Q1 2024 Vertex Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Joe Crivelli; VP, IR; Vertex Inc

David DeStefano; Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer; Vertex Inc

John Schwab; Chief Financial Officer; Vertex Inc

Chris Quintero; Analyst; Morgan Stanley

Daniel Jester; Analyst; BMO Capital

Joshua Reilly; Senior Analyst; Needham & Company LLC

Adam Hotchkiss; Analyst; Goldman Sachs

Brad Reback; Analyst; Stifel

Steve Enders; Analyst; Citi

Brad Sills; Analyst; Bank of America

Alex Sklar; Analyst; Raymond James

Patrick Walravens; Analyst; Citizens

Presentation

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to Vertex first-quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Please note this conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)
And now, I'll turn the conference over to Joe Crivelli, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Crivelli, you may now begin.

Joe Crivelli

Hello, and thanks for joining us to discuss Vertex's first-quarter financial results. I'm Joe Crivelli, Vice President, Investor Relations. David DeStefano, our President and CEO; and John Schwab, our CFO, are also with us today.
During this call, we may make forward-looking statements about expected future results. Actual financial results may differ due to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
And in our remarks today, we will also refer to non-GAAP financial metrics. A reconciliation of these metrics to GAAP is provided in today's press release. The call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our investor relations website.
I'll now turn the call over to David.

David DeStefano

Thanks, Joe. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us.
2024 is off to a very good start as shown in the first quarter results. Once again, we exceeded the high end of our financial guidance for revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Our consistently solid performance is a result of being crystal clear on where we are going as a company and then being laser focused on executing our plans to get there at Vertex, we have a bold vision to accelerate global commerce.
To achieve this, we have built a consistent execution engine that continues to perform quarter-after-quarter. We deliver end to end capabilities for indirect tax to seamlessly connect systems solutions and data. This unified approach empowers our customers to confidently navigate indirect tax complexities and manage their need for a continuous compliance process.
We're able to support our customers throughout their entire digital transformation journey wherever they run their business locally fully in the cloud or somewhere in between we provide value-added services that help them efficiently integrate their indirect tax into the infrastructure and stay in compliance and behind the scenes, we have a world-class team dedicated to our customer success at every touch point. This is what enables us to keep delivering differentiated value to our customers and great results for investors.
Revenue traction remains strong. Total revenue was up 18.1% in the first quarter, and software subscription growth was 18.8%. In addition, cloud revenue growth was 28.3%, which is slightly ahead of our target for the full year. Earnings leverage continues to build as expected, adjusted EBITDA was $36.5 million or 23.3% of revenue. This is up 80% from last year's first quarter.
I'll also note that we delivered positive free cash flow in the first quarter, which is typically our lowest quarter of the year. From a cash flow standpoint, this bodes well for cash production for the rest of the year. In addition, this quarter ARR was $525 million, up 17.5% year over year. NRR was 112%, up two full percentage points compared to last year's first quarter.
Average annual revenue per customer increased 17% year over year to $121,720 scaled customer count, which represents customers delivering annual revenue of over $100,000, grew 13% year over year, and GRR was 95% in the first quarter, which falls within our targeted best-in-class range of 94% to 96%.
I'm incredibly proud that Vertex's leadership in the indirect tax technology space was recognized by the financial market last month when we raised $345 million of convertible debt that we can invest in our business. Convertible debt. Investors were extremely enthusiastic about Vertex, our business strategy and our growth prospects they appreciate our consistent high 10s revenue growth as well as our ability to operate profitably and deliver positive adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. This capital will enable us to be agile, proactive and decisive in seizing growth opportunities, whether through organic investments or acquisitions, our financial flexibility and our balance sheet has never been stronger.
Now turning to notable wins in the quarter. Our results confirm that the market for indirect tax software is underpenetrated and many companies are still handling their indirect tax needs with homegrown solutions as the persistent tailwinds of business expansion, regulatory pressures and digital transformations continue to pressure tax departments. We believe that the opportunity to deliver our tax solutions to the market will grow.
I will highlight some key new logo wins, which pays this off. In the first quarter, we won a mid six-figure deal with a global provider of power management solutions. This particular deal highlights two growth pillars for Vertex, the anticipated wave of ERP conversion that will happen as a result of SAP's decision to a mainstream support for ECC in 2027, as well as the sales partnership we have built with the SAP direct sales force. In this case, the customer was migrating to S4 Hana as part of their digital transformation project. This was a catalyst for them to evaluate indirect tax and determine it was time to replace their homegrown solution as they were previously manually updating rules and regulations in their purchasing system.
As we have discussed, one of our growth investments was building a more tightly aligned partnership with SAP on the go-to-market front, and we are seeing ongoing traction from this investment. This deal is an example of how that partnership is bringing new customers to Vertex as we referred in by the SAT. sales team, in addition to the credibility boost that we enjoy in this case, the SAP referral enabled us to get an early look at the customer's infrastructure and tailor our solution accordingly.
Another new logo we won in the first quarter was a global risk management consulting firm that has grown through hundreds of acquisitions over the past several decades. They were using a homegrown indirect tax calculation and compliance system, but recent audit pressure had made it clear that the Company outgrew its old ways of doing things and needed a more sophisticated solution due to the acquisitions. The customer systems environment was extremely complex, which competitively gave us an advantage due to our experience connecting multiple platforms to a single tax solution.
In this case, we integrated with multiple systems, including Oracle, Workday, Salesforce and JD Edwards as well as the customers' homegrown billing systems. We had a great win in the quarter with a cloud native cybersecurity company. After being acquired, our customer underwent a transformation initiative to move their tax solution to the cloud. Even though the new parent currently uses one of our competitors, our cloud solution was chosen because the team was familiar with our proven track record and we will then meet their accelerated time line.
We also won a mid six-figure deal with a new customer as a manufacturer of industrial machinery to another case where an S4. Hana transformation led the Company to reevaluate how we're handling indirect tax. The company selected Vertex solutions for tax calculation as well as compliance and reporting solutions for both North America and Europe. They also license for plus tools for SAP and our certificate center.
One of the biggest sources of new revenue for Vertex and the sustainable driver of NR growth is increased business with our existing costs expand part of land-and-expand equation. A customer in the consumer product space fueled our Q1 growth with a mid six-figure revenue addition, their SAP infrastructure upgrade presented an ideal opportunity to move our Vertex solution to the cloud and expand entitlements by 15 billion. They also saw the value of our tax accelerator and Virtex-E plus tools for SAP while they evaluated competitive options as part of their process, our unmatched SAP expertise and solutions that ultimately differentiates Vertex.
Our unique capabilities delivered a lower total cost of implementation and ownership while minimizing to further optimize your tax processes. Our consulting team is collaborating with them to streamline current indirect tax calculations and compliance. Also in the first quarter, we expanded our relationship with a long-time customer in the medical diagnostics industry. They advanced their corporate cloud strategy by migrating two of our legacy solutions to our modern cloud offering. This in turn, consolidate their tax operations onto a single platform seamlessly integrating with Salesforce Commerce, cloud, PeopleSoft and their internal billing systems.
Other fundamental business changes such as M&A, divestitures and adoption of new modes of commerce can also drive new business for Vertex. In the first quarter, we landed a new customer in the contract research industry that was being spun out by its parent in this case, the company needed an indirect tax solution to pair with its implementation of Workday Financials, their big four accounting firm conducted in RP and Vertex prevailed. Similarly in the security industry. We wanted to deal with a company that was being sold to a private equity firm customer selected Virtex-4 indirect tax to integrate Microsoft C. two 65.
Finally, on the international front, we had a nice win with a growing marketplace provider. When the customer first looked for an indirect tax solution, they went with a competitor, but over the course of their journey. Things didn't go well, they didn't get the support they needed. Our competitor's transaction-based pricing model led to massive cost overruns. Ultimately, after 18 months of frustration, the customer changed direction and came back to Vertex.
A quick word on how we are addressing e-invoicing. We remain committed to our strategy of delivering a continuous compliance solution, which provides for a single cloud portal to address the key invoicing through to compliance process, of which e-invoicing is just one piece. As we noted last quarter after we opted out of the bidding war in the near term, we continue to utilize to as a partner in alignment with our commercial agreement. However, we are also evaluating our options in developing partnerships with additional players in this space. We will have more to share on this in the coming quarters.
As we look back on the strategic growth investments we made from 2020 through 2023 and how they are helping us better serve our customers. I am thrilled with our position in the market and the opportunity in front of us. Our product portfolio, tax content, database, go-to-market expertise and scalable infrastructure has us well-positioned for a nice run of revenue growth, increasing profitability and solid cash flow to reward our investors.
John will now take you through the financials. John?

John Schwab

Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. I'll now review our first quarter financial results and provide guidance for the second quarter and full year of 2020. For the first quarter revenue was $156.8 million, up 18.1% compared to last year's first quarter and exceeding the upper end of our quarterly guide subscription revenue increased 18.8% period over period to $131.8 million.
Our services revenue grew 14.8% to $25 million and cloud revenue was $61.8 million in the first quarter. This represents 28.3% year-over-year growth, which is slightly ahead of our guidance for the full year annual recurring revenue or ARR was $524.5 million at quarter end. This is up 17.5% year over year. Net revenue retention or NRR remained strong at 112%, up two full percentage points compared to last year.
Gross revenue retention or GRR was 95% at quarter end within our targeted range of 94% to 96%. And our average annual revenue per customer or ARPC, which is based on our direct customer count, was $121,720 in the first quarter of 2024, up from $118,910 in the fourth quarter of 2023.
For the remainder of the income statement discussion, I'll be referring to non-GAAP metrics. All of these non-GAAP metrics are reconciled to GAAP results in the earnings press release that was issued this morning. Gross profit for the first quarter was $113.7 million and gross margin was 72.5%. This compares with gross profit of $95.3 million and a 71.8% gross margin in the same period last year.
Gross margin on our subscription revenue was 78.6% compared to 78.4% in last year's first quarter and 76.8% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Gross margin on services revenue was 40.5% compared to 37.9% in last year's first quarter and 38.2% in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Turning to operating expenses in the first quarter, research and development expense was $13.5 million compared to $13.6 million last year with capitalized software spend included R&D expense was $28.8 million for the first quarter, which represents 18.4% of revenue as compared to 17.9% of revenue in the prior year period. Selling and marketing expense was $35.7 million or 22.8% of total revenues, an increase of $3.6 million and approximately 11.2% from the prior year period. And our general and administrative expense was $27.6 million, down $1.7 million from last year.
Adjusted EBITDA was $36.7 million, an increase of $16.5 million or 82% year over year and exceeding our quarterly guidance. As we noted in April, when we launched our convertible debt offering approximately $2 million of the adjusted EBITDA outperformance was driven by expenses that were delayed from the first quarter to future quarters in 2024 and another $2 million was driven by higher percentage of capitalized R&D costs compared to expensed R&D costs in the first quarter. But even excluding these items, adjusted EBITDA would have exceeded the high end of our first quarter guidance, we saw positive year-over-year improvement in cash flow.
Our operating cash flow was $24.6 million in the first quarter, a $21.1 million improvement compared to last year's first quarter. And free cash flow was a positive $4.5 million in the first quarter compared to a negative free cash flow of $10.6 million in last year's first quarter. Normally, our cash flows in the first quarter are seasonally lower than they are in the remaining calendar quarters due to annual bonus payments, payroll taxes and sales and marketing expenses that are typically elevated to start the new year.
We are encouraged. We are encouraged by the performance and anticipate that our free cash flow will follow our standard seasonality trend. We ended the first quarter with $56.1 million in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents. Our total bank debt was $46.3 million and investment securities totaled $9.1 million. I'll note that with the proceeds of our convertible debt offering, our cash and investment balances now stand at approximately $350 million for additional liquidity. We also have $200 million of unused availability under our existing line of credit.
And now turning to guidance for the second quarter of 2024, we expect total revenue in the range of $159 million to $162 million, which would represent a solid 15% year-over-year growth at the midpoint and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $31 million to $33 million at the midpoint would represent an increase of approximately $10 million or 45% over the prior year. This would also represent our third quarter in a row with adjusted EBITDA margins over 20% and will fuel ongoing cash flow improvement to further strengthen our balance sheet.
As in the past years, we have not changed our full year guidance based on our first quarter results. And accordingly, for the full year, we continue to expect total revenue in the range of $650 million to $660 million, representing annual revenue growth of 14% at the midpoint, adjusted EBITDA in the range of $130 million to $135 million, representing an increase of $32 million at the midpoint. And we believe that cloud growth will accelerate to approximately 28% in 2024. We expect to reevaluate our full year guidance in August when we announce our second quarter results.
David will now make some closing comments before we open up for Q&A. David?

David DeStefano

Thanks, John. I want to reiterate that I'm very pleased with our performance in the first quarter for six went public in mid 2020. We have now been a public company for 15 quarters. We are proud that during that time, our strong base of recurring revenue has enabled us to provide financial guidance that investors can depend on first quarter of 2024 was the 14th time.
We exceeded the high end of our revenue guidance and the 11th time we exceeded the high end of our adjusted EBITDA guidance. And this was achieved during a time when many other SaaS companies struggled. The growth investments we made from 2020 through 2023 are only helping us to build on that track record our customer success organization is now mature and driving great results with the expansion of existing customer accounts.
Our broader and deeper go-to-market team, including our fully developed partner channel, are finding new opportunities for us to add customers in the largely underpenetrated enterprise space. And the new products we launched over the past several years are gaining traction, differentiating Virtex-4. We compete for new business.
With those investments behind us. Job one is execution and with a world-class team we have in place all throughout the organization. I'm confident we have our eye on the ball and can continue to deliver great results for shareholders again in 2024.
With that, operator, please go ahead and open the call for questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Chris Quintero, Morgan Stanley.

Chris Quintero

Great, guys. Thanks for taking the questions here. Maybe for you, David. I wanted to ask about the pipeline conversion rates within the B channel. You've mentioned that you haven't benefited yet from some of the EPC migration efforts that will occur over the next three years? And now you've got SAP recently, you mean the greater or greater willingness to push those migration through. So just curious what you're seeing with that large pipeline turning into into close deals here?

David DeStefano

Yes, sure. Sure, Chris. The I think what we're seeing is, which is pretty typical for other migrations. We've seen over the years, the largest companies go first because they've got the longest time line that they're going to need to evolve their ERP, their ERP infrastructure and smaller companies will continue to push for as long as they can delay before they go. And then there'll be sort of a flood of activity, and we're really seeing that behavior play out.

Chris Quintero

Got it. That's super helpful. And then for John, I wanted to ask about free cash flow conversion and how we should think about that for the rest of the year, given that Q1 is usually that low point that you mentioned. And then do you have any thoughts on like the long-term conversion rate and if there are any blockers for you to get there and pardon me.

John Schwab

Thanks, Chris, for the question. Let me take the last first. What we saw when we were before the investment cycle started as we're become as we're coming public. Our cash flow conversion rate was about 65% to 70% of it from adjusted EBIT free cash flow of 60% to 75% of adjusted EBITDA. We expect that we'll certainly get back there over some time.
But we did have a very good quarter, as you pointed out in terms of our free cash flow, we were generating a generator of free cash flow in the first quarter, which is the first time and in the last four years that we've done that. So very good, very good and very positive in terms of how that goes, we and we expect that that will continue to ramp through the through the period, but it will still take us a couple of years to get to that kind of that 65, 70% conversion rate.
So again, we feel like we've made real good strides the investment cycles behind us. And as you can see from the results, the cash, the cash is going to start to come into the business very, very significantly.

Chris Quintero

Excellent. Thanks so much, guys. Congrats.

Operator

Daniel Jester, BMO Capital.

Daniel Jester

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I know maybe you called out that your typical processes to not raise the full year guidance or adjust full year guidance at this point in the year. Maybe you can just kind of compare and contrast the pipeline and your visibility today to other periods. So we can get a sense of your confidence level in 2024?

David DeStefano

Yes. Thanks, Dan. I think the pipeline remains solid and I think the progress we're seeing in some of our other markets like Microsoft other European-focused, Microsoft Workday Net Suite remains really positive with the rollout of our TCS solution. And Microsoft, I'm seeing traction there. That's very encouraging.
And then again, the SAP and Oracle stuff is a very consistent way for us. We've got really nice differentiated solutions in the SAP space. Our win rates remain really strong there. And I think that's going to be a consistent one that gives us confidence as we look forward for the rest of the year.

Daniel Jester

Great. And then you touched on this briefly in the prepared remarks, though, you can expand a little bit more about how you're viewing inorganic opportunities today, maybe the landscape that you see kind of areas that you're interested in an update there would be great. Thank you.

David DeStefano

Yes, sure. We want to continue to be strategic in our thinking there and disciplined in our approach. Obviously, the new sources of funding we've raised gives us additional flexibility to be sort of where we need to be, but we're not going to lose sight of being thoughtful with shareholder capital, obviously, opportunistically in certain areas that we're focused on in our strategy like e-invoicing, we continue to watch for opportunities here.
The good news is we've had a number of good acceleration in partnership discussions there. So I'm feeling very confident in our overall solution in that space with flexibility if the right opportunity comes forward.

Daniel Jester

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Joshua Reilly, Needham.

Joshua Reilly

All right. Thanks for taking my questions. So you've come out with a number of new products over the last 12 to 18 months, and I think it would be good to get an update on how much are these our new products are helping you with net new customer growth, any anecdotes on competitive wins and the stronger and our how much year over year, I think it was two points. How much can you attribute to that the product innovations versus just the normal course of business?

David DeStefano

Yes. So just so just the track record in new product rollouts is pretty I'm pretty much proven out over time. We've been doing this for 45 years and we roll on new products. It all follows the same pattern. You typically need to get your early adopters. They need to go live with the product. You need to get referenceability. And then you see sort of that tail.
It takes a couple of years to do that. And we're seeing that progress so that the products we released a couple of years ago are starting to show more of an uptick. The ones we've released in the last 12 to 18 months are following that same pattern.
So I think I'm encouraged by what the team is doing has brought forward unlike the Edge solution, some of the SAP tools and the SAP accelerator have really been nicely embraced by the market. As for the MRR growth, which we're really pleased because it's already put us in a good position for as we go forward for the rest of the year relative to where we started NRR in 2023, I would say it's really a combination. It's a combination of some of the new offerings. And I do want to emphasize the customer success organization. We've really focused on investment there, and we're seeing nice nice throughput from that team.

Joshua Reilly

Got it. That's helpful. And then while we know you left the EBITDA guidance unchanged, kind of per the normal kind of course of business for you guys after Q1, is there anything investors should be considering in terms of investments during the second half that need to be made for the balance of the year? Thanks, guys.

David DeStefano

I think the continued focus is in the R&D space. We've talked about that. I'm really comfortable with how we wind up our go-to-market team relative to demand cycle. So I think we're well positioned there, and we're continuing to work through the implementation of where on the other side of our ERP implementation. And we're continuing to drive leverage through our G&A as we go forward.

Operator

Adam Hotchkiss, Goldman Sachs.

Adam Hotchkiss

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess, David, at the first, curious to hear about the acceleration in revenue actually on the on-prem side, I think and we all like to talk about cloud and the success there, but that channel was up for over 10% for the first time in a while. And I think we've been hearing that it's been a bit of a differentiator for you as competitors step back from a from on-prem. So I'm just wondering how you think about your continued support for customers that aren't yet ready to move to cloud and how that's driving more business and new relationships for you. If at all?

David DeStefano

Sure, sure. A good question there, Adam. I think you know a few things. First of all, remember, we do lead cloud first in everything we do all of our new logos. Over 90 plus percent of all of our new logos remain cloud. But in that cross-sell market, which oftentimes is some of our largest historical customers, we've enjoyed long LTV with about 50% of the time, they're going to expand wallet share with more on-prem. So we remain exceptionally committed to that.
And I think the other thing, it's really important to appreciate is what we say on-prem. And the reality is most of that software is hosted in an individual, a cloud environment that the customer has for specialty. Some of the largest customers. So we're very committed to support that. It is clearly a competitive differentiator. And as you may recall, we modified our pricing to align cloud and on-prem to be the same. So it's actually turned out to be very successful and we can deliver that in terms of our gross margin and overall profitability.

Adam Hotchkiss

Okay, great. That's really helpful. And then I'd be curious on the partner side, I know you've called out a number of large ones as drivers of success. But would you say there's any one or two that have really outperformed your expectations heading into the year and that you're most excited about the future drivers of growth for you?

David DeStefano

You know, obviously, we've highlighted a number of times the SAP and Oracle, but I'm really encouraged this year with the channel investments we made, how and the new offering we just rolled out around TCS inside of Microsoft and some of our ecosystem relationships there, I think are going to pay off well. And we've also seen really nice traction across both Shopify and Net Suite on Shopify was a newer partnership for us and we've seen some nice as their move upmarket is coincided well with the space that we lead in, it's really working well for us.

Adam Hotchkiss

Okay. Really helpful. Thanks, David.

Operator

Brad Reback, Stifel.

Brad Reback

Great. Thanks very much. David, following up on that last comment on Shopify, can you maybe remind us how you price on the e-commerce side specifically and just broadly given some of the weakness out there on consumer spending recently things?

David DeStefano

Yes, Brad, I'll start. And what I would say is your pricing is consistent from an e-commerce side as it is with the rest of our business. Again, we base it on revenue bands and we set that up in advance. And bill in advance and recognized the revenue ratably. So that really hasn't changed. So we kind of said it with where we are, where we expect the customer is going to operate. And then we adjust from there.

Brad Reback

That's great. And then on cloud, specifically, the obviously years off to a really good start there, but the absolute dollars that you need to add this year to get to the 28 somewhat higher than you've added historically. So maybe what informs the confidence on that 28 banks?

David DeStefano

Yes. I think again, everything we're leading with continues to be the focus of cloud continues to be the focus, number one and two, we brought out a number of new offerings, as you know, and over the past several years, and the fact that they're all focused on the cloud just gives us more more revenue opportunities to continue to drive cloud as our growth.
You know, a key part of our growth going forward. So absolutely no change in our guidance there. I'm pleased that it's increased over 2023 overall, and I don't see any reason to back off of that perfect.

Brad Reback

Thank you very much.

Operator

Steve Enders, Citi.

Steve Enders

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Appreciate the comments on the update on e-invoicing and exploring some different opportunities potentially for the future. But maybe you just talk about what kind of volumes you've seen so far from the figure partnership and based on regulation timing, when you kind of expect the bulk of opportunities to come about?

David DeStefano

Yes, I won't go into specifics. I would say in general, I'm very comfortable with where the performance of the relationship is working still, I still think that we're in the first or second inning of true invoice adoption because some of the larger economies in Europe haven't moved yet. And so we're I think we're we're in very good position for what's coming on and opportunities to accelerate that as we move forward here in 24. And more importantly, probably 25 is where you'll see the real, I think uptick there is as companies start making that global decision and move away from point solutions from and that's really what we're positioned for.

Steve Enders

Okay, that's helpful. And then I think you made a comment about your own internal ERP migration now being in the rearview mirror, but was there any kind of catch-up in terms of in terms of cash collections or billings that impact the quarter? And is it fair to say maybe any of those prior headwinds are now behind us?

John Schwab

Yes, this is John. I'll start with just saying, listen, I think we called that out in the fourth quarter. And again, we saw nice cash collections come in in the in the first quarter, and we're continuing to see nice nice flow-through coming from there. So we feel that that's in pretty good shape. It's getting better. We can always we can always go to improve and we're continuing to do so. I think we talked about trying to get a lot of that behind us by the end of the second quarter. And so we feel like we're very well positioned. Again, you can see from the results of some of the cash flows, how that how that worked out. So we feel pretty good about that. We feel good about how we've been able to move that along.

Steve Enders

Great. Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator

Brad Sills, Bank of America.

Brad Sills

Hey, this is Natalie Howe on for Brad and thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask where you guys are investing in the business and if there's any capabilities you guys are really focusing on in 2024 that will continue to drive strength in the cross-selling for the year?

David DeStefano

Yes. Thanks, Natalie. There's a few areas that we continue to advance. Obviously, we'll continue to expand our compliance and reporting focus that we've highlighted our single cloud portal that's going to have the both the easiest invoicing all the way through to to that complies. I still think that's a critical part of what the market is looking for.
I know we've talked about this on a couple of past calls, we continue to see opportunity there and we're making some really nice progress. Our emerging tech team has done some really nice work in bringing that forward, and we're going to continue to be pretty disciplined in what we're doing there. So those are two areas I would highlight.

Brad Sills

Got it.

Operator

Alex Sklar, Raymond James.

Alex Sklar

Great. Thank you. Dave, just wanted to follow up on on kind of the e-invoicing and broader international momentum. You've talked you talked about the nice marketplace win in the prepared remarks. Can you just kind of update us on the mix of your pipeline today, some coming from international opportunities relative relative to a year ago and as you matured kind of that international go-to-market motion and I'm curious kind of the opportunity to accelerate that business going forward. Thanks.

David DeStefano

Obviously, international is a small part of our business and particularly in Europe. And we're very excited about what we're doing. In fact, we can act next week. I'll be over in Europe for our EU customer conference and have a great turnout of customers and partners lined up for that session. So I'm really excited about the momentum.
The team is building that in that space, in particular, the number of prospects that are coming to us. I think our brand continues to expand in Europe and it's giving us opportunity to grow that pipeline. Obviously, still working off of a small base, but it will be a growth vector for us for years to come. And as we continue to watch the e-invoicing space evolve around it, I think it'll it only accelerate.

Alex Sklar

Okay, great. Great color there. And then just maybe one more for you, Dave, just in terms of the SAP migration catalyst on it, has anything changed in terms of when you're being brought into those discussions. But the prepared remark, when maybe that suggests that you're being brought in earlier in the cycle, I just wanted to see how prevalent that was across your pipeline?

David DeStefano

Yes, that's a really exciting development for us. Alex, is, as we've talked about, we have a differentiated relationship than we've had with SAP in the past. We're working with their sales teams and really have appreciated the partnering that they're doing with us on much earlier in the sales process to allow us, you know, to work with their reps who are actually getting quota relief. So there's a nice win-win for all in this process.
And more importantly, we're able to deliver higher customer value. And so I think we're seeing it. We're going to see it in the win rates going forward. And that earlier visibility will allow us to further differentiate with all these on SAP tools and accelerator that we've created over the past several years, it really positions us well.

Alex Sklar

Great. Thanks for the color.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Patrick Walravens, Citizens.

Patrick Walravens

Thanks for taking my question. This is often call on to Pat Walravens I'd love to get your take on where you guys see kind of at a high level where the greatest regulatory tailwinds are coming from in the US and Europe and then especially in fast-growing economies like Brazil and India, are there and tax compliance products that are best positioned to satisfy each of those trends? And are there opportunities but more opportunities to address those different trends in those different regions for Vertex? Thank you.

David DeStefano

Left us. Last year was a record number of changes here in the US, so it obviously remains a fertile market for regulatory change. But I think the more seismic changes, as you note, are happening outside the US and we can we've highlighted a little bit around e-invoicing being one that in the digital age is an important legislation. Pieces going forward in Europe right now is an important vote coming up on May 14th around that and all those things line up to be on persistent and consistent regulatory changes, governments look for new ways of seeking revenue.
And so we think about our products that part of the reason we've been highlighting the importance of this cloud portal linking e-invoicing. All the way through to that compliance is in is in direct response to those regulatory tailwinds. I think over time with generative AI on data management is going to become increasingly important. And data insights for businesses is doing broaden that that's fueling some of the next-generation investment that we're thinking about for products.

Patrick Walravens

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

And this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Joe Crivelli for some closing remarks.

Joe Crivelli

Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. If you have any follow-up questions or if you'd like to schedule additional time with the team, please send me an e-mail at investors@vertex.com. Have a great rest of your day, and we look forward to speaking with you in the coming weeks.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you very much for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a great day.