f24-429c-4859-a842-6abe47ea06ff
