Vertoz Advertising Ltd (NSE: VERTOZ) Q2 2025 Earnings Call dated Nov. 12, 2024
Corporate Participants:
Sanjyot Baviskar — Investor Relations
Hiren Shah — Founder & Managing Director
Ashish Shah — Non-Executive Director
Analysts:
Harsh Vora — Analyst
Prashant Kumar — Analyst
Aniket Redkar — Analyst
Kashish — Analyst
Aditya Agarwal — Analyst
Sana Mehta — Analyst
Manoj Rajani — Analyst
Akash Sharma — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Vertoz Limited Q2 FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. [Operator Instructions]. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sanjyot Baviskar from Adfactors. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Sanjyot Baviskar — Investor Relations
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. A very warm welcome to our Q2 and H1 FY ’25 earnings conference call. To guide us through the results today, we have the management team of Vertoz Limited headed by Mr. Hiren Shah, Promoter and Managing Director; and Mr. Ashish Shah, Promoter and Director. Before we begin, I would like to state that some of these statements made in today’s discussion may be forward looking in nature. The actual results may vary as they are dependent on several external factors. We will commence the call with Mr. Hiren Shah’s and Mr. Ashish Shah’s comment taking you through the operation and financial performance, following which we will open the forum for Q&A.
With that said, I would like to now hand over the call to Mr. Hiren Shah to share his comments. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Hiren Shah — Founder & Managing Director
Thank you and good evening, everyone. I would like to extend a very warm welcome to Vertoz’s earnings conference call for the second quarter and half year ended financial year ’25. Thank you all for taking the time to join us today.
Operator
Sir, sorry to interrupt you. We are losing your audio.
Hiren Shah — Founder & Managing Director
Okay. We have with us Ashish Shah, Director of the company, and our Investor Relationship team from Adfactors. I am happy to share that our latest results reflect a remarkable quarter growth in key financial across all our businesses. Before delving into our quarterly performance, I would like to provide a brief overview of our company. Vertoz today is a new age tech leading player in AI-driven marketing technologies in India with a robust cloud infrastructure. We blend digital advertising, media, and monetization what we term as a MadTech. With a digital identity and cloud infrastructure, our CloudTech solutions to offer cutting edge solutions. We have emerged as the leader in the integrated MadTech and CloudTech services.
Operator
Sir, sorry to interrupt you once again. Sir, again we are losing your audio. Participants please stay connected while we rejoin Mr. Shah back to the call. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. We have the line for the speaker connected. Hiren sir, please proceed.
Hiren Shah — Founder & Managing Director
I’m so sorry about the disconnection in the line. I’m starting once again. Thank you and good evening, everyone. I would like to extend a very warm welcome to Vertoz’s earnings conference call for the second quarter and half year ended financial year ’25. Thank you all for taking the time to join us today. We have with us Ashish Shah, Director of the company; and our Investor Relationship team from Adfactors. I’m happy to share that our latest results reflect a remarkable quarter growth in our key financial across all our businesses. Before we delve into our quarterly performance, I would like to provide a brief overview of our company. Vertoz today is a new age tech leading player in AI-driven marketing technologies in India with a robust cloud infrastructure.
We blend digital advertising, media, and monetization; what we term as a MadTech, with digital identity and cloud infrastructure, our CloudTech solutions to offer cutting edge solutions. We have emerged as a leader in the integrated MadTech and CloudTech services revolutionizing the global digital landscape. Since our inception in 2012, we have been instrumental in connecting advertisers and publishers through this innovative solution. Starting with our MadTech segment. We offer a suite of tools designed to optimize digital marketing efforts. Our programmatic advertising platform uses automated systems and algorithms to buy and sell ad space in real time allowing advertisers to target their audiences precisely and maximize their ad budgets.
We also provide a demand side platform, which is called DSV, that helps advertisers purchase ad inventory from multiple sources through a single interface, offering better control over targeting, bidding, and budgeting. For publishers, our supply side platform aids in managing and selling their ad inventory efficiently helping them maximize revenue. Our data management platform, DMP, collects, analyzes, and manages data from various sources, improving marketing decisions and audience targeting for our clients. Additionally, our ad serving technology delivers and tracks ads across different channels and devices while our analytics and reporting tools monitor campaigns, performance, and define strategies based on data-driven insights. CloudTech complements our existing MadTech media and advertising platform creating a powerful combination.
This integration positions Vertoz as the ideal partner for businesses seeking to leverage both cloud and advertising services, significantly enhancing their reach. On the CloudTech side, we provide robust cloud-based infrastructure and services that enhance scalability efficiency for digital operations. Our cloud solution includes scalable infrastructure for deploying, managing, and expanding applications and services without the constraints of physical hardware. We offer big data solutions for managing and analyzing large volumes of data, which is crucial for informed decision-making and optimizing advertising strategy. Our cloud storage and backup solutions ensure secure data storage and protection and our cloud integration services streamline workflows by connecting various cloud-based applications and systems.
We also offer custom cloud solutions tailored to specific business needs, including useful cloud architecture and application development. Our CloudTech strategy leverages cutting-edge technologies to provide scalable and flexible solutions for our clients. Our cloud-based infrastructure allows for real-time data processing and analytics, enabling clients to make data-driven decisions and improving advertising efficiency. Going forward, we continue to focus on technology and innovation and growing our business both organically and inorganically. Adding new customers, increasing our wallet share with existing customers, and expanding to new markets are the key pillars of our growth strategy. As we look forward, we are excited about the future and remain steadfast in our commitment to delivering sustained value and driving further growth.
Now I would like to hand it over to Ashish to take us through the key developments and financial performance for the second quarter and half-year ended financial year ’25. Ashish, over to you.
Operator
Ashish sir, may I request to unmute your line, please. Ashish sir, if you can hear us, can I request to unmute your line, please. Mr. Shah, can you hear me?
Hiren Shah — Founder & Managing Director
Yeah, I can hear you.
Operator
Ashish sir, can you hear us? Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected while we rejoin Ashish sir back to the call. Yes sir, you’re audible. Sir, you may proceed with your opening remarks.
Ashish Shah — Non-Executive Director
Thank you, Hiren bhai. Good evening, everyone. Vertoz is at the forefront of the Retail Media 3.0 optimizing data through our collaborative ad ecosystems. This initiative aims to deliver cost efficient solutions by leveraging data and transactional insights, streamlining advertising efforts to maximize ROI for global advertisers, including corporates and media agencies. In Q2 H1 FY ’25, Vertoz marked several key milestones reinforcing its position as a leader in innovative digital marketing solutions. Moving forward to our financial performance. I am happy to share that we have achieved a strong quarter growth in terms of revenue and profits. The revenue from our operations for Q2 financial year ’25 is INR63.65 crores, which has increased by 69% compared to the last quarter Q2 FY ’24, which was at INR37.66 crores.
While our EBITDA margin for Q2 FY ’25 stands at 10.73%, our profit after tax PAT for Q2 FY ’25 reached INR6.57 crores representing a remarkable 28% year-over-year increase. Coming to first half of the year, the revenue from our operations achieved for H1 FY ’25 is INR123.82 crores, which has increased by 73% compared to the last year H1 FY ’24, which was at INR71.57 crores. The EBITDA margin stands at 12.73%, additionally our profit after tax for the half year amounts to INR12.30 crores showcasing a significant year-over-year increase of 41.9%. Vertoz saw significant growth in its balance sheet. Company’s net worth increased to INR175 crores and on September ’24 while our cash-in-books including investment stands at INR12.5 crores.
Our commitment to innovation continues to reinforce our market standing and provide lasting value to our shareholders. Our primary objective is to become a go-to partner for companies aiming to promote their digital presence and online capabilities. We have already begun to seize the vast opportunities and meet the increasing demand. As evidenced by our recent performance, we are also expanding further expansion strategy — we are also exploring further expansion strategy to scale our operations internationally. We expect accelerated growth in the upcoming year. We appreciate your ongoing support and for being a part of our remarkable journey. Together, we look forward to reaching even greater heights.
That concludes our updates and we are now ready to open the floor for any questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Harsh Vora from DRChoksey FinServ. Please go ahead.
Harsh Vora
Hello. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, sir, you are.
Harsh Vora
Hi sir. Congratulations for the result. Sir, I have two questions in particular. First one is if you can just throw some light on how domestic and international business has done during the quarter and how U.S. as a market is panning out for you. Also if you could just highlight the differences that you are observing in both the markets and if there are any new clients you have onboarded during the quarter?
Hiren Shah
Sure. Hello, Harsh. Thank you for coming. First of all, if you would like to know about little bit on domestic and international businesses, we have roughly 80% business international and around 20% business domestic. About the U.S. business expansion, definitely I would like to have Ashish to give comments on it. Ashish, sir, please.
Ashish Shah
I’m sorry. Am I audible? I was on mute. Harsh, it’s a really good question. Thank you for the question. Yes, especially for the U.S. as a market, I would look at the entire North America as a whole market. We are looking to expand especially both the offerings of the MadTech and CloudTech. Especially under the MadTech, the kind of business which we are doing is the representation of the Asian publishers here in the Western market. It’s something really gearing up for their business. And especially from the CloudTech front, we are exploring various partnerships opportunities to represent those partners especially the MSP services in the Asian market. Harsh, hope I answered your questions.
Harsh Vora
Yes, sir. If you can just highlight about the clients if there are any new clients that you have onboarded in both the markets, the client base, if you can just highlight that.
Ashish Shah
Yes. Especially from a client segment, like say there are a couple of clients which we are working towards. So currently we are working on the likes of the banking clients especially who are looking to explore in the Asian audiences and similarly the automobile clients. These are the two categories where we are getting a good exposure especially for the Asian American audience segments.
Hiren Shah
And from a number point of view, Harsh, maybe we would have approximately 20 clients domestically and 30 plus clients in the international market.
Harsh Vora
Got it, sir. Sir, my second question is regarding if there is an update on your inorganic acquisition that you mentioned and what stage is this right now? And if you can just tell me about the CloudTech, how is it shaping up after our recent merger?
Hiren Shah
Sure. So for inorganic updates, we have a very strong team which is working very efficiently and they are talking to various different companies and opportunities which is coming in our way. With the right time, we will definitely inform you or provide the information to the exchange about our inorganic related growth. Because I mean we are evaluating, we are talking. We are in a kind of a model where we do business, then we do strategic partnership, and then we think on further evaluating them to see that they can be a part of the overall group and contribute the growth. So, that is related to inorganic growth. When it comes to CloudTech, Ashish, would you like to answer this?
Ashish Shah
Sorry, actually I didn’t get the question. What was the question with respect to the CloudTech, Harsh?
Harsh Vora
Sir, in general, how is the CloudTech business shaping up after the merger as a business sector?
Ashish Shah
Yes, definitely. So, I’ll give you some clarity. So, the CloudTech business has been helping the foundation of the MadTech, which is your infrastructure. So, definitely the CloudTech business has helped us in two ways. One is helping our existing MadTech infrastructure business. That was the one step. And second one is with the CloudTech integration into the Vertoz group has helped us in opening up the doors with the existing clients of the MadTech and the CloudTech. So, it has given us both sides the advantage. One is from the infrastructure standpoint of view for the MadTech infrastructure, which we are running on a large-scale basis. And second one has helped us in terms of the various cross-sell and up-sell opportunities between both the client side there.
Harsh Vora
Got it, sir. Sir, very quickly a last question. If you can just highlight if there are any reasons for the fall in EBITDA and PAT margins in Q2 and the fall in PAT margins in H1 in general?
Hiren Shah
So Harsh, look, our current focus is to expand and grow our horizons. And as you can see the numbers, we also have increased our workforce, our people, and lot of cost — and lot of investments are happening on that side. But at a later stage, as what we have integrated both the CloudTech and MadTech, our overall ARPU will — average revenue per user of acquisition will definitely — acquisition costs will go down and the revenue per user will increase and that will help us in increasing the PAT in the future. I hope this answers your question.
Harsh Vora
Thank you so much. That’s it from me. Thank you.
Hiren Shah
Thank you.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Next question is from the line of Prashant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Prashant Kumar, may I request you to unmute your line and go ahead with your question, please?
Prashant Kumar
Hello?
Operator
Go ahead, you’re audible.
Prashant Kumar
Okay. Sir, just looking at your numbers, firstly, I just wanted to understand do we have any aspirations on our EBITDA margins? Because if I look at first half, it’s about 14%. So, just wanted to understand directionally if we have any aspirations on that.
Hiren Shah
Prashant ji, if I’m understanding, your question is that, why there is a decline in the EBITDA?
Prashant Kumar
I’ll come to the decline. I’m saying directionally if you look at the first half, you’ve done about 14% EBITDA margins, right? I’m looking at the presentation.
Hiren Shah
First quarter, yes, correct.
Prashant Kumar
Right. So for the full year, what do you think would be our EBITDA margins? Where would we close our EBITDA margins at?
Hiren Shah
Correct. Sure. So see, basically while designing the product and the profits margin of each of the solutions or structure we provide to the customer, we have internal guidelines to see that we reach to between 8% to 12% of a PAT margin and roughly 14% to 16% of a kind of EBITDA margin. That is what is our aspiration and we want to remain in that particular range to see that we continuously grow. Because at this moment, our major focus is on the growth and expanding our reach to the Indian market and international market. So, that is the reason why this fall is there. But at the same time, we have aspiration to achieve this particular structure.
Prashant Kumar
Right. And if you could break that in terms of how much would be margin contribution from MadTech and CloudTech. So in this 14%, in the 14% or 16% that you’re aspiring, what would be the contribution — the blended contribution from your MadTech and CloudTech?
Hiren Shah
Sure. So if you look at that, the 14% to 16% is what is a blended. But definitely a MadTech service will contribute little more. But overall, both the businesses will have a similar kind of margin because we will have a reduction in acquiring customer and the overall ARPU will be high. So for example, similar customer which is there in the MadTech sector will also require a CloudTech services and the similar way, the CloudTech sector, they will also require MadTech services. So if we combine at the later stage in the future, overall margin will help us to remain in a similar line of that.
Prashant Kumar
Right, sir. Sir, if I also look at — just coming to the P&L, if I look at your tax rate that you’ve been paying for the quarter or half year has been marginal. So, any particular reason or any benefit that you’re — is the company accruing any kind of benefit?
Hiren Shah
Look, it’s not about the company is getting any kind of a benefit. But being our global structure of the businesses and subsidiaries across the globe, our overall business has been optimized and we try and see that what kind of contracts we are able to do at which country which helps us to get the overall optimized tax structure, which helps us to I mean pay little lower the tax than what it is.
Prashant Kumar
Right. So, this would really mean any kind of taxes that you’re paying or is it paying roughly less of the tax?
Hiren Shah
I’m sorry. Can you repeat your question?
Operator
Prashant, sorry we’re losing your audio. Can you speak through the handset, please?
Prashant Kumar
Sorry. So I said in terms of taxes that is being paid, it is less than a crore and your tax rate that you paid is hardly anything. It’s very miniscule per month.
Hiren Shah
No, I don’t think it’s very just miniscule, but definitely quarter to quarter, different quarter will definitely have a different — see, if you look at a few of our businesses are seasonality business. So, for example like a few of the businesses happens in a specific continent related to the festive or festivity related time. So sometimes it happens like we get a few contracts in a few of the countries which is better at the tax optimization and sometimes we get — we even average, if you look at average tax structure which has come in last three years are roughly around 19%.
Prashant Kumar
Right, sir. I’m just looking at the numbers from the presentation and it’s INR0.62 crores and you had a PBT of about INR30 crores. [Technical Issues]
Hiren Shah
Sure. What I can do, I can take this question offline and I’ll have my CFO to answer you in detail exactly I mean what happened and what exactly we agreed on that.
Prashant Kumar
Right. Sir, just one last question. If we have to take a few of the metrics into our projections, what in your sense would be those key metrics to look out for?
Hiren Shah
Key metrics to look out for?
Prashant Kumar
In order to break this into our projections, what would be those key metrics? Like one you said is your ARPU. So, how do we derive that? We just take the revenue divided by the number of clients or how does — take a few of the metrics that you can.
Hiren Shah
Prashant ji, if you look at the — sorry…
Ashish Shah
Sorry. Go ahead, Hiren bhai. Yeah, I was trying to comment again, but yes, please go ahead.
Hiren Shah
Ashish, please go ahead.
Ashish Shah
No problem. So, Prashant, so just to give you some understanding on how we internally calculate the KPIs or metrics within the organization. So, definitely recently integrated the CloudTech business into the Vertoz portfolio. So, we internally are working out certain metrics to be presented to give us the visibility. As of now, what we are doing is the distribution between the MadTech and CloudTech business as a macro level. Gradually we are working towards bringing certain metrics, which can be around the ARPU line. So when we say the ARPU line is like the average revenue per user. For us the kind of business where we present, there are two types of the users present. One is the partners with whom we work in this ecosystem and second one is the direct customers.
So, what we are trying to bring here is like say we will be having our certain metrics in the coming quarters, which will give you a visibility between the average revenue per direct clients, which is my B2B business directly working with a business; and second one is a P2P business, which is like say partner-to-partner business. So, this metric will give you much more clarity in terms of the number of clients — proportionate to the increase in the number of clients, how the revenue will flow and at the same time what is the average revenue per partner or per direct customer, which we work with. Hope this answers your question.
Prashant Kumar
Yes. Just one last bookkeeping question. Your receivables have moved up quite higher. So, how does the billing actually take place from billing to revenue? Because you booked about roughly around INR50 crores, INR55 crores of your receivables on INR125 crores of revenue. So, how does this work and why is the receivable days on the higher side?
Hiren Shah
Sure. Let me jump in here. So basically as Ashish has mentioned, we have a P2P and B2B business model. So when we talk about our majority business at this moment is on the P2P side, which is a partner-to-partner side. And so when we say the partner, generally on the MadTech and the CloudTech, the partners are either an ISV or a kind of an agency, which works with the brand over there. So generally with the agencies, 60 to 90 days is an average minimum timeline which they take to do the payment, but it reaches up to 100, 100-plus days as well and that is the reason why the debtors are much higher. So we have started implementing an account receivables team, collection team to make sure that we try and achieve these days a little lesser and improve on this particular number.
Prashant Kumar
Fair enough, sir. But roughly around 100 and I think 60 days it has been, 44% market is coming from about 160 days is sitting in the receivable cycle. So, that is the reason.
Hiren Shah
See, basically, 60 days is a return date. I mean that is a cycle which they say, but it never comes in within 60 days. So, we give a leverage. And as you can see that on year-on-year, quarter-on-quarter business has increased and through that, overall debtors also get increased within the same fashion.
Prashant Kumar
Right. Fair enough, sir. That answers my question.
Hiren Shah
Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you very much. [Operator Instructions] Next question is from the line of Aniket Redkar, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Aniket Redkar
Thank you for the opportunity. So, my first question is what major trends are you observing in the AdTech industry particularly with regards to this digital ad spend in your e-market and how Vertoz is positioning itself within this evolving landscape? Can you throw some light on
This?
Hiren Shah
Ashish bhai?
Ashish Shah
Yes, Hiren bhai. Let me take up this. So definitely the factors, which are the key factors or key structure what’s happening especially in the ad tech ecosystem. Definitely as you must be aware of it, Google has recently planned not to go after the cookie deprecation. So definitely around the cookie segment is something where the people are looking at from a technology standpoint of view. Apart from that technology side, if you look at the deliverables or channels within this ad tech, especially the connected TV or OTT is taking up a space really heavily within the ad spends for the entire ad tech ecosystems. And apart from this, especially on other segments where we are seeing great growth especially around the content marketing. So, these are the few factors where we see there are the opportunities available. Again to summarize, one is the technology front that has been cookie has not been getting implemented. Cookie deprecation is not happening sooner. Second one is what we call the content marketing. And third one is around the CTV and OTT space.
Aniket Redkar
Okay. So, CTV, we are also working on connected TV ad spending.
Ashish Shah
Yes, that’s true. Like if you have saw the show, looked at our last quarterly results, we have partnered with the largest connected TV players in the ecosystems to connect and help them to better monetize their inventory.
Aniket Redkar
So, how are we — in terms of privacy regulation, how are we addressing the increasing this privacy regulation, particularly basically in the heavy market like EU and the U.S.? So, in terms of compliance and maintaining the data security, what are the steps that we are taking into this?
Ashish Shah
So, we are fully compliant with the GDPR and TCF policies, transparency consent framework. So both put together, like we are fully compliant with that. So in terms of the privacy, definitely as per the industry standards whatever is required, we are implementing across the technology and also similarly educating the market — the client base around it, how to go about it with respect to the privacy being taken at the first foremost in terms of any campaign execution.
Hiren Shah
Okay. So it’s primarily tied with the policies, which has been present by IABs and the different bodies across the globe.
Aniket Redkar
Okay. Got it. And sir, one last question. Can you provide the details on the client retention rates and any new client acquisition during this quarter?
Ashish Shah
Yes, definitely. So, as Hiren Bhai earlier mentioned, we have acquired between 20 to 30 clients between India and the international market. So, definitely the client acquisition has been increasing day by day. And with respect to the retentions, definitely the retention has been great. It’s all thanks to our customer service team, which has been working heavily with respect to making sure that the campaign deliverables or KPIs are meeting or exceeding the expectations of the clients.
Aniket Redkar
Thank you so much, sir. This is from my side and all the best for the future.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Kashish, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Kashish
Yes, hi. Good evening, sir. I have a question here. Where does Vertoz position itself against the market leaders like e2e network or Affle India in terms of digital marketing and cloud infrastructure? And what is the roadmap and the anticipation goals of Vertoz in the coming two or three years? Hello, am I audible?
Operator
Yes sir, you’re audible.
Kashish
Yeah. So I asked what is the roadmap of Vertoz Limited in the coming future? What is the kind of turnover we are looking to achieve? What is the revenues we are looking to achieve? And where do we position ourselves against companies like Affle India and E2E networks?
Hiren Shah
Sure. So if you look at — I mean in the last call also we have said that we have an internal guidelines to maintain that at least we grow 30% CAGR year-on-year. Obviously we have grown more than what we have promised so far and we will try and deliver as much as possible from our side. This is about the perspective about the future growth. And when it comes to the companies which is in the CloudTech and the MadTech sector, so basically whichever company which is in the CloudTech sector, we are also having a very strong handhold on that and we are working very hard and adding more and more resources as well as infrastructure to reach out to that level so that we — that particular sector can contribute to overall performance of the business.
Kashish
Sir, one more question. So in the past one month or 45 days, the stock prices have been eroded by more than 50%. Is there any plans by the promoters to safeguard minority shareholders in this erosion of wealth? And moreover, there’s no dividend being paid out in the past few years.
Hiren Shah
Okay. So let me come with step back to answer to this particular question. Let me start with the second question. At this moment, our overall focus is to increase on the business and I mean increase our overall footprint at various market. So at this moment, our intention is to see how do we deploy more and more funds to enhancing our existing performance and that is what we reason why we are working towards that and adding value over there. About the recent price fall, as you say — as you understand, as a part of a global macroeconomic and geopolitical situation in the world, easing of Chinese fiscal situation and run up in the Indian stock market led to some correction at broad level of indexes, small and mid caps. The correction has been seen across the sectors and fortunately, there was a bounce back and the sentiment of the overall market today is better than the month back. So I mean overall, I mean we are assuring our investors that there is no change in our growth numbers for the current year and we are confident of achieving 30% CAGR growth year-on-year.
Kashish
Sir, one last question. Whom do we see as a direct competitor of Vertoz Limited in this listed segment and the unlisted segment of the organizations in India?
Hiren Shah
Sure. Let me answer in this way. First of all, we do not feel that anyone else is a competition. We ourselves is our own competitor and we try and improve ourselves based on whatever we had done in the past. But definitely when you look at the sectors, definitely on the CloudTech sector, you can definitely see the companies like E2E Networks on the listed space. At the same time on the MadTech sector, you can see the companies like Affle India, who have a similar kind of a business model.
Kashish
Okay. All right. And do we see — do we really need to check them with — I mean do they have a similar growth plan of the companies you mentioned?
Hiren Shah
I’m sorry, single?
Kashish
I said they have humongously grown in the past. I mean they have grown in a fast pace. Do we have a similar growth plan like that, these companies you mentioned?
Hiren Shah
Absolutely. So if you look at the overall industry and overall the opportunities which we have as an Indian company or global market, the companies like us are the enabler to businesses. So what is our job is that we try and help the businesses to grow their existing profit margin. So obviously our pie is getting increased. So basically no one is eating anyone else’s business, but here every day new opportunities are coming and we are helping those businesses to enhance their overall profit margin or overall growth. So, obviously we expect that there should be a significant growth in this particular sector.
Kashish
All right.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aditya from India Wealth. Please go ahead.
Aditya Agarwal
Hello, sir. Aditya here. Sir, I just have few questions. One is that I think you’ve given the revenue growth of 69% year-on-year if I’m right. Sir, what has driven this growth so high 69%?
Hiren Shah
Sure. So overall, if you look at that growth was driven by increased demand for CloudTech offering and strong performance in influencer driven MadTech campaigns. So, I mean these are the major factors. Definitely we have also added a good, known team members from the industry and they’re also helping us to getting more better businesses.
Aditya Agarwal
Okay. And so your Top 5 clients, how much do they contribute to the revenue percentage?
Hiren Shah
So I do not have the exact number, but definitely I can get you get back to you. But none of our client is more than 20% of overall business.
Aditya Agarwal
No, the reason I asked this assuming one or two clients may discontinue business with you, assuming that, so wouldn’t it affect your revenue guidance or the revenue segment currently?
Hiren Shah
Sure. So basically if you have heard me before, I just feel like we keep adding 20 to 30 clients internationally and domestic. So, that is definitely going to help us. See, we cannot stop trying to go out. But at the same time we are working hard on getting more and more new customers onboarded. So if few of the customers do not continue with us, should not impact us a lot as being they are not contributing a huge portion of the overall business.
Aditya Agarwal
Okay. And how much is now AI contributing to your technology space for client servicing or getting the entire work done?
Hiren Shah
So Ashish bhai, would you like to?
Ashish Shah
Yes, let me come back here. Definitely. So AI has been implemented across both the categories of the business, which is the MadTech and CloudTech. So what we essentially do is like say the whole business, the entire platforms, both the side of the platforms, the MadTech and CloudTech platforms are powered by the AI. Okay. When we say are powered by the AI, definitely the customer interactions which we do it on the platforms are powered by certain — some portion of the conversation is powered by the AI. Similarly in the building of the products also, we are utilizing AI heavily in terms of building of the product lines. Okay. Again around the getting certain strategy inputs from the AI is also happening within the organization. So in a nutshell, AI is empowering the entire business on the MadTech and CloudTech ecosystems. Hope this answers your questions.
Aditya Agarwal
And the money spent on this is from internal approvals or how do you fund this entire AI concept with a company?
Ashish Shah
Definitely, as Hiren bhai earlier mentioned, most of the investments are happening towards within the company when we look at it like definitely with respect to the AI side, we are doing heavily investments. But in our kind of business, we generally don’t need to build the AI infrastructure, hardware infrastructure investments, but it’s majorly towards the AI utilizing the APIs of the AI infrastructure. So that’s how it is helping us. So it’s not too much of the investments from a AI perspective, but at the same time definitely some sizable investments are happening around the AI.
Aditya Agarwal
So it is house manageable, right sir?
Ashish Shah
Yes, it’s completely in-house manageable as of now. Definitely as we progress as we continue to embark, continue with our journey, organic as well as inorganic. Definitely as the time arises, we will have some further guidance over there. But at this moment everything is in-house.
Aditya Agarwal
Okay, just one last question. As on March ’24, you have a short-term borrowing of INR13.9 crores. Can you shed some light exactly what kind of short term borrowings have you incurred?
Hiren Shah
Sure. So basically we have a borrowing, we have a facility with the bank and we have these facilities against the FDs, which were created with the bank. So that is just I mean working capital arrangements what we have done for OD against FD you could say investment.
Aditya Agarwal
And this will persist for another year or how is it like?
Hiren Shah
So it is purely depend on like the business opportunities which we will get in the future. So we are just — we just want to have a make a strong financial structure so that that this can support our overall operation.
Aditya Agarwal
Okay. So, thank you so much and all the best.
Hiren Shah
Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sana Mehta, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Sana Mehta
Hello, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I just wanted to understand if as you had mentioned earlier again, that you’re looking for a growth perspective. So is it through mergers and acquisitions? And if it is mergers and acquisitions if you’re looking for the growth, is there any targeted companies which you have been looking forward to it?
Hiren Shah
Let me answer here. So, see, definitely, in this particular sector of the businesses, inorganic growth definitely has to be there. But we are working on both the sides. We are adding a lot of workforce for our organic growth. At the same time, we have a team which is constantly scouting towards the inorganic growth opportunity and they are keep talking to various companies and opportunities which has come on our way. Definitely as soon as we come to a conclusion or we definitely inform the Exchange and through that you will be getting the information about that.
Sana Mehta
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Hiren Shah
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Next question is from the line of Manoj Rajani from Rajani Family Office. Please go ahead.
Manoj Rajani
Hi, good evening, sir. Many congratulations for the set of numbers. So sir, I just wanted to ask your policy or your vision towards the talent retention as it is quite important, if I’m not wrong, for our industry and our company.
Hiren Shah
Yes, certainly. I mean thank you so much for this question. And as everyone understand, the people are the main assets for companies like us. That is the reason why when we have got best place to — great place to work kind of award recently and we are trying best to see that how we able to enhance the capabilities of our existing team, at the same time trying to get more talents to our existing structure, which can help them to go further. So, it is very simple thing and on this way that we have to — I mean for us, our people are our assets.
Operator
Sir, the line for the participant dropped. We move on to the next participant. Next question is from the line of Kashish, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Kashish
Hello.
Hiren Shah
Yes, hello, Kashish.
Kashish
Sir, I just want to ask you your share has dropped. Is there any specific reason [Foreign Speech]?
Hiren Shah
Sir, as I said earlier, maybe if you ever heard me, so this is all purely because of the global macroeconomic and geopolitical situation in the world. If you look at the easing of Chinese fiscal situation, which has gone up in the Indian stock market led to some correction at a broad level of indexes, small and mid-caps. So, I mean we assure our investor that there is no change in our growth number for the current year. We are confident of achieving 30% CAGR growth year-on-year.
Kashish
No, but still like 50%, 60% of my capital has been lost and I had a huge trust on your organization. Maybe I think you lost the trust of small investors, retail investors like me who thought okay, Vertoz will grow like anything and will help us to increase our capital.
Hiren Shah
Just to give you a little — if you are following us, you can see that we have actually increased number of investors than what we had earlier. So, we believe that definitely investors have invested in us by looking at the growth and the perspective of this particular industry. And I assure you that we are purely focused on our business and we want to see that we keep achieving the better growth on the business side. So far whatever we have promised, we have done more than what we have promised and we will try to, I mean, do the similar thing in the coming time as well.
Kashish
So Vertoz, [Foreign Speech], should I hold your stock for long term investment or should I like sell it off? I am asking you a very, I know, what to say. I cannot ask this question directly, but I am asking you a very upfront question.
Hiren Shah
Sir, I have a full trust in our company and I keep focusing, working towards the growth of the company. Secondary market is not something which I can comment on, but I mean if you can — if you like to, we have an investor relationship team who can definitely guide you about all our growths and the business prospects in the future. I mean that is what I can do. You can definitely come down, visit our office, talk to our IR team, and I mean just get the glimpse of what exactly and how exactly we are growing on our business side.
Kashish
Sure. Do you have any offices in Noida, sir?
Hiren Shah
We have. We just recently started offices in Noida as well, Noida, Gurgaon. So, definitely you can reach out to our talent acquisition team and see the positions are open. We have more than 40 plus positions are open at this moment.
Kashish
Because I lost a lot of money. So, hopefully, you can give me a job now. I can work with Vertoz and know like how you are working and you can give me a job. I can retain my, what to say, wealth again.
Hiren Shah
Of course. Yes, sure. Sir, you can send your CV and definitely our talent acquisition team will look at that and get back to you on this.
Kashish
Definitely. Thank you so much.
Hiren Shah
Thanks so much.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Akash Sharma, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Akash Sharma
Hi, sir. Sir, I have a few questions. First one is related to our recent share price fall, right? Just wanted to know what is the reason for the same? Like if any of our large investors have sold their stake or are there any concerns regarding sustainability of a fundamental?
Hiren Shah
See, I mean to answer this question, I would like to — I mean I already said this in my earlier answer to a similar question. As a part of a global macroeconomic and geopolitical situation in the world, easing of, say, Chinese fiscal situations, which has run up in the Indian stock market, led to some correction at broad level of all indexes, whether it is a mid-cap, small, or I mean large cap. So the correction has been seen across the sectors. Unfortunately, there was a bounce back as well in the sentiment of overall market. Today is better than the month back. But we would like to assure our investors that there is no change in our growth number for the current year. We are confident that we will be achieving — I mean we are on the way to achieving at least 30% CAGR growth year-on-year. And if you look at the last comparison with the previous quarters and previous half year results and this result, you can see the significant growth in overall business.
Akash Sharma
Okay. Sir, and just following up on this, as you have said that we have faced some macroeconomic challenges yet we have done wonderfully to be in line with our expectations. So are there any specific cost control or operational efficiencies that we have done?
Hiren Shah
So, we are constantly working and optimizing on the cost center. But at the same time, our current focus is to grow the business and expand our horizon and add up more and more markets. If you look at the overall market size, it is a 6 trillion opportunity when you compare the MadTech and the CloudTech as the overall opportunity. So, there is a lot of scope of improvement. Definitely we — at the same time, our team is very efficient and working towards the making more efficient way of cost and overall structure, which can help us in adding more and more better PAT margin.
Akash Sharma
Okay, sir. Sir, and lastly, can you give any guidance on the M&A for the upcoming year particularly in the new subsidiary and partnership with Loop Media?
Hiren Shah
Sure. Basically Ashish bhai, could you answer.
Ashish Shah
Yes, definitely. So especially on the M&A front, definitely this has been a question multiple times on this forum. So, I’ll give you some perspective. So see on the M&A front, first of all we have two major subsegments. The whole business model is empowering the entire digital ecosystems. So the any company present around the MadTech or a CloudTech helping or empowering the digital ecosystems, we are looking around it. Okay. As Hiren bhai mentioned, like there are certain M&A opportunities are there currently evaluated by our global M&A teams, which is actively working around it. So, to give you some perspective so let’s look at the MadTech as a segment. So definitely there are certain components of the ecosystems which are available within the ecosystems of Vertoz group or which are not available in the ecosystems.
So be it like something with respect to a digital advertising agency at the forefront, there could be additional something which could be around what we call the helping the existing ecosystems of our ad exchange business, helping opening up the better opportunities with the other partners. So, these are the sectors which we are evaluating from the MadTech side of the business. Similarly on the CloudTech front, we are evaluating certain MSPs available in the ecosystems, managed service providers, for acquisition opportunity. That is what we are doing from an inorganic standpoint of view. From an organic standpoint of view, also you can see that the recent updates, we have recruited really great talent to expand our horizon within the ecosystems. So definitely we are not just only focused on the inorganic as an opportunity, but at the same time organic is also growing for us heavily. So that is the results of the — that is what we are seeing the results here. Hope this answers your question, Akash.
Akash Sharma
Yes, of course. Thank you very much, sir.
Ashish Shah
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Hiren Shah for closing comments.
Hiren Shah
Sure. Thank you. I thank the entire team of Vertoz for the untiring efforts, hard work, and dedication to digitize the company forward through the various market conditions as well as our shareholders who have trusted us. Also I thank all of you for participating in our conference call. Please do get in touch with our Investor Relation team for any further questions. Thank you so much.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]