Earnings Labs

Dave Inc. (DAVE)

Q3 2022 Earnings Call· Sun, Nov 13, 2022

$279.52

+0.01%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.
Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to Dave’s Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. This afternoon, Dave issued a press release announcing results for the third quarter ended November 10, 2022, which can be found at investors.dave.com. We would like to remind you that during this conference call management will be making forward-looking statements, including statements regarding expectations related to financial guidance, outlook for the sector and company, and the expected investment in growth initiatives. Please note these forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements reflect the company’s views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representative of views as of any subsequent date, and Dave undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. For a further discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our financial results, please refer to the company’s filings with the SEC, including its Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 25, 2022, and subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. In addition, during today’s call, the company will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which they believe are useful as supplement measures of Dave’s performance. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for or in isolation from, GAAP results. You will find additional disclosure regarding the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today’s call in Dave’s press release issued this afternoon and its filings with the SEC, each of which is posted on Dave’s website. The webcast and transcript of this call will also be available on the Investor Relations section of the company’s website. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Jason Wilk, CEO and Chairman of the Board. Thank you. Mr. Wilk, you may begin.

Jason Wilk

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for our third quarter earnings call. For today’s call, I’ll begin by providing some highlights on the quarter and then we’ll recap recent progress on our strategy. After that, I will turn it to Kyle, who will discuss our third quarter results in more detail as well as our outlook. On to Q3 highlights. Dave’s value prop of no hidden fee banking with up to $500 of interest free ExtraCash continues to resonate with millions of hardworking Americans leading to another record quarter. During the quarter, we reported non-GAAP total operating revenue of approximately $58.6 million, representing an increase of approximately 41% year-over-year, driven primarily by growth in multi transacting members based on stronger customer acquisition and retention, as well as impressive growth of our Dave Card interchange revenue. During the quarter, we added a record of more than 800,000 net new members, while reducing CAC by 18% versus the second quarter. We continued to demonstrate significant scale with approximately 8 million total members as of quarter end. In terms of engagement, we saw a record 1.8 million monthly average transacting members in the quarter, up 18% sequentially and 26% year-over-year. Our transacting members completed a record of 4.6 average transactions per month in Q3, representing 105% growth versus 3Q 2020, which is just prior to our launching of the Dave Card product in late 2020, in an indication of how we’ve been able to deepen engagement with this added offering within our ecosystem. This trend accelerated through the third quarter of 2022 with transactions per active reaching 4.9 in September, driving transaction based revenue growth of approximately 43% versus Q2. Dave Card is a key component of our strategy that has started to materialize after many product synergy…

Kyle Beilman

Management

Thank you. As Jason mentioned, our total non-GAAP operating revenue was $58.6 million during the third quarter, representing 41% growth compared to the same period last year. Total operating revenue on a GAAP basis during the third quarter also grew 41% versus Q2 of 2021. This growth was driven by increases in our monthly transacting member base as well as ARPU expansion given continued improvements in ExtraCash monetization and growth in Dave Card engagement. For the third quarter, non-GAAP variable profit was $24.7 million, representing a 42% margin relative to our non-GAAP total operating revenue. From a margin perspective, this represents an increase of about 280 basis points relative to the second quarter. The increase was primarily attributable to the margin driving initiatives we began realizing in the third quarter, including improvements to key vendor costs, increase emphasis on fraud controls related to the Dave Card, and ongoing improvements to ExtraCash risk management and our credit policy, which will better position us to react to potential headwinds in the macro environment. Supporting our variable margin efforts, we’ve remained laser focus on ExtraCash portfolio performance and have had consistent and strong results with an average 28-day delinquency rate of 4.07% in Q3, a 13 basis point decrease versus Q3 2021’s average. As we’ve previously noted, we expect incremental variable margin expansion to be driven by vendor contract and pricing renegotiations with our banking product partners by a reduction in processing costs related to how we utilize the payment networks to move money, and finally, by our next generation ExtraCash underwriting model, which is currently being tested and has been exhibiting encouraging preliminary results. Now moving to operating expenses. The provision for unrecoverable advances totaled $18.4 million for the quarter compared to $10.8 million in Q3 of 2021. The 70% increase was…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Devin Ryan with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Michael Falco

Analyst

Hi, this is actually Michael Falco standing in for Devin. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just one on expenses, not to get too far ahead into 2023, but given the environment and on one hand the strong growth you’re seeing, but on the other hand the obvious desire to move toward adjusted EBITDA breakeven. Are there any early frameworks for kind of how to think about the expense run rate or growth in the next year? And whether that be based on product development or expanding the infrastructure of the firm, just kind of how we should be thinking about that going into the year ahead?

Kyle Beilman

Management

Hey, this is Kyle. I can take this one. I think the sort of feedback that we provide at this point is that from a fixed cost structure perspective, we’re really comfortable and confident that we can continue to innovate and drive product development with the team that we have. And so we don’t expect any significant increases from that base moving forward at this point. And we’re going to continue to really focus and be disciplined on any new headcount, as I mentioned in my remarks any new headcount from here and just really focusing on the existing team that we have in place to support growth. From a marketing perspective, I touched on that as well in my remarks, but ramping things down here in the fourth quarter, and I think we’ll really be able to demonstrate the benefits of our operating leverage, continued growth and top line, our margin enhancements and just overall lower levels of investment which will really manifest itself in a significant step change function in EBITDA losses in Q4. And we feel like we’re on a really positive trajectory to deliver on our timeline of adjusted EBITDA breakeven by 2024.

Michael Falco

Analyst

Thanks. That’s very helpful. And then maybe just one follow-up. It seems like the current environment continues to benefit – the macro environment continues to benefit some of the products such as ExtraCash and demand there. That said, we’re starting to see little bit of a come down from peak inflation and we’ll kind of see where that trends. But if inflation begins to normalize, how do you see these volumes progressing? And is there a level of inflation where maybe demand diminishes?

Jason Wilk

Management

So we’re very confident that this product performs very well and has a significant need in pretty much every environment except for a heavy stimulus environment. That’s where we saw demand go down in 2020 and 2021 is the government stepped in to cover a lot of short-term liquidity needs for our members. We have seen some macro tailwind with everyday essential products getting more expensive, but ultimately what we’re seeing now is stimulus is mostly burned up. We’re just seeing things really return more towards 2019 levels as seen from our CAC and just seeing our growth overall. And so I don’t see any slowdown. There’s always going to be a need for customers to access small amounts of money between paychecks to cover things like gas, groceries, and food.

Michael Falco

Analyst

Great. Really appreciate it. I’ll hop back in the queue. Thank you.

Jason Wilk

Management

Thanks for the question.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] As there are no more questions, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back to Jason Wilk for any closing remarks.

Jason Wilk

Management

Thank you very much for the time. We remain super excited about this business and we look forward to future progress with everyone. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.