Akerna Announces Financial Results for the Third Quarter 2021

DENVER, Nov. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Akerna (Nasdaq: KERN), a leading enterprise software company and the developer of the most comprehensive technology infrastructure, ecosystem, and compliance gateway powering the global cannabis industry, today reported its unaudited financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2021. 

"Our third-quarter results continued the momentum in 2021, with revenue growth of 37% year over year driven by a mix of organic and inorganic software revenue," said Jessica Billingsley, CEO of Akerna. "With the acquisition of 365 Cannabis that announced during the quarter, our financial and tax planning integrations now span the majority of the mainstream systems. As consolidation and rapid scaling continue among operators, Akerna is competitively positioned with our ecosystem of the most complete portfolio of web and app-enabled tax, financials, operations, reporting, and compliance systems for the cannabis industry."

Akerna is the technology ecosystem for cannabis. Through its family of software, which includes MJ Platform, Viridian Sciences, Ample Organics, Trellis, Leaf Data Systems, Last Call Analytics, solo sciences, 365 Cannabis, and various products and integrations, Akerna provides the only scalable cannabis ERP solution offering compliance, data, taxation, payments, seed-to-sale, track-and-trace, and consulting to operators, governments, and brands. In doing so, Akerna creates one of the world's most transparent and accountable consumer packaged goods supply chains on a global scale.

Cannabis companies looking to scale alongside the rapidly expanding industry must leverage the right tools, and enterprise-class software is essential to do so.

Third Quarter 2021 Financial Highlights

• Software revenue was $4.6 million, up 37% year over year
• Total revenue was $5.1 million, up 38% year over year
• Gross profit was $3.2 million, up 60% year over year
• Net loss was $1.3 million, an improvement of 68% year over year
• Adjusted EBITDA was negative $1.5 million compared to negative Adjusted EBITDA of $3.0 million for the same quarter prior year, an improvement of 49% year over year
• Cash was $9.6 million as of September 30, 2021, compared to $11.8 million as of June 30, 2021

See "Explanation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" below

Third Quarter 2021 Key Metrics

• Total SaaS ARR of $16.5 million, up 25% year over year
• Average new business deal size up 7% year over year
• Transaction volume up 28% year over year
• Retail order spend up 26% year over year
• New Bookings ARR of approximately $813,816

Third Quarter 2021 Operational Highlights

• Announced Cannabis 365 acquisition
• Launched Akerna Connect, enabling cannabis dispensaries to offer online ordering, loyalty programs, and text messaging

Subsequent Events

• Closed 365 Cannabis acquisition
• Raised $20 million in convertible debt financing with existing institutional investors

The foregoing financial results are preliminary in nature. Final financial results and other disclosures will be reported in Akerna's quarterly report on Form 10-Q and may differ materially from the results and disclosures today due to, among other things, the completion of final review procedures, the occurrence of subsequent events or the discovery of additional information. You are encouraged to review the Form 10-Q in detail.

Conference Call Details

Akerna will host a conference call tomorrow, Tuesday, November 9, 2021, at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss its financial results and business highlights. A question-and-answer session will follow prepared remarks.

Interested parties may listen to the call by dialing:

Toll-Free: 1-877-407-3982
Toll / International: +1-201-493-6780
Conference ID: 13722617

The conference call will also be available via a live, listen-only webcast and can be accessed through the Investor Relations section of Akerna's website, https://ir.akerna.com/

To be included on the Company's email distribution list, please sign up at https://ir.akerna.com/news-events/email-alerts

About Akerna
Akerna (Nasdaq: KERN) is an enterprise software company focused on compliantly serving the cannabis, hemp, and CBD industry. First launched in 2010, Akerna has tracked more than $20 billion in cannabis sales to date and is the first cannabis software company listed on Nasdaq. The company's cornerstone technology, MJ Platform, the world's leading infrastructure as a service platform, powers retailers, manufacturers, brands, distributors, and cultivators.

For more information, visit https://www.akerna.com/.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release, the words "estimates," "projected," "expects," "anticipates," "forecasts," "plans," "intends," "believes," "seeks," "may," "will," "should," "future," "propose" and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include but are not limited to statements regarding our preliminary financial results which may differ from our final financial results, our belief that our industry leadership position with multi-state, international and emerging enterprises will enable us to be one of the largest cannabis technology winners in the years ahead and the timing for management's conference call in relation to our quarterly results. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, conditions or results, and involve a number of significant known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other important factors, many of which are outside Akerna's control, that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Important factors, among others that may affect actual results or outcomes, include (i) Akerna's ability to maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain its management and key employees, (ii) changes in applicable laws or regulations, (iii) changes in the market place due to the coronavirus pandemic or other market factors, (iv) and other risks and uncertainties disclosed from time to time in Akerna's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including those under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's latest annual report on Form 10-KT filed on March 31, 2021 and in its subsequent reports. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. All information herein speaks only as of the date hereof, in the case of information about Akerna, or the date of such information, in the case of information from persons other than Akerna. Akerna undertakes no duty to update or revise the information contained herein. Forecasts and estimates regarding Akerna's industry and end markets are based on sources believed to be reliable; however, there can be no assurance these forecasts and estimates will prove accurate in whole or in part.

Explanation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures:

In addition to our results determined in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"), we believe the following non-GAAP measures are useful in evaluating our operating performance. We use the following non-GAAP financial information to evaluate our ongoing operations and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. We believe that non-GAAP financial information, when taken collectively, may be helpful to investors because it provides consistency and comparability with past financial performance. However, non-GAAP financial information is presented for supplemental informational purposes only, has limitations as an analytical tool, and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP.

Investors are cautioned that there are material limitations associated with the use of non-GAAP financial measures as an analytical tool. Other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate similarly titled non-GAAP measures differently or may use other measures to evaluate their performance, all of which could reduce the usefulness of our non-GAAP financial measures as tools for comparison.  We attempt compensate for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP items excluded from these non-GAAP financial measures.

Investors are encouraged to review the related GAAP financial measures and the reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and not rely on any single financial measure to evaluate our business.

Adjusted EBITDA

We believe that Adjusted EBITDA, when considered with the financial statements determined in accordance with GAAP, is helpful to investors in understanding our performance and allows for comparison of our performance and credit strength to our peers. Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered alternatives to net loss as determined in accordance with GAAP as indicators of our performance or liquidity.

We define EBITDA as net loss before interest expense, provision for income taxes, depreciation and amortization. We calculate Adjusted EBITDA as EBITDA further adjusted to exclude the effects of the following items for the reasons set forth below:

• Stock-based compensation expense, because this represents a non-cash charge and our mix of cash and share-based compensation may differ from other companies, which effects the comparability of results of operations and liquidity;
  
  
• Cost incurred in connection with business combinations and mergers that are required to be expensed as incurred in accordance with GAAP, because business combination and merger related costs are specific to the complexity and size of the underlying transactions as well as the frequency of our acquisition activity these costs are not reflective of our ongoing operations;
  
  
• Costs incurred in connection with non-recurring financing fees when we elect the fair value option to account for our debt instruments because if we had not elected the fair value option such costs would be recognized as an adjustment to the effective interest and excluded from EBITDA;
  
  
• Restructuring charges because we believe these costs are not representative of operating performance;
  
  
• Equity in earnings (losses) of investees because our share of the operations of investees is not representative of our own operating performance and may not be monetized for a number of years; and
  
  
• Changes in fair value of contingent consideration because these adjustments are not recurrring across all periods and we believe these costs are not representative of operating performance.
  
  
• Gain on forgiveness of PPP loan because this is a one-time forgiveness of debt that is not recurring across all periods and we believe inclusion of the gain is not representative of operating performance.

Related Non-GAAP Expense Measure

We reference in our earnings call certain non-GAAP expense measures, including non-GAAP Operating Expenses, non-GAAP Product Development Expense, non-GAAP Sales and Marketing Expenses, and non-GAAP General and Administrative Expenses.  We believe that these non-GAAP financial measures, when considered with the financial statements determined in accordance with GAAP, are helpful to management and investors in understanding our performance quarter over quarter and to the comparable quarter in our prior fiscal year by excluding the same items we exclude from EBITDA to derive Adjusted EBITDA, as set forth above (stock-based compensation expense, costs incurred with business combinations and mergers, costs incurred in connection with non-recurring financing fees, restructuring charges, equity in earnings (losses) of investees and changes in fair value of contingent consideration) for the same reasons stated above, principally, that these expenses are not, in management's opinion, easily comparable across reporting periods, are not reflective of ongoing operations and/or are not representative of our operating performance.

We define non-GAAP Operating Expenses, non-GAAP Product Development Expense, non-GAAP Sales and Marketing Expenses and non-GAAP General and Administrative Expenses as, in each case, the corresponding GAAP financial measure (Operating Expenses, Product Development Expense, Sales and Marketing Expenses and General and Administrative Expenses) excluding that portion of depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation expense, costs incurred with business combinations and mergers, costs incurred in connection with non-recurring financing fees, restructuring charges, equity in earnings (losses) of investees and changes in fair value of contingent consideration that is attributable to that specific GAAP financial measure.

This non-GAAP expense measure should not be considered an alternative to the corresponding GAAP financial measure as determined in accordance with GAAP as an indicator of our performance or liquidity.  Please review the tables provided below, for a reconciliation of this non-GAAP expense measure to the corresponding GAAP financial measure.

The reconciliation of the above non-GAAP financial measures for the quarter ended September 30, 2021 are presented in the tables below.  For comparative purposes, the reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures in the prior quarter ended June 30, 2021 are contained in our press release for that quarter dated August 9, 2021 and available on our website at www.akerna.com or in our current report on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 9, 2021 and available here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1755953/000121390021041101/ea145469ex99-1_akernacorp.htm

SOURCE Akerna