Record Q4 helps drive full-year revenue and profit growth at Raketech

Revenue for the 12 months through to 31 December 2021 was €38.5m (£32.3m/$43.8m), an increase of 31.0% from €29.4m in the previous year.

Raketech said this was driven by organic growth of 17.5% within its network sales business, as well as continued growth as a result of its acquisition of Casumba in September 2019.

The business also noted the impact of more recent acquisitions, with Raketech in the past 12 months having purchased QM Media AB’s assets in the US, Spanish organic casino affiliation marketing company Infinileads and US-facing tipster ATS Consultants.

New depositing customers (NDCs) fell 10.8%, but Raketech put this down to it targeting fewer, but higher value, leads. It also said 2020 included NDCs related to consumer finance assets sold in that year, while its Swedish assets experienced a boost in NDCs following the implementation of temporary gambling restrictions in Q3 of 2020, skewing the comparison.

Turning to costs, operating expenses for the full year reached €29.2m, up 28.1% year-on-year, while overall financial costs for the year reached €1.7m.

However, such was the impact of revenue growth that pre-tax profit still increased 24.6% to €7.6m, while adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) jumped 36.9% to €16.5m.

Raketech paid €508,000 in income tax which, after also including €29,000 in other loss, left a net profit of €7.1m for 2021, up 26.8% year-on-year.

Looking at the fourth quarter of the year and revenue for the three months to 31 December increased 40.0% to a record €11.8m.

Again, Raketech said this was driven by growth within network sales, with organic growth at 12.5%, as well as continued strong growth outside of Europe and acquisitions impact. NDCs for the quarter were down 11.7%, which the affiliate again said was a result of targeting fewer but higher value leads.

Operating expenses increased 29.0% to €8.0m, while after including €697,000 in overall financial costs, this left a pre-tax profit of €3.1m, up 34.8% from 2020. Adjusted EBITDA also increased 49.5% to €5.4m.

Raketech paid €230,000 in income tax which, after also included €29,000 in other losses, left a net profit of €2.8m for Q4, up 33.3% year-on-year.

“The fourth and final quarter of 2021 was a strong quarter for Raketech and I am happy to see that we have continued to deliver on our strategic goals of increasing the diversification of our business,” Raketech group chief executive Oskar Mühlbach said.

“Our network sales contributed as before significantly to our organic growth, despite being dampened by the Dutch market being out of reach due to changes in legislation.”

Raketech also provided an update on its performance in 2022, with revenue for January up 66.7% year-on-year to a record €4.5m.

“January set yet another record with revenues amounting to €4.5m with recent US acquisitions fully accounted for,” Mühlbach said. 

“With that said, Raketech is geographically, organisationally and technically well positioned in the global igaming affiliation space and I look forward to using this opportunity to increase investments into growth in 2022.”