Q1 2024 Rush Street Interactive Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Kyle Sauers; Chief Financial Officer; Rush Street Interactive Inc

Richard Schwartz; Chief Executive Officer; Rush Street Interactive Inc

Jed Kelley; Analyst; Oppenheimer & Co.

David Katz; Analyst; Jefferies

Chad Beynon; Analyst; Macquaire Group

Daniel Politzer; Analyst; Wells Fargo Securities, LLC

Stefanos Crist; Analyst; Needham & Company, Inc

Ryan Sigdahl; Analyst; Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Mike Hickey; Analyst; The Benchmark Company LLC

Presentation

Operator

Good day to you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Rush Street Interactive first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, May first, 2021 four. I will now turn the call over to Kyle Sauers, Chief Financial Officer.

Kyle Sauers

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon. By now, everyone should have access to our first quarter 2024 earnings release. It can be found under the heading Financials, Quarterly Results in the Investors section of the RSI website at Rush Street, interactive.com. Some of our comments will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.
Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical fact are usually identified by the use of words such as will, expect, should or other similar phrases and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. We assume no responsibility for updating any forward looking statements and therefore, you should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on them.
We refer you to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results and financial condition. During the call, we will discuss our non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP.
In particular, we will be discussing adjusted EBITDA, which we define as net income or loss before interest, income, taxes, depreciation and amortization, share-based compensation adjustments for certain onetime or nonrecurring items and other adjustments that are either non-cash or not related to our underlying business performance.
A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available in our first quarter 2024 earnings release and our investor deck, which is available in the Investors section of the RCI website at Rush Street Interactive.com for purposes of today's call, unless noted otherwise, when discussing profitability, EBITDA or other income statement measures other than revenue, we are referring to those items on a non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA basis.
With me on the call today, we have Richard Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer, who will first provide some opening remarks and then open the call to questions. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Richard.

Richard Schwartz

Thanks, Kyle. Good afternoon, and welcome to our first quarter 2024 earnings call. We are pleased to report that we began 2024 with the same strong momentum with which we ended 2023. First quarter revenue was $217 million, up 34% year over year, and EBITDA was $17 million, representing a $26 million improvement year over year. Both of these figures represent quarterly records by a wide margin, something our team is very proud of. We were able to achieve these milestones by continuing to focus on the quality of our product experience and the ability to efficiently acquire and retain high value players. Said simply, we are adding players to our platform more quickly. Players on average are higher value.
We are finding these new players more efficiently than ever and we are driving meaningful profitability from this impressive growth during the quarter, both iCasino and online sports grew over 35%, demonstrating balanced growth across our product verticals. This is a continuation of what we saw last quarter and continues to be driven by both rapidly increasing player counts and improving player values as a result of efforts to continually differentiate our user experience and offer a high quality experience that engages and retains players on our platform.
In North America, we again achieved a new record in monthly active users for the first quarter. Now growth was 20% year-over-year. Going back to beginning of Q4 last year, we have seen our growth in North American Mountain accelerate monthly in each of the last six months.
In Latin America, our malls continued to grow rapidly during the first quarter as we were up 72% year-over-year. It is noteworthy that this growth in users across our markets did not come at the expense of player value as we increase both North American and Lat-Am are now in the first quarter.
Next, there are a few market-specific takeaways to highlight. While we experienced growth across all market vintages, our newer markets continues to drive outsized revenue growth in Latin America and in US Canadian markets launched 2021, revenue grew 78% year-over-year and quarter one.
This growth across newer markets led to our revenue contribution from markets other than Illinois and Pennsylvania to reach 57%, up from 47% during the first quarter of 2023. As a reminder, our operating margins in Pennsylvania and Illinois are lower due to the arrangements with our land-based partners in these states. Thus, as our percentage of revenue contributed from other markets increases, our overall margin should expand, which is what we saw in Q1.
Our newest market. Delaware continued its strong early performance that we highlighted during our last earnings call. For Q1, our annual GGR run rate increased and was nearing $70 million, a $10 million increase from the $60 million level we shared on our last call was driven by a strong end to the quarter. We ran over four times the rate of the previous operator during the month of March with around 75% of this GGR attributed to iCasino.
Similar in market proportion to other states for both casino and online sports betting are allowed. We achieved this level of scale, a focused marketing spend and approach validating our belief that players appreciate our differentiated products and respond to our focus on a high-quality, trustworthy customer experience.
While on the topic of Delaware. Many of you have seen there's been a bill introduced to expand online sports betting traditional operators. We are actively involved in discussions on this topic and have support from key stakeholders in this state leading us to feel positive on the current structure remaining in place. In the event there is a change. I'll remind you that the lobbying effort only applies to online sports betting. While our newer markets continue to the strong growth, we also saw a resurgence from some of our more mature markets during the quarter.
Our three largest online casino markets in North America, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Each had our highest year over year revenue growth rates in the last two years. Our focus on the iCasino experience is resonating with new and existing customers driving very solid growth in these existing markets.
Turning to our Lab M operations, we continue to be extremely pleased with our performance in Colombia and Mexico. Our Russian bet brand is resonating with customers, as evidenced by our year over year now and are now growth. This translated to year over year revenue increases of 84% and Latin America with a lot of room for continued growth as we invest in both these markets.
In terms of marketing approach, while our strategy has not wavered. Our execution continues to improve. We target the highest ROI opportunities with an emphasis on attracting the highest value players to our platform and retaining them by offering them a high quality experience, and this is working specifically, I'm very proud that we have continued to deliver results in driving greater efficiency in our marketing costs.
In fact, in Q1, we had our highest number of first time depositors ever as a company and the highest in North America since our launch in New York in the first quarter of 2022 and we've been able to do this while lowering our CPAs to less than half and what they were a year ago. Whatever unique strategies for acquiring customers is our bet Rivers network which we use to engage players and keep the debt Rivers brand top of mind for our players.
In light of the strategy, we were excited to recently announce the renewal of our partnership with sports broadcasting legend. Mike, for Intesa was a staple fiber network subsequent to quarter end. We were also proud to announce our partnership as a title sponsor for the announced Car-X affinity series dash for cash raise that reversed 200, which took place on April 27 at Dover Motor Speedway marked the first time in Delaware history.
Apasco placed mobile sports wagers from inside of sporting events. It's historically been came on the heels of our online sports betting launch in the state and served as a unique opportunity to promote our brand while also investing locally in Delaware and supporting an unforgettable events to the same Raceway.
Lastly, we furthered our commitment to returns based marketing through the announcement of the hiring of Brian SAP as the company's first Chief Marketing Officer. Throughout his career, the gaming and mobile industries. Brian has repeatedly led marketing teams deliver a successful brand and data-driven campaign that scale businesses while achieving growth and profitability goals. Our entire team is very excited to have Brian onboard.
On the new markets front, we continue to be excited about a variety of opportunities opening up across the Americas. Our next likely market launch will be through which we anticipate to be later this summer. We are finalizing our plans and strategy, and we are very excited about this opportunity. As a reminder, proves about two thirds of the population in Colombia with a slightly higher GDP per capita.
We believe we are well positioned for success there. Given the market adjacencies and overlap with Colombia and established teams in Colombia, we will leverage as for other regulated markets in LatAm, we continue to evaluate a range of opportunities the regulations for Brazil have been beginning to rollout. So as they are published, we are reviewing and assessing them.
We will continue to share updates about these markets, which, as noted in the past typically include both online casino and online sports betting playing to our demonstrated strengths of multiproduct markets and Latin America.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Kyle.

Kyle Sauers

Thanks, Richard. First quarter revenue was $217.4 million, up 34% year-over-year, driven by strong growth of over 35% year-over-year across both our casino and online sports betting products. As Richard highlighted previously, our first quarter results were also strong across market vintages and geographies. We continued our trend of positive EBITDA for the fourth consecutive quarter and reached a record $17.1 million, up from negative $8.7 million during the prior year period.
We were able to achieve these results through the increased flow through, we're able to capture as our business scales and our operations and marketing continues to optimize. As previously mentioned, our top line growth was the result of growth in both the number and value of our user base. In North America now has reached $176,000, up 20% year over year, while our mall was up 9% yearover-year to $355.
Our Latin American metrics were also up with now is reaching $224,000 during the quarter, representing a 72% year-over-year increase in our mall, reaching $43, a 4% increase over the prior year period. We continue to find the right ways to efficiently bring new players onto the platform, retain them well and work hard to reactivate those that have been away for a while.
We are as convinced as ever that once players find that that reverse or rush that experience, they will dedicate a large share of their entertainment wallets and keep returning for years to come for the quarter. Gross profit margin increased 160 basis points sequentially to 33.7%. As Richard highlighted, revenue from the markets other than Pennsylvania and Illinois accounted for 57% of revenue during the first quarter, the highest percentage since we've been public and a trend that we expect to continue.
As evidenced by our strong growth in miles DARTmail were very pleased with the impact of our marketing spend in Q1. For the quarter, advertising and promotions were $37.8 million, which is up single digits sequentially but down 23% from the same period last year. As a percentage of revenue, this equated to 17%, which is down from 30% in the first quarter of 2023.
Our current thinking is that marketing spend is likely to be up sequentially in the second quarter and third quarter compared to the first quarter with a bigger step up in Q4. Of course, given our success in finding cost effective and unique ways to drive customer acquisition, we'll continue to remain flexible with our plans.
G&a for the first quarter was $18.3 million, equating to 8.4% of revenue. As highlighted on our last call, much of the run rate increase in G&A was absorbed in Q1 due to annual compensation adjustments. Going forward, we continue to believe that our full year G&A expense as a percentage of revenue will be below 2023 8.8% due to the leverage we experienced as the business scales. We ended the quarter with $191 million in unrestricted cash, an increase of $23 million during the quarter, and we continue to have no debt.
Following our strong first quarter results. We are raising both our full year revenue and EBITDA guidance for 2024. We now expect full-year revenue to be between $810 million and $860 million, which increases the midpoint to $835 million, up $35 million from our initial guidance. We expect full year EBITDA to be between $50 million and $60 million, which increases the midpoint to $55 million, up $15 million and up 38% from our initial guide. And as a reminder, our guidance includes only those markets that are live as of today.
And with that, operator, please open the lines for questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Jed Kelley, Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Jed Kelley

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question and great quarter. Just looking at the back half kind of kind of the updated guidance implies some sort of a deceleration, but you do have the easing comps on you get a benefit of a full year of Delaware So can you just talk about what's going on there? And then can you give us an update on how holds are trending in April relative to March in 1Q? Thanks

Kyle Sauers

Sure, John, thanks for the thanks for the question, Tom. I would say we feel like we put really, really solid growth numbers in the guidance here with revenue up something like 17% to 24% in EBITDA, $42 million to $52 million compared to last year month. I'll remind you that where we put our guidance at the beginning of the year, we were above consensus and then from just increased EBITDA and revenue again as since the since the call before.
I think on your question about implied revenue for back half of the year or the last three quarters of the year, couple of things to have in mind. And obviously, there's a lot of factors that go into creating that guidance. There's no different hold outcomes growth rates in our newer markets. You referenced Delaware, which is going great, but obviously new for us. So so then some variability there. We've got seasonality in the business, both in sports, more so in sports, but both in sports and iCasino.
Maybe specific to your question, two things that I would point out. One is that there's some tailwinds in the first half of the year for FX differences in Colombia last year to this year, those tailwinds go away in the second half of the year, assuming exchange rates stay where they are. The other thing is are our hold rates in sports and maybe to a lesser extent, casino on the both of both of them were and closer to the higher end of our expected ranges last year in Q2 and Q3. And so the comps are a little bit a little bit tougher in Q2 and Q3 because of that reason.

Jed Kelley

Got it. And then you did mention you're stepping up marketing in 2Q. I think. Can you just give us a reason for the marketing and how your ROI is trending? Thanks.

Kyle Sauers

So I think we mentioned in the prepared remarks that our So first of all, FTDs are at the highest rate they've been in the Company's history as CPAs are half what they were this time last year and trying to give some directional trends on marketing spend. But we because we're always looking for good ways to put money to use to bring in new players that are going to be valuable for us.
We want to stay pretty dynamic on it, and we spent less in Q1 than we had originally anticipated to come and we see a lot of opportunities, a lot of good, good places to put money to work. So I think the current thinking is that Q2 and Q3 would both be a little bit more than what we spent in Q1. And certainly that could change. That's part of the reason for a range in our guidance.
And then in Q4 from the sports calendar going into the winter for iCasino, we'd expect it to step up a little bit further.

Richard Schwartz

Just adding on Jedd, that just we want to remain flexible and focused on investing where we see the best value, it gives us a chance to do that.

Jed Kelley

Thank you.

Operator

David Katz, Jefferies.

David Katz

Good evening, everyone or afternoon, depending on where you are. Thanks for taking my question. I am I know the Joe mention Delaware and Richard, I'm not sure I heard a ton on in your prepared remarks. Apologies if I missed it, but could you just give us a sense for how you're doing there and what your outlook and expectations are?

Richard Schwartz

Sure. I think what we what we shared is that we went from last quarter, we thought the run rate is around $60 million. We'd be able to accelerate that to the run rate now being at a near $70 million GGR for the year would say that we're having tremendous success. I think the quality of our casino product and the user experience we offer to our customer service.
It's definitely being noticed by the players, and you're seeing that dramatic improvement on performance versus what it was prior to us. Taking over the business at the end of December. We think the growth is has been exciting, and we think there's lots of things are going to continue to do to trying to grow that business. But it's a it's on clips, unclear, you know what the growth will look like moving forward.
But we know that we are continuing to invest in some targeted marketing opportunities. We just recently held the US weekend. There was a big Nascar race in Dover. We were the featured sponsor along with three racinos. There was a great event a lot of positive feedback from that, a lot of positive awareness for the brand and the activity that we're supporting there. So we feel very optimistic about the future, but we feel like it's a market that I think is far beyond people expected it to be at for us.

David Katz

And just one kind of bigger picture question about gaming. I mean, we spend have a great deal of time focusing on sort of the next product and product depth within sports betting, we could shift the discussion to IDM and are there sort of now product types or product categories, it can provide a similar step function and performance or like we've seen in sports betting and I have the shares, but they are we won't tell anyone?

Richard Schwartz

Yes, I think on a public call like this, I have to give a little bit careful on the specifics for competitive reasons. But I will tell you that we are unique in that we know how to manufacture fund as an operator. Most coveted or operators don't create a sort of license that from third party suppliers. So having that capability and the technology in-house, the design, understanding of how to create compelling user experiences.
It's giving us a great level of confidence that the next things are rolling out are going to be very exciting for the customer, a couple of big ones coming down the pipeline, and we've been working very closely and we're very excited about again, I think most companies' strategies are to aggregate game libraries with many third parties as possible.
We do that probably better than money, many of our competitors, but it's not something that's unique to us, but where we really differentiate ourselves is the ability to create community features, site-wide community features, gamified features, social experiences that are unique to our site, offering ways for players to win in unique ways that aren't available elsewhere and creating a fun experience for players that they really can't repeat if they play somewhere else.
So we put all those things together. We personalize experiences offer. These really exciting promotions. You develop experiences that are fun, and that's what you want to create for this audience and it can it's hard to do. But we think we've done it well in the past. And the results have delivered exceptional returns for us, and we're about to launch new ones in the future later this year that we're equally or even more excited about.

David Katz

We'll stay tuned. Thanks very much.

Operator

Chad Beynon, Macquarie.

Chad Beynon

Afternoon. Thanks for taking my question and nice results and outlook. Kyle, your balance sheets in a really strong position. It looks like based on end of quarter; your cash balance is the highest. It's been in at least six quarters here. So on given the outlook of EBITDA, the cash balance, how are you thinking about uses of this, whether it's M&A, capital allocation? Can you kind of frame that out?

Kyle Sauers

Yes, I'll point out it wasn't that many quarters ago that you guys were asking about, do we have enough cash and now now we're generating plenty. So we're pretty excited and we're happy to be in that position and don't see. I don't see that changing. I think in terms of use of the cash, obviously, we're always looking at the highest return opportunities and where those where those might be in that conversation evolves. And we continue to look at different things. I think the biggest thing that we've got to be ready for and have have dry powder for is new market launches. So that's that first and foremost.
And I think the other thing that we continue to look at is M&A or tuck-in acquisitions that could be additive to what we're doing.

Chad Beynon

Thank you. Appreciate it. And then with respect to live dealer, where are we in that in that journey and just kind of thinking or looking at your active users, are these customers that are interested in live dealer? Are they generally customers that that are going to skew significantly more of their time towards slots. Could you kind of help us with that, please?

Richard Schwartz

Hi, this live dealer is a great category, as you know, is improving globally and certainly doing well in the U.S., we think there's an opportunity for us to do better than we have done on live dealer. We've put a lot of efforts into achieving some additional offer strategies there that will help us to deliver, I think, stronger growth in the live dealer category.
One of the things we've done is we've been early to launch live dealer in additional markets. And we've also been able to diversify our vendors that we use it and probably in a more more than others, how have so I think variety of contents.
Helpful but also the ways we're integrating the games and out and adding some site capabilities and side bets and other types of community features that will allow our players to sort of engage with the live dealer in a way that creates fine. Again, sort of the theme of the player experience from our standpoint is manufacturing fun for players. So blood category live dealer is a great category. We believe there's a lot of growth ahead in it for us. And we are working very diligently on creating environment where we can sort of be one of the leaders in the live dealer category.

Chad Beynon

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Operator

Daniel Politzer, Wells Fargo.

Daniel Politzer

good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. On terms of the revenue growth, it looks like in the US, it accelerated in the first quarter. I think was your highest pace of growth in a number of quarters. So I mean, I assume that that's from Delaware, but to what extent are there other factors in there, maybe reduction in promotions or even an acceleration in some of the markets you're in. You could just kind of unpack that and maybe give some detail on how to think about the rest of the year as it relates to US versus versus Lat Am?

Kyle Sauers

No, it's a great question, Dan. I think the growth is really very broad-based. Certainly Delaware has been a nice win for us. But to your point in the US, US and Canada at our highest growth rate, even excluding Delaware, to our highest growth rate in many, many quarters, obviously, Latin America is growing wildly That's fantastic. Richard pointed out that in Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, three of our largest markets, we had our highest growth rate in over two years some highest year-over-year quarterly growth rate.
So there's just a lot of really great things going on we talked about and then the user count growing pretty significantly when you do that and you're also increasing the player value. It's obviously pretty powerful.

Daniel Politzer

Got it. And then in terms of the customers that you're seeing that the newer customers coming onto the platform is your based on the data that you have and the intelligence that you get access to, are these new customers to our gaming? Are these customers that are maybe coming over from different tiers in the mix?

Kyle Sauers

Yes, the answer is your question whether the people we're bringing on to the bet rivers or rush, but platforms, if those are incremental players too online gaming or whether we're getting more share from from someone who is already on a platform yesterday, are they due to product or just more new to brand as you kind of accelerate your growth growth in those markets and maybe take a little bit of share.
Yes, I think it's hard to know for sure. I'll tell you that are our growth in user counts. And obviously, the value of a wave and a casino player is greater than the value of someone who only plays sports. Somebody does both is far more valuable. We actually have a slide in our in our investor deck that we keep in there each quarter that just demonstrates it demonstrates that the user counts and the growth that we had this past quarter and even going back to Q4 is very balanced between players that are playing iCasino playing sports or plain both.
So I think there's an element of us bringing new people into the ecosystem, the gaming ecosystem and us getting more share. And I think I'd be it'd be hard to suggest that and we're able to grow our average revenue per user like we did add as many users and have them all the new tie gaming because it would have been pretty dilutive. I would imagine

Daniel Politzer

Right, that's and that's kind of what I was getting at. Okay. All right. Thanks so much for the detail and nice quarter.

Kyle Sauers

Thanks, Dan.

Operator

Bernie McTernan, Needham.

Stefanos Crist

Hi, This is Stefanos Crist calling in for Bernie. Thanks for taking our questions. I wanted to ask on Mexico continuing to show strong growth. I just wanted to ask on the timing and path to profitability there. Thank you.

Richard Schwartz

Yes, I'll start up. We're still having great success in that launch period. We've referenced Colombia in the past. But if you were to update the information that we're about two times that the Columbia launch revenue over that same time period. So you can see we've accelerated at a really nice pace relative to where we were in Colombia. We know how great the story of Colombia has unfolded for us in recent years. And I think in terms of the profitability, we actually have crossed the threshold. We're profitable in the first quarter on a contribution basis from Mexico.

Stefanos Crist

That's great. Thank you.

Operator

Ryan Sigdahl, Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Ryan Sigdahl

Hey, good afternoon, guys.
Want to stay on Mexico, good to hear profitability there. I guess how much of that do you think is attributed to product and the assortment you guys are offering from a user experience standpoint? Also thinking about the largest operator there that has dominant market shares had some legal issues, had some issues with their tech partner. I guess how much of that competitive dynamic is also helping?

Richard Schwartz

Hey, Ryan, it's Mexico is a complicated market. It's there's a lot of quality of operators there and some quality experiences. I do think that we've done a really nice job of building the right functions that you need to localize the product in the proper way to optimize our results.
Before we started to spend too aggressively, I would say that as a casino first, operator, with the quality of our casino it does stand out when players play versus other products in the marketplace for even the sports book. As you know, in Columbia Sportswear revenues are larger than our casino. Our stores the quality is very good for that market, that region. And I think we've been able to do some things in that market that really are a high quality.
We brought assumed and partly it's a market that many of the local Mexican operator in offering their solution, the registration flows that we've offered our unique. We've added some tools that others don't have in the market to make it an easier experience for users to register, make a first deposit. We have a seasoned marketing team is doing a lot of really good at promotions.
And advertisements reaching audiences in the right places at the right times. We see a lot of growth ahead for us in that market. There's some exciting promotions we're running with some unique features we have in our as you probably know, we have a unique tournament system we built and there's some clever ways that we're using that to engage customers in our experience that isn't available anywhere else.
And when we give you something like that, where the players enjoy that and are engaged with us on a frequent basis, we have a chance to retain those customers and generate a higher wallet share from them. So I would say that, yes, there's a tough competitor. There was only a lot of market share, but they are declining and shared. It appears and companies like us are slowly growing share and expect to be able to it. We have a long path ahead of growth for us.

Ryan Sigdahl

There Great. Thanks, Richard. Good luck.

Operator

Mike Hickey, The Benchmark Company.

Mike Hickey

Richard, Kyle, thanks for taking our questions. And congratulations on a great quarter. I guess, Richard, first of all, some media and noise in the quarter as reported by Bloomberg, which I think is still pretty credible that potentially you're seeking strategic alternatives and possible sale of the Company at the DraftKings is done and the mix is moving acquisitive. So on you probably won't comment to comment on it, but I'm curious if you would, and why wouldn't you start a formal process it and if that's true.
The second question for Kyle, I heard the yes you're asked. I guess on your guidance and I get nothing wrong with being conservative and raising your numbers something that's awesome. But when you look back over the last four years, Kyle, you've grown your revenue sequentially from Q. one each quarter through the year end.
And so I've heard hold and seasonality and FX, but maybe if you could just double-click again on your guide on the top line, given that your first quarter is sort of 26% at the midpoint of your range here, and it seems like that's up a pretty conservative raise, given that backdrop? Thank you.

Kyle Sauers

Yes, I'll take that first, Mike, and then so I think you I think you're there's a there's a bit of a tailwind from more. So in Q1 than it is in Q2, but still there in Q2. And then absent in Q3 and Q4, given where the exchange rate is right now for Colombia and then Q2 and Q. three little tougher comparables with better hold last year. And I think the other thing just to keep in mind when it's a good point about if you go back and look at history and Tom, how are you revenue has progressed throughout the year?
And I think the thing that is different and at this point around that cadence is that we don't have two, three, four markets that are launching each year that are in the super high growth phase or maybe even had negative revenue in the first quarter that at launch and then turn positive that would have aided that kind of that sort of an our cadence throughout the year.
So no, we've put out put out a new revenue guide and increased it nicely. Certainly we had a really, really nice first quarter with that. It's the range that we're comfortable with, given all the different factors. And obviously, like any quarter any year. We endeavor to get out and get on the phone with you guys the following quarter and post good results and raise those estimates if we can.

Richard Schwartz

But I'll jump in on the first question on the FX.

Mike Hickey

Yeah, Thanks, Richard.

Richard Schwartz

You had a follow-up.

Kyle Sauers

No go ahead.

Richard Schwartz

On the target of the first question. I read the same article you referenced and I hear the same speculation that you have. I can't respond to the rumors or speculation in the press from the press obviously on this call. But what I can say is that the Board and the management regular regularly valuate all opportunities that we have. And our goal is to always maximize shareholder value as substantial shareholders ourselves of the management team are fully aligned with the shareholders.
Our what we have built and continue to build it is what we believe we have a tremendous value to our investors. And we have a lot of assets that are valuable to us, just like very interesting to other companies, and we will continue to evaluate all opportunities as part of our shareholder obligations.

Mike Hickey

Richard, I get that man and you guys are definitely delivering and it doesn't look like you get necessarily a fair shake from the market here in terms of your value valuation. I guess why wouldn't you start of formal process on a strategic alternative, including the possible sale? Like why not one more about it, I guess, to Rich's question.

Richard Schwartz

Yes, we just had I can't respond to that question in the public setting.

Mike Hickey

Thanks, guys. Good luck.

Operator

Thank you. There are no additional questions waiting at this time, so I'll pass the conference back over to Mr. Schwartz for closing remarks.

Richard Schwartz

Thank you again for joining us today. I'm really proud of our team and what they are achieving. Our executive team recently visited all of our offices and team members across the globe who left us is it's feeling inspired by the quality and the commitment of our teams are enthusiastic, passionate and fully aligned with our goals for the company. The best is yet to come. We look forward to updating you on our progress. We share our second quarter results in a couple of months. Thank you.

Operator

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your --