Nixu Corporation: CEO’s review for Q3 2021

Nixu Corporation’s unaudited revenue for July–September 2021 increased organically by 1% from the corresponding period of the previous year and amounted to EUR 11.1 million (Q3/2020: EUR 11.1 million). EBITDA amounted to EUR 194 thousand (Q3/2020: EUR 1,016 thousand). Adjusted EBITDA was EUR 328 thousand (Q3/2020: EUR 1,016 thousand).

Nixu Corporation revenue 1–9/2021 was EUR 37.9 million, EBITDA EUR 999 thousand and adjusted EBITDA EUR 1,526 thousand. (1–9/2020: revenue EUR 38.7 million, EBITDA 1,076 thousand and adjusted EBITDA EUR 1,780 thousand.)

Financial guidance for 2021:

The company reiterates its financial guidance for 2021: Nixu estimates its revenue to remain on the same level and its EBITDA to decrease from 2020. Simultaneously investments to growth are increased.

Revenue during 2020 was EUR 53.3 million and EBITDA EUR 2.9 million.

CEO Petri Kairinen:

During the review period, Nixu continued systematic efforts to recruit new talent in order to enable future growth. At the end of September, the number of our employees was 395, which was 10 persons more than at the end of June. In the third quarter, we managed to turn our revenue slightly towards growth.

During the period, our profitability was burdened by our reinitiated investments in growth. In addition, in the comparison period our profitability was significantly affected by the 2020 cost savings program, which allowed us to achieve non-recurring savings.

The reports of research companies and industry benchmarking show that investment in cybersecurity did not keep pace with the investments in digitalization during the Covid-19 pandemic. For this reason, we believe that there is an even stronger demand for cybersecurity, and we are positive about the medium-term outlook for cybersecurity services. With the favorable market outlook and the improved pandemic situation, there are good conditions for the growth of our business in all our market areas.

We announced our new strategy-based growth targets for 2022–2025 in September. Our growth targets are based on the estimate of about 10% annual growth in the cybersecurity services market. Nixu aims to grow faster than the market and achieve an average CAGR of 15% organically and an average CAGR of 10% inorganically in 2022–2025. The fast growth is enabled by our extensive and up-to-date cybersecurity service portfolio, which is not tied to individual cybersecurity technologies nor include any significant legacy service areas. Thanks to our new operating model, we are now able to utilize better our service portfolio in all our markets.

A good example of a service delivery according to our new operating model is Danfoss, a global company that transitioned with Nixu’s support to a modern Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solution during the pandemic to manage the company’s more than 40,000 digital identities. The project received international recognition winning the award of Identity Fabrics & Enterprise IAM Project of the Year at the KuppingerCole European Identity and Cloud Conference in September.

Since the spring, while the pandemic situation has normalized, we have focused our sales on larger opportunities. The sales of these services require somewhat more time, but successes have already been seen. The most significant of these is an extensive public sector cybersecurity framework agreement, in which Nixu ranked well in the competition. We estimate that the signing of the framework agreement could bring Nixu an annual revenue at a million level for the next four years.

Currently, the pandemic restrictions are being removed in countries where Nixu operates, and therefore Nixu experts will be able to work more freely in Nixu’s as well as clients’ premises. The future of work in our cross-border organization is very digital and physical employee location is very situation-dependent. Right now, however, it is important to us to restore social contacts among our team members and with clients. Cybersecurity work requires trust and trust is strengthened in human interaction. The long period of Covid-19 has inevitably left its mark on this, and now is the time to strengthen that trust again.

Nixu Corporation

Further information:
Chief Executive Officer Petri Kairinen, Nixu Corporation
telephone +358 40 832 1832, e-mail: petri.kairinen@nixu.com

Distribution:
Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd
Principal media
www.nixu.com

Nixu in brief:
Nixu is a cybersecurity services company on a mission to keep our digital society working. Our passion is to help organizations embrace digitalization securely. Partnering with our clients, we provide practical solutions for ensuring business continuity, easy access to digital services and data protection. We aim to provide the best workplace for our team of about 400 cybersecurity professionals with a hands-on attitude. Nixu’s roots are in Northern Europe, but we serve our enterprise clients worldwide. Nixu’s shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki’s official list.
www.nixu.com