การประชุมแถลงผลประกอบการไตรมาส 2 ปี 2026 ของ Veritone (VERI): การเติบโตของ VDR, การปรับลดคาดการณ์ผลประกอบการ และการลดต้นทุน

ประเด็นสำคัญ

• รายได้ประจำไตรมาส 2/2026 อยู่ที่ 24.3 ล้านดอลลาร์ เพิ่มขึ้น 20% เมื่อเทียบกับไตรมาสก่อนหน้า และเพิ่มขึ้น 5% เมื่อเทียบกับช่วงเดียวกันของปีก่อน โดยได้รับปัจจัยหนุนหลักจากรายได้ของ Veritone Data Refinery (VDR) และบริการให้สิทธิการใช้งานที่เพิ่มขึ้น
• เวอริโทนได้ปรับลดคาดการณ์รายได้ปีงบประมาณ 2026 ลงเหลือ 100 ล้าน - 150 ล้านดอลลาร์ ซึ่งส่วนใหญ่สะท้อนถึงความล่าช้าของงบประมาณจากกระทรวงการสงคราม และสมมติฐานที่ระมัดระวังมากขึ้นเกี่ยวกับกรอบเวลาของคำสั่งซื้อ VDR
• บริษัทได้ดำเนินการปรับลดค่าใช้จ่ายคิดเป็นมูลค่ารายปีไปแล้ว 11.3 ล้านดอลลาร์ รวมถึงการปรับลดตำแหน่งงาน 62 ตำแหน่ง และตั้งเป้าลดค่าใช้จ่ายรวมคิดเป็นมูลค่ารายปีให้ได้ 15 ล้าน - 20 ล้านดอลลาร์ภายในสิ้นปี 2026
• มูลค่าข้อตกลงที่อยู่ระหว่างรอดำเนินการ (Pipeline) และยอดจองซื้อ (Bookings) ระยะสั้นของ VDR ยังคงอยู่เหนือระดับ 65 ล้านดอลลาร์ ซึ่งรวมถึงโอกาสทางธุรกิจที่มีศักยภาพมากกว่า 15 ล้านดอลลาร์ที่ผู้บริหารระบุว่าอาจปิดการขายได้ในไตรมาส 3 หรือไตรมาส 4/2026 ทั้งนี้ กรอบเวลายังคงอยู่นอกเหนือการควบคุมของเวอริโทนอย่างสมบูรณ์
• เงินสดและเงินสดติดภาระผูกพันมีจำนวนรวม 12.7 ล้านดอลลาร์ ณ วันที่ 30 มิถุนายน ขณะที่หนี้สินลดลงประมาณ 85 ล้านดอลลาร์เมื่อเทียบกับช่วงเดียวกันของปีก่อน เหลือประมาณ 45 ล้านดอลลาร์ ทั้งนี้ ผู้บริหารยังคงอยู่ระหว่างการเจรจากับผู้ถือหุ้นกู้แปลงสภาพเกี่ยวกับการปรับโครงสร้างหนี้ที่อาจเกิดขึ้น
• ผู้บริหารคาดว่าจะมีกำไรจากการดำเนินงานเร็วที่สุดในครึ่งแรกของปี 2027 โดยมีเงื่อนไขว่าจะต้องดำเนินการลดค่าใช้จ่ายส่วนที่เหลือให้เสร็จสิ้น และสร้างการเติบโตที่เพียงพอจาก VDR และการดำเนินงานในภาครัฐ

ข้อมูลทางการเงินที่สำคัญ

อัตราการรักษาฐานรายได้รวมยังคงอยู่สูงกว่า 90% ขณะที่ลูกค้ากลุ่ม ARR และกลุ่มที่คิดค่าบริการตามการใช้งานจริงเพิ่มขึ้น 71% เมื่อเทียบกับช่วงเดียวกันของปีก่อน ส่วนลูกค้ากลุ่ม SaaS ที่คิดค่าบริการตามระยะเวลาแบบประจำลดลง 15% ซึ่งส่วนหนึ่งสะท้อนถึงการยุติการให้บริการผลิตภัณฑ์ SaaS รุ่นเก่าที่มีอัตรากำไรติดลบ

ผลการดำเนินงานทางธุรกิจและการปฏิบัติการ

Veritone Data Refinery

รายได้จาก VDR และบริการให้สิทธิการใช้งานเพิ่มขึ้นรวมกัน 40% จากไตรมาส 1/2026 โดยเวอริโทนระบุว่าสามารถปิดข้อตกลง VDR ขนาดใหญ่ที่สุดบางรายการได้ในระหว่างไตรมาส ซึ่งรวมถึงคำสั่งซื้อซ้ำจากลูกค้าเดิม

บริษัทรายงานมูลค่าข้อตกลงที่อยู่ระหว่างรอดำเนินการและยอดจองซื้อระยะสั้นของ VDR มากกว่า 65 ล้านดอลลาร์ โดยโอกาสทางธุรกิจที่มีศักยภาพมากกว่า 15 ล้านดอลลาร์อาจปิดการขายได้ในไตรมาส 3 หรือไตรมาส 4 ซึ่งแต่ละคำสั่งซื้อมีมูลค่าตั้งแต่ 1 ล้านดอลลาร์ไปจนถึงหลายล้านดอลลาร์ ทั้งนี้ ผู้บริหารเน้นย้ำว่ากรอบเวลาของคำสั่งซื้อขึ้นอยู่กับการตัดสินใจของผู้ให้บริการคลาวด์ขนาดใหญ่ (Hyperscaler) และผู้พัฒนาโมเดล

ปัจจุบันเวอริโทนสามารถเข้าถึงผู้ถือสิทธิ์ที่ควบคุมเนื้อหาวิดีโอมากกว่า 50 ล้านชั่วโมง การย้ายโครงสร้างพื้นฐานไปยังออราเคิล (Oracle) ยังคงเป็นไปตามแผนที่วางไว้ และผู้บริหารคาดว่าจะประหยัดค่าใช้จ่ายด้านการประมวลผลได้ประมาณ 20% หรือมากกว่านั้น หลังจากย้ายภาระงานที่เกี่ยวข้องเรียบร้อยแล้ว

ภาครัฐ

รายได้จากภาครัฐได้รับผลกระทบจากงบประมาณของกระทรวงการสงครามที่ล่าช้า เนื่องจากงบประมาณถูกโอนย้ายไปยังความขัดแย้งในอิหร่าน ผู้บริหารระบุว่าความล่าช้าดังกล่าวเป็นเพียงเรื่องชั่วคราว และคาดว่างบประมาณจะกลับมาดำเนินการต่อได้ในครึ่งหลังของปี 2026 หรือครึ่งแรกของปี 2027

เวอริโทนได้ขยายขอบเขตงานด้านความปลอดภัยสาธารณะผ่านสัญญาหลายปีกับตำรวจทางหลวงแคลิฟอร์เนียสำหรับ Veritone Redact สัญญาอายุ 5 ปีกับหน่วยงานรัฐวาชิงตัน รวมถึงความสัมพันธ์กับช่องทางจำหน่ายใหม่ ๆ นอกเหนือจากนี้ บริษัทยังได้บรรลุข้อตกลงกับกระทรวงการงานและการบำนาญของสหราชอาณาจักรอีกด้วย

ผลิตภัณฑ์ใหม่รวมถึง Veritone Document Redaction และ Veritone Assess โดยผู้บริหารระบุว่า Document Redaction สามารถปิดข้อตกลงได้แล้วหลายรายการ ขณะที่ Assess กำลังถูกนำไปใช้งานในหลายคดีของมูลนิธิคดีค้างเก่า (Cold Case Foundation)

มูลค่าข้อตกลงที่อยู่ระหว่างรอดำเนินการในภาครัฐยังคงอยู่เหนือระดับ 200 ล้านดอลลาร์ โดยผู้บริหารเปิดเผยว่าโอกาสทางธุรกิจที่รอการอนุมัติหลายรายการทั้งในสหรัฐฯ และต่างประเทศ มีศักยภาพที่จะเพิ่มมูลค่า Pipeline ดังกล่าวขึ้นเป็นเท่าตัว แม้ว่าจะยังไม่สามารถประเมินผลกระทบทางการเงินเป็นตัวเลขได้ในขณะนี้ และน่าจะส่งผลต่อปีงบประมาณ 2027 มากที่สุด

องค์กรเชิงพาณิชย์และ Broadbean

กลุ่มองค์กรเชิงพาณิชย์ได้ลงนามในข้อตกลงจำนวน 232 ฉบับในระหว่างไตรมาส โดยบริการให้สิทธิการใช้งานเนื้อหา (Content Licensing) มีการเติบโตเป็นตัวเลขสองหลักเมื่อเทียบกับช่วงเดียวกันของปีก่อน ทั้งในด้านรายได้และข้อตกลงที่เสร็จสมบูรณ์ ซึ่งได้รับแรงหนุนจากพันธมิตรอย่างซีเอ็นเอ็น (CNN), โซนี พิกเจอร์ส เอ็นเตอร์เทนเมนท์ (Sony Pictures Entertainment), ออกัสตา เนชันแนล (Augusta National) และการแข่งขันกีฬาการประชุม Pac-12

Broadbean by Veritone จัดการตำแหน่งงานมากกว่า 7.6 ล้านตำแหน่งต่อปี และสร้างการมีส่วนร่วมของผู้สมัครงานถึง 132 ล้านครั้ง โดยสามารถคว้าลูกค้ารายใหม่ได้ 76 รายในไตรมาส 2 ขณะที่รายได้จากบริการสื่อเพิ่มขึ้น 48% เมื่อเทียบกับไตรมาสก่อนหน้า

ธุรกิจดังกล่าวได้เข้าร่วมโปรแกรม SAP PartnerEdge Build และขยายการทำงานร่วมกับ Oracle HCM อย่างต่อเนื่อง ทั้งนี้ Broadbean สามารถปิดข้อตกลงกับ Workday ได้ 7 รายการในไตรมาส 2 ส่งผลให้ยอดกิจกรรมรวมกับ Workday ตั้งแต่ต้นปีจนถึงปัจจุบันพุ่งแตะ 1.3 ล้านดอลลาร์จากความสำเร็จร่วมกัน 33 รายการ

คาดการณ์โดยผู้บริหาร

เวอริโทนได้ปรับปรุงแนวโน้มสำหรับปีงบประมาณ 2026 ดังนี้:

ผู้บริหารได้ประเมินกรอบรายได้แบบคร่าว ๆ สำหรับไตรมาส 3/2026 ไว้ที่ 24 ล้านดอลลาร์ ถึงมากกว่า 28 ล้านดอลลาร์

บริษัทคาดว่ารายได้จากภาครัฐจะเติบโตในอัตราที่ชะลอลงกว่าที่คาดการณ์ไว้ก่อนหน้านี้ ขณะที่การเติบโตส่วนใหญ่ที่เหลือคาดว่าจะมาจากกลุ่มองค์กรเชิงพาณิชย์ โดยเฉพาะ VDR ทั้งนี้ ผู้บริหารคาดว่าการเติบโตของภาครัฐจะแข็งแกร่งขึ้นตั้งแต่ครึ่งแรกของปี 2027

เวอริโทนได้ดำเนินการลดค่าใช้จ่ายคิดเป็นมูลค่ารายปีไปแล้ว 11.3 ล้านดอลลาร์ และวางแผนจะลดเพิ่มอีก 3.5 ล้าน - 8.5 ล้านดอลลาร์ภายในสิ้นปี ส่งผลให้เป้าหมายการลดค่าใช้จ่ายรายปีรวมอยู่ที่ 15 ล้าน - 20 ล้านดอลลาร์ ทั้งนี้ ผู้บริหารชี้ว่าผลการดำเนินงานที่จะจุดคุ้มทุนตลอดทั้งปี 2027 ขึ้นอยู่กับการลดค่าใช้จ่ายตามเป้าดังกล่าวสำเร็จและการสร้างรายได้ประมาณ 125 ล้าน - 130 ล้านดอลลาร์

ความเสี่ยงและปัจจัยที่ต้องจับตา

• รายได้ของ VDR เป็นแบบอิงตามการใช้งานจริง ซึ่งทำให้ความสามารถในการคาดการณ์กรอบเวลาการส่งมอบโดยทั่วไปจำกัดอยู่เพียงสองถึงสามเดือนเท่านั้น
• คำสั่งซื้อ VDR ขนาดใหญ่สามารถส่งผลกระทบต่อผลประกอบการรายไตรมาสอย่างมีนัยสำคัญ ซึ่งสร้างความผันผวนต่อรายได้และอัตรากำไรขั้นต้น
• สัญญาจ้างภาครัฐยังคงมีความเสี่ยงจากการจัดสรรงบประมาณใหม่ ลำดับความสำคัญของรายจ่ายในยามสงคราม และกระบวนการอนุมัติที่ใช้เวลานาน
• Broadbean ยังคงเผชิญกับสภาวะแวดล้อมการจ้างงานที่ท้าทาย รวมถึงรายได้จากการใช้งานที่ลดลงและการสูญเสียลูกค้ารายย่อย
• เวอริโทนมีเงินสดและเงินสดติดภาระผูกพัน 12.7 ล้านดอลลาร์ ณ สิ้นไตรมาส และมีหนี้สินประมาณ 45 ล้านดอลลาร์ บริษัทมีวงเงินเหลือมากกว่า 40 ล้านดอลลาร์ภายใต้โครงการเสนอขายหุ้น At-The-Market (ATM) และยังคงอยู่ระหว่างการเจรจาปรับโครงสร้างหนี้หุ้นกู้แปลงสภาพ
• เป้าหมายการทำกำไรขึ้นอยู่กับทั้งการสร้างรายได้ตามแผนและการลดค่าใช้จ่ายส่วนที่เหลือให้บรรลุผล

ประเด็นสำคัญจากการตอบคำถามนักวิเคราะห์

ผู้บริหารกล่าวว่าแนวโน้มปีงบประมาณ 2026 ที่ลดลงนั้น สะท้อนถึงการสมทบรายได้ที่คาดว่าจะลดลงจากกระทรวงการสงคราม และสมมติฐานกรอบเวลาของ VDR ที่ระมัดระวังมากขึ้นเป็นหลัก รายได้จาก VDR ยังคงถูกนับรวมในประมาณการครึ่งปีหลัง แต่บริษัทปฏิเสธที่จะระบุตัวเลขเจาะจงว่าปัจจัยแต่ละประการส่งผลต่อการปรับคาดการณ์มากน้อยเพียงใด

ในด้านสภาพคล่อง ผู้บริหารระบุว่าการเจรจากับผู้ถือหนี้ยังคงดำเนินอยู่อย่างต่อเนื่อง และอาจมีความคืบหน้าแจ้งให้ทราบในอีกไม่กี่เดือนข้างหน้า

เกี่ยวกับแรงขับเคลื่อนในภาครัฐ ผู้บริหารกล่าวว่าความสำเร็จ เช่น สัญญากับตำรวจทางหลวงแคลิฟอร์เนีย สามารถสร้างผลกระทบจากการบอกต่อ ไปยังหน่วยงานระดับรัฐ ท้องถิ่น และสหพันธ์ได้ โดยสัญญาที่ได้รับเมื่อเร็ว ๆ นี้และโอกาสทางธุรกิจที่รอการอนุมัติคาดว่าจะส่งผลดีต่อยอดจองซื้อและรายได้อยู่อย่างมีนัยสำคัญมากขึ้นในปี 2027

สำหรับเป้าหมายการจุดคุ้มทุน ผู้บริหารระบุว่ารายได้ระดับ 125 ล้าน - 130 ล้านดอลลาร์ เมื่อรวมกับการลดค่าใช้จ่ายคิดเป็นมูลค่ารายปีส่วนที่เหลืออีก 3.5 ล้าน - 8.5 ล้านดอลลาร์ ก็น่าจะเพียงพอที่จะสนับสนุนให้เกิดจุดคุ้มทุนได้ตลอดทั้งปี อย่างไรก็ตาม ผลลัพธ์ดังกล่าวยังคงขึ้นอยู่กับกิจกรรมจากกระทรวงการสงครามที่กลับมาฟื้นตัวและรายได้จากสัญญาฉบับใหม่ ๆ ในบางส่วน

รายงานการประชุมผลประกอบการฉบับเต็ม

บทถอดเสียงฉบับเต็มของการประชุมทางโทรศัพท์ผลประกอบการ

คำชี้แจงจากฝ่ายบริหาร

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Veritone Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Cate Goldsmith, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Cate Goldsmith

Thank you, and good afternoon. After the market closed today, Veritone issued a press release announcing results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026. The press release and other supplemental information are available on the Investor Relations section of Veritone's website. Joining us for today's call are Veritone's President and Chief Executive Officer, Ryan Steelberg; and Chief Financial Officer, Mike Zemetra, who will provide prepared remarks and then open the call for a live question-and-answer session.

Please note that certain information discussed on the call today, including certain answers to your questions, will include forward-looking statements. This includes, without limitation, statements about our business strategy and future financial and operating performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause the actual results to differ materially from those stated. Certain of these risks and assumptions are discussed in Veritone's SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 10-K. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions as of today, August 13, 2026, and Veritone undertakes no obligation to revise or update them.

During this call, the actual and forecasted financial measures we will be discussing include non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the corresponding GAAP measures are included in the press release we issued today. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that the call today is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link on the Investor Relations section of Veritone's website at www.veritone.com.

Now I would like to turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Ryan Steelberg.

Ryan Steelberg

Thank you, Cate. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. During the second quarter, Veritone executed decisively on the strategy and commitments we outlined in May. Our goal was to create measurable and material outcomes, generating material revenue and repeat orders through Veritone Data Refinery, or VDR, expanding customer adoption and restructuring our organization to be more efficient while materially lowering our cost structure. I'm proud to report that we delivered on these fronts, improving our second half visibility and firmly positioning the business for profitable growth.

I would summarize our performance like this. As we sit here in Q3 of 2026, while executing these very material organizational changes and cost-cutting initiatives, we were still able to grow revenues year-over-year and materially from last quarter. Furthermore, compared to this time last year, we have greatly deleveraged the business, substantially increased our pipeline and total addressable market and lowered our operating cost structure.

Regarding our remaining convertible debt, we have been and remain in active discussions with our debt holders about potential restructuring, and we plan to provide more detail in the upcoming weeks and months. In addition to these corporate and fiscal improvements, our talented product and engineering teams also delivered on the production build and launch of multiple new AI products in the second quarter, including Veritone Assess and Document Redaction, with more exciting new product releases slated for the third quarter.

Back to our recent actions. Subsequent to the quarter end, we made substantial progress on the restructuring and cost actions announced earlier this year. These changes, albeit difficult, were necessary. As of today, we have implemented actions that represent approximately $11.3 million in annualized savings, including headcount reductions and lower nonpayroll expenses, towards a projected total of $15 million to $20 million by the end of fiscal year 2026. We expect to continue to identify additional opportunities to improve operating efficiency into next year with a continued effort to realize up to 30% in relative total savings through the first part of 2027.

Importantly, we have been deliberate in where we reduced spending while preserving targeted investments behind our highest-growth opportunities, including VDR and Public Sector. Our actions have focused on eliminating duplicative corporate costs, streamlining the organization and leveraging our own AI technologies to drive greater productivity and operating efficiency across the business. We believe these actions better align our cost structure with our current revenue base while maintaining the resources and capabilities needed to execute against our key growth priorities.

As we mentioned last quarter, we are not waiting for revenue growth to catch up to our cost structure. We are actively improving the operating efficiency of the business, with the goal of achieving breakeven profitability in fiscal year 2027. Today, we are moving rapidly from vision to commercial execution, connecting data owners with AI developers and placing Veritone at the center of the rapidly expanding AI data economy.

We are successfully converting VDR opportunities into large commercial deployments, having closed some of our largest individual deals in the second quarter. This traction came from repeat customers, and we are currently sourcing and prepping data for several strategic clients, most of which operate under active master services agreements. We remain very bullish on VDR and our market positioning in the training data market.

Hyperscalers remain central to this expansion as both foundational clients and high-velocity partners, positioning VDR as a core growth engine for Veritone. We have built the VDR infrastructure and signed the major players. Now is the time to execute and fulfill.

To put the scale opportunity in context, based on the firms already under contract, a single incremental order from one of our signed hyperscalers or foundational model developers can represent millions of dollars of margin in a single quarter. As we discussed last quarter and to continue to support this scale, our migration to Oracle is progressing right on schedule. Initial storage payloads are expected to begin moving in the month, with complete workloads to follow. This transaction is seamlessly enabled by aiWARE's containerized platform-agnostic architecture, which preserves customer flexibility and avoids vendor lock-in. Once relevant payloads are migrated, we expect compute savings of approximately 20% or more.

In addition to our infrastructure build-out with Oracle, we are also escalating our co-selling and marketplace opportunities with Oracle. I recently had the opportunity to speak at their national OCI sales team at their annual kickoff and have been invited to speak at the Oracle AI World 2026 Conference in October. Partners like Oracle, Workday, Carahsoft, Getac and others remain a critical part of our future growth strategies, both domestically and internationally.

In addition to these major global partners, we maintain strategic partnerships with numerous public sector agencies and leaders in the sports, media and entertainment industries. Through these strategic partnerships, co-selling activity is well underway, currently representing over 450 sourced or jointly pursued opportunities and over $9 million in active pipeline. Partners are critical.

Our Commercial Enterprise division delivered another quarter of strong execution, demonstrating scalability and deepening demand for our AI software and data monetization solutions, with 232 agreements executed over the period. One of the clearest examples is within our Content Licensing division, which drove double-digit year-over-year growth in both revenue performance and completed agreements.

Simultaneously, our sales team continued to close strategic software deals, expanding the operational footprint of our AI enterprise platform. By securing and renewing key [ right clear ] partnerships like premier brands like CNN and Sony Pictures Entertainment, Veritone continues to prove its value as an essential software and revenue engine for commercial organizations. Live sports remains the crown jewel of the media ecosystem, and Veritone sits directly at the center of it.

Building on our Q1 momentum, Q2 marked another milestone in our long-standing relationship with Augusta National, which began in 2008. During the Masters, our technology delivered live ingestion, automated AI tagging and agentic metadata workflows to transform tournament coverage into instantly searchable, high-value digital assets in near real time. Extending this momentum across the broader sports ecosystem, we have recently announced a multiyear renewal with a Pac-12 conference as their exclusive global content licensing partner, leveraging our Digital Media Hub to manage and monetize both historical archives and current athletic seasons. By unlocking immediate asset accessibility while preserving strict IP control, Veritone empowers premier rights holders to open new revenue streams and elevate fan engagement as action unfolds.

As global demand for high-quality AI training data reaches an inflection point, we are actively monetizing the AI data economy through our Veritone Data Refinery as we turn massive unstructured video and audio archive in the high-margin, AI-ready assets. We remain consistently and actively engaged with both hyperscalers and frontier labs as a trusted partner of the necessary data to power the AI economy. This underscores the strength of our data pipeline as AI technology and innovation leaders turn to Veritone to fuel their next-generation models.

Looking ahead, we continue to aggressively execute on our strategy to dramatically expand our total addressable market. Leveraging our cloud-native Digital Media Hub, we are taking the enterprise-grade AI architecture we have built for media giants and democratizing it through modular packaging and tier pricing to capture high-margin growth across previously underserved market segments, including mid-market SMBs, marketing agencies and independent creators. We are transforming Veritone from purely an enterprise specialist into a universal software standard for audio and video workflows.

Turning to the public sector. Veritone's AI applications and [ iDEMS ] suites are revolutionizing productivity and efficiency for mission-critical workflows. This quarter, we launched Veritone Document Redaction and Veritone Assess to our product portfolio. Both applications are built on aiWARE and fit seamlessly into the iDEMS suite of solutions that we currently offer.

Document Redaction materially increases our TAM, as all states have requirements for document reduction. We have already closed several deals, and we'll be making Document Redaction available to our existing customers and generally available to all customers this quarter.

Veritone Assess is an agentic AI-powered data analysis solution designed to help public safety agencies rapidly identify inconsistencies, missing information and critical intelligence gaps, hitting within complex unstructured data sets. Assess significantly expands our AI capabilities across investigations, compliance and case analysis while increasing the speed and accuracy of decision-making. It uses cases, including solving crimes, identifying procurement and financial fraud, developing mission plans and applying policies and procedures to processes involving unstructured data.

As we highlighted during our July innovation showcase, we are translating our technology into meaningful real-world impact through our ongoing work with the Cold Case Foundation. Veritone Assess is currently being used on multiple cases, including the JonBenet Ramsey case in Colorado. We believe the public exposure from this work, as well as engagement with the law enforcement agencies where these cases originate, will continue to help accelerate growth across our public safety business.

We also secured a multiyear contract with the California Highway Patrol, or CHP, the largest state police agency in the United States, for Veritone Redact to automate the redaction of sensitive information within digital evidence data sets collected by CHP, significantly accelerating public records processing while protecting citizen privacy. This contract validates a highly scalable, repeatable deployment model for use across a variety of state and local agencies. In fact, the CHP is already evaluating our other iDEMS applications, thereby contributing to the growth of our overall public safety pipeline.

Our broader public safety sales momentum also remains strong. We secured a 5-year agreement with a state agency in Washington and added several new customers that licensed multiple products under multiyear agreements. We also saw a significant increase in partner activity, including new activations and new accounts. We added MCCi and JustFOIA as new channel partners for our redaction solutions, added several new reseller partners and continued to advance our technical integration and co-selling relationship with Getac.

To accelerate adoption across the local agency market, we have established a strategic partnership with Police1 and Lexipol to help agencies identify, pursue and secure grant funding for advanced investigative technologies, reducing a key barrier to procurement. At the federal level, we are demonstrating our leadership in AI infrastructure and government AI initiatives through our partnership and participation in the Genesis Mission Consortium, supporting efforts to accelerate the federal government's AI resources, data sets and high-performance computing capabilities by utilizing aiWARE and our applications.

In addition to supporting our current Department of War agencies, the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency and the U.S. Air Force, we are in the process of expanding our enterprise ATO and application footprint for the Department of Justice by adding Veritone Investigate with Assess to the FedRAMP marketplace. We are also in the final stages of contracting for a border security project that we expect to commence shortly.

Internationally, we recently concluded an agreement with the U.K. Department for Work and Pensions, highlighting our growing global momentum in the public sector. Also, as it relates to the U.K., we have been down selected as part of an exclusive group of technology firms and vendors for a large countrywide procurement framework, which we remain optimistic as we finalize the contract to secure the award and the appointment here shortly. We also have been actively engaged on iDEMS opportunities with law enforcement agencies in the U.K., Canada and Ireland. Our international activity continues to grow as we focus on these important markets.

With the addition of new products, new partners and expanding channel presence, we have significantly increased our addressable market and routes to market. Our applications and iDEMS suites are doing more than improving workflows. They are enabling mission-critical outcomes, improving productivity and efficiency, increasing case closure rates and helping the public sector customers reduce costs. The strong momentum we are seeing across our Public Sector business underscores the critical nature of our offerings, and we look forward to the Public Sector opportunity in the future.

Our Hire division, now officially rebranded as Broadbean by Veritone, delivered a focused and highly productive second quarter. Even as we navigate a selective and challenging macro hiring environment, Broadbean remains a bedrock of high-margin recurring revenue for Veritone. This operational stability is powered by the sheer scale of our global network. Broadbean now manages over 7.6 million jobs annually and generates 132 million candidate engagements, cementing its position as a vital foundational asset within our product portfolio.

On the product innovation front, I'm thrilled to report the successful launch of our Job Acceleration feature on May 11th. While our programmatic advertising campaigns excel at standard budget pacing, shared tool dynamics can sometimes leave urgent or specialized roles underserved. Job Acceleration solves this directly by allowing recruiters to place high-priority roles into a dedicated high-velocity fast lane without altering their main campaign settings.

Market adoption and customer feedback during early rollouts have been exceptional. A key client, SOS Group, highlighted the tool as an absolute game changer, specifically praising its ability to enable their team to respond immediately to sudden spikes in talent demand. By combining dedicated budgets with a friction-free pay-for-performance model, Job Acceleration gives talent acquisition teams instant speed and control a capability we expect will drive meaningful incremental spend across our broader user base.

Our enterprise sales momentum also remained strong in Q2, highlighted by 76 new business wins and key multiyear wins across our global footprint. Our media services revenue delivered exceptional performance, surging by 48% compared to Q1 and reflecting robust demand across our global advertising footprint. Concurrently, our team is executing smoothly on the multi-agency U.K. public sector rollouts announced last quarter, including the flagship to U.K. Department for Work and Pensions implementation.

Finally, as we have stressed above and previously, the importance of our partnership channels are very critical to the business, and I wanted to provide an update on our Tier 1 HCM ecosystem, where we have reached several critical milestones this quarter. SAP PartnerEdge Build program. On May 5, we officially signed as a partner in the SAP PartnerEdge Build program. This creates a direct channel to integrate Broadbean solutions directly in SAP's core talent management ecosystem, establishing a clear pathway to expand our footprint within the Global 2000 brands that rely on SAP daily.

Oracle HCM. We continue to deepen our functional integrations with Oracle HCM, ensuring our global distribution power is seamlessly exposed to their enterprise customer base. We will continue to push into this ever-expanding relationship with Oracle.

Workday. Building our momentum as a Workday Platinum partner, we closed several new -- 7 new Workday deals in Q2, bringing our year-to-date Workday total to $1.3 million across 33 joint wins, keeping us firmly on track towards our full year ecosystem expansion goals. These operational wins, technology launches and strategic alliances collectively signal a pivotal transition for Broadbean by Veritone. We are no longer just a job distribution tool. We have established ourselves as a deeply embedded AI-driven strategic partner, essential to how the world's largest employers source, engage and manage talent.

Looking forward, I'm exceptionally excited about the rapid strides we are making in agentic AI technology and our next-generation product road map for Broadbean. By embedding autonomous capabilities into our core job management architecture and pioneering new enterprise compliance and career sites, we are positioning Broadbean to not only streamline recruitment workflows, but to set the global standard for intelligent compliant talent acquisition in the AI area.

In closing, the investments, as well as the difficult yet disciplined operational decisions we have made over the past several quarters, positioned Veritone to accelerate growth while materially improving our path to profitability through the second half of 2026 and into 2027. Our decisive reorganization and cost cutting will more appropriately align our current revenue base and growth areas, creating a clear path to profitability in 2027.

Now I'll turn the call over to Mike, who will review our financials and business performance in more detail. Mike?

Michael Zemetra

Great. Thank you, Ryan. Overall, revenue was strong in Q2 2026, led by VDR, however, with slightly short of expectations, largely driven by the public sector, where we experienced delayed budgetary shifts in late Q2 2026 from the Department of Defense to move funds over to support the conflict in Iran. As I will explain in more detail later in my prepared remarks, we view this as a temporary shift as the pipeline of projected adoption of our AI platform across the U.S. federal government is forecasted to increase substantially over the next several quarters. And we continue to work directly with the DoD despite the temporary decision to move budget funds to the Iran conflict.

On the operating side of the business, we executed $11.3 million of annualized cost reductions to date or roughly 11% of our annualized cost structure as of June 30, 2026, mostly from headcount reductions and reduced third-party professional and consulting fees. By the end of fiscal 2026, we are targeting up to an additional $3.5 million to $8.5 million of cost reductions to reach up to 20% of annualized cost reductions. As I will explain later in my prepared remarks, none of these reductions were revenue are growth impacting, and we are expected to start showing breakeven results on a non-GAAP basis as early as the first half of 2027 and potentially for the full year fiscal 2027 and modest forecasted revenue growth year-over-year.

During my prepared remarks, I will discuss our Q2 year-over-year performance and KPIs, balance sheet and liquidity position, including our recent cost reductions, and provide updates on our financial progress in Q2 2026 and fiscal 2026 guidance. Now I would like to discuss our Q2 2026 performance in more detail.

Q2 revenue was $24.3 million, up $4 million or 20% sequentially from Q1 2026 and up $1 million or 5% from Q2 2025. The sequential 20% revenue improvement from Q1 2026 was driven by increased VDR and licensing services, which when combined, were up 40% quarter-over-quarter. The improvement over Q2 2025 was driven by our Managed Services, which saw increases in licensing and representation services, while Software Products and Services was relatively flat year-over-year, driven by higher VDR revenue, offset by declines in Veritone Hire in the public sector. Veritone Hire was down year-over-year, principally due to lower consumption-based revenue from one of its largest hiring platforms, driven in part by a continually challenging macro environment across hiring in the quarter, which is expected to continue through the second half of fiscal 2026.

The year-over-year decline in Public Sector was largely due to the delayed contract extension with the DoD, which was entirely driven by temporary budgetary shifts and wartime spending due to the ongoing conflict in Iran. To be clear, this is an active project with the DoD that we have been working on expanding for more than a year. We remain highly engaged with the DoD on next steps and anticipate that funding will be approved as early as the second half of 2026 or first half of 2027, depending on the status of the Iran conflict. As I'll explain later in my prepared remarks, we remain very bullish on our current and future pipeline in the public sector, including expanding further within other critical areas of the U.S. federal government and internationally into Western Europe.

Our Q2 results were also somewhat tempered by the fact that certain transactions with some of our larger hyperscalers for VDR remain under active review, but not fully processed. I would like to remind everyone that we have all the largest hyperscalers under contract, and we currently have a near-term VDR sales pipeline and bookings of over $65 million. In addition, we have an active sales pipeline of more than $15 million, which could all close in Q3 and/or Q4 2026 and includes several deals in the single to high multimillion dollar range. While the timing of these VDR deals is not fully in our control, we remain optimistic on the near- and long-term revenue growth opportunities for VDR.

Turning to the public sector. We are forecasting the public sector to continue to grow throughout fiscal 2026, albeit lower than we had originally expected [ as ] more pronounced growth beginning in fiscal 2027 and expanded rollout of iDEMS across the DoD, including OSI, and other larger international and U.S. federal agencies.

Turning to Q2 Managed Services, which increased $1 million year-over-year, principally as a result of increases in both licensing and representation services. As previously discussed, we are seeing improvements in our representation and licensing services over 2025 and expect this trend to continue throughout the remainder of fiscal 2026.

Turning to key performance metrics across our Software Products and Services in Q2 2026. ARR of $62 million, up slightly from Q2 2025 of $61.9 million, driven by increased consumption-based revenue from onetime software revenue in VDR, offset by a decline in SaaS-based revenue as we made the decision to sunset one of our legacy SaaS products in Q2 2026, which was margin negative since its inception. Overall, ARR and consumption-based customers increased 71% year-over-year, while recurring subscription-based SaaS customers declined 15%.

New bookings of $13.9 million, which were down slightly year-over-year, gross revenue retention continued to be above the 90 percentile, and total Software Product and Service customers of 2,829, down 8% year-over-year, predominantly from our Commercial Enterprise sector, which includes lower consumption-based customers and across Broadbean by Veritone, principally due to macro driven churn from smaller customers as we focus on larger ARR opportunities. As the hiring market continues to be challenged, we expect this trend of smaller ARR customers to continue throughout fiscal 2026.

Q2 GAAP gross profit was $14.2 million compared to $15.7 million in Q2 2025. The decline was primarily driven by the decline in revenue, principally from our hiring products and services. Q2 GAAP gross margin of 58.5% as compared to 67.5% in Q2 2025, a decline of 900 basis points, driven largely by the mix of revenue in each period. Excluding noncash depreciation and amortization expense, Q2 2026 non-GAAP gross margin was 63.7% as compared to 72.6% in Q2 2025, a decline of 890 basis points. Note that we continue to forecast 2026 non-GAAP gross margins to be closer to 60% to 65% throughout the year and will vary depending on the timing and the mix of VDR revenue in a given period.

Q2 operating loss of [ $22 million ] increased by $3.1 million or 16% year-over-year, primarily driven by the $0.7 million decline in non-GAAP gross profit, a $4.5 million increase in onetime severance and transition costs associated with our recently announced restructuring and cost reduction efforts, offset by lower noncash depreciation and amortization and a $1.3 million net decrease in year-over-year operating line item expenses driven by lower personnel costs across G&A and sales and marketing, due in part to headcount efficiencies year-over-year, offset slightly by higher R&D costs as we continue to invest in our future growth.

Net loss was $22.2 million as compared to $26.5 million in Q2 2025, a $4.3 million or 16% year-over-year improvement. Driving this year of improvement was a $3.4 million decline in net interest expense year-over-year as a result of the paydown and retirement of 100% of the company's senior secured debt in November 2025. In addition, the company recorded a onetime noncash loss of $2.9 million in Q2 2025 from a change in the fair value of the company's estimated earnout from the Veritone One sale in October 2024 that did not recur in Q2 2026.

Lastly, income taxes were approximately $1.1 million higher in Q2 2026, primarily due to the timing of certain income tax items. Offsetting this was a decline in operating loss of $3.1 million. Excluding the onetime restructuring charge of $4.5 million, Q2 net loss would have been approximately $17.7 million as compared to $26.5 million and $8.8 million or 33% improvement year-over-year. Overall, non-GAAP net loss was $9.95 million as compared to $8.4 million in Q2 2025. The year-over-year variance was mostly driven by lower non-GAAP gross profit, coupled with a $0.3 million decline in capitalized software in Q2 2026 as compared to Q2 2025.

Turning to our liquidity and balance sheet. As of June 30, 2026, we held cash and restricted cash of $12.7 million as compared to $27.7 million at December 31, 2025. The $15 million net change in cash reflects net cash outflows from operations of $22.1 million, principally driven by our non-GAAP net loss of $21.9 million, and net cash inflows from investing and financing activities of [ $6.9 million ], primarily driven by net cash outflows of $2 million in capital expenditures and $9.4 million in net proceeds raised from our ATM in Q2 2026.

As of June 30, 2026, we settled 5.8 million shares under ATM, raising net proceeds of approximately $9.4 million at an average price of $1.68 per share. Excluding capital raises in the first half of 2026 and 2025, we also improved our net cash outflows by over 27% by $8.8 million year-over-year.

Turning to liquidity today. As of June 30, 2026, we held $12.7 million of cash and restricted cash as compared to $13.8 million as of June 30, 2025. Moreover, all the entirety of [indiscernible] cash is unencumbered and free of any restricted debt covenants, unlike in the prior year, when we had a $15 million minimum cash requirement under our legacy senior secured debt. In addition, we have approximately $45 million of total debt outstanding at June 30, 2026 accruing interest at an annual rate of 1.75% as compared to approximately $130 million at June 30, 2025, a year-over-year improvement of $85 million in debt principal and more than $13 million in reduced annualized debt carry costs. This improved flexibility and stability has strengthened our balance sheet and allows us to focus on reaching our growth potential to meet the hyper growth market opportunities ahead of us.

At June 30, 2026, we had 99.1 million shares issued and outstanding and 2.5 million warrants outstanding to certain legacy term net holders. In late June 2026, we began our operating restructuring efforts with a goal to reduce our current operating expenses up to 30%. In the first phase of this restructuring, which continued through this week, we eliminated 62 full-time employees, which is roughly 14% of our workforce. In addition, we reduced other operating expenses. When combined, we have executed approximately $11.3 million or roughly 11% of our annualized operating expense.

And we're not done. We have plans to further enact an additional $3.5 million to $8.5 million of annualized operating expense reductions under this restructuring effort to reach out to at least $15 million to $20 million of annualized cost reductions by the end of 2026, or up to 20% of our annualized operating expenses. As I will explain further in my prepared remarks, these efforts will ensure we are on target to achieve breakeven profitability with revenue growth at or near $125 million to $130 million of annualized revenue in fiscal year 2025, or approximately 11% year-over-year growth from the high point of our fiscal 2026 guide. This is absolutely achievable given that substantially all of the investments to achieve this targeted revenue growth have already been made.

There will be minimal additional OpEx required to achieve these revenue milestones heading into fiscal 2027. That said, we will continue to be opportunistic, with continued focus to further improve our current liquidity position and balance sheet as well as the previously discussed plan to reduce our consolidated operating expense over the next several months.

As of June 30, 2026, we have over $40 million of availability remaining under our current ATM, and we have been in active discussions with our debt holders on potential structuring going forward, which we plan to update you in more detail in the coming months. Lastly, we are working on multiple strategic funds with some of the largest companies in the world to continue to accelerate our growth across our commercial and public sector services.

Now turning to full year 2026 guidance. As a reminder, we will only be providing financial guidance for the full fiscal year 2026 given the complexity of forecasting the timing of VDR deals, which tend to be larger in dollar values and entirely consumption based, coupled with the complexity of government decision-making, especially during wartime. That said, and as I explained earlier, we are seeing a large backlog of more than $15 million of active VDR deals that all could close in Q3 2026. And we have given a soft range on Q3 2026 revenue to be between $24 million to an excess of $28 million, which at the high point would be a year-over-year improvement of over 5%.

As a backdrop to our annual guide, our Software Products and Services revenue pipeline and long-term outlook continue to be at all-time highs. More specifically, we continue to see strong demand across commercial VDR and the public sector. In 2026, hyperscalers including Google, Amazon, Meta, NVIDIA, which are all current customers, have individually forecasted to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in fiscal 2026 to progress their AI initiatives, including further investments into their large language models. With a global AI training data set market size projected to grow from $4.4 billion in 2026 to $23.2 billion by 2034, we are just in the early phases of AI data modeling.

From a model training perspective, we believe that we continue to be well positioned to exploit this potential revenue opportunity at the forefront of future spending with our VDR solution as the more mature models are now investing heavily in rich video data, where we believe Veritone has a clear competitive advantage. As of today, our near-term sales pipeline of VDR remains over $65 million and continues to grow.

And to be clear, the average deal size is in the $1 million to millions per VDR order. While we do not control the timing, we are active with these hyperscalers on this potential near-term pipeline of $15 million. To address this in 2026, we are focused on the most efficient and cost-effective ways to increase the supply of data. And we will also be investing in the engineering and product around VDR, including Veritone Marketplace, where our aim is to deepen our competitive moat with exclusive access to thousands of more data providers.

As previously discussed, we now have access to content rights holders who control more than 50 million hours of valuable video data, which is vastly significant as compared to the hours we held this time last year. We believe these near-term strategic decisions will enable us to continue to grow VDR revenue in fiscal 2026 and beyond at or above the 23% projected CAGR for spending on large language models through fiscal 2034.

In the public sector, the market TAM for digital evidence management solutions today exceeds north of $10 billion, and it continues to grow at double-digit rates. As discussed earlier, we did experience temporary delays with our current DoD project, in large part due to the reallocation of current fiscal budget towards war efforts in Iran. That said, we are actively in contact with the DoD on this project and are highly optimistic this project will reengage at some point in the second half of 2026 or early in fiscal 2027.

Despite this delay, deal progress in the public sector has been substantial. Specifically, we have been down selected on a multiyear approximate 10-figure [ warmed ] internationally, where we were selected along with a dozen or so other vendors to deploy our iDEMS solution across a major European country. In addition, we should also be announcing another major win to deploy our iDEMS product across another investigative department of the U.S. government, and we are well underway with a third-party hardware provider to jointly deploy our iDEMS solution and capture a larger share of the state and local law enforcement market.

While we cannot quantify the impact of these opportunities given the stage they are in, which will most likely impact fiscal 2027, they could easily double our current public sector pipeline when combined, which today remains north of $200 million. We look forward to providing more details on these opportunities as they mature over the coming months.

With the uncertainty around timing of these potential new partnerships and the budgetary shift in the DoD, we will be revising our financial guidance for the public sector, which is now expected to grow at a more modest rate versus what was expected in the previous quarter. That said, once we begin formally rolling out more [ institute of ] items across the broader DoD, including the previously discussed upcoming deals. We expect that growth rate to be much higher starting in the first half of 2027.

On the OpEx side, the $11.3 million from restructuring and cost reduction efforts will directly benefit the second half of 2026, with a potential for an additional $3.5 million to $8.5 million by year-end. These cost reductions will impact the entire organization, but more pronounced on sales and marketing and general and administrative. As a result, we are expecting the back of 2026 to show declines in sales and marketing and G&A expenses year-over-year, with forecasted spending across these areas as a percentage of total revenue expected to show improvements year-over-year.

We are projecting research and development expenses to be slightly down in the second half as compared to the run rate in Q2 2026. However, we are still continuing to invest in VDR and Public Sector revenue initiatives, including the Veritone Marketplace and brand new software product features and enhancements in 2026 and beyond. With our updated financial guidance, we are projecting operating profitability as early as the first half of fiscal 2027, providing we execute the remainder of our cost reductions by the end of 2026.

The key risks to our revenue projections are the consumption-based nature of VDR, coupled with the timing of government-based contracts and decision-making. As a reminder, over the past 12 months, individual deal sizes for VDR have ranged from the high 6 figures to mid-7 figures. While we feel confident in our sales pipeline for VDR, our visibility into the timing is typically 2 to 3 months in advance of delivery, and decision-making on the nature and volume of content may change depending on the customers' need and anticipated impact on those training models.

More specifically, we are updating our fiscal 2026 guidance to: revenue to be between $100 million to $150 million, which at the midpoint represents a 17% increase year-over-year from fiscal 2025. As discussed, we are expecting the public sector revenue to modestly grow year-over-year and the remaining growth to come from our Commercial Enterprise sector, predominantly from VDR. Our Broadbean by Veritone Hire products and services are included in this growth, and we expect Broadbean by Veritone Hire to be slightly down year-over-year, given the current macroeconomic hiring environment.

Our Managed Services is expected to be up year-over-year by 10% to 15%, principally due to the recent improvements we are seeing on the representation side of our business. We expect gross margins to fluctuate between 60% to 65%, driven by the forecasted mix of revenue in the period, and non-GAAP net loss to be between $22 million and $32 million, which at the midpoint represents a 34% improvement year-over-year as compared to fiscal 2025. The change is reflective of the timing shift in revenue, the previously discussed cost reduction efforts to date, coupled with the compression in gross margins due to the mix of VDR. We believe we are still on track towards profitability but are shifting this to the first half of fiscal 2027. And it's highly dependent on the compounding growth of VDR in the public sector heading into fiscal 2027, coupled with the execution of our remaining cost reductions.

Before closing the call, I'd like to remind everyone listening that Veritone will be in New York City attending the H.C. Wainwright 28th Annual Global Investment Conference taking place September 14 through the 16 at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel in New York City.

That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we would like to now open the call for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Kevin McVeigh with UBS.

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Kevin McVeigh

Great. Thanks for the context. If you were to look at the adjustments to the revenue guidance, any -- can you help us dimensionalize, like how much of that was VDR relative to -- and I know VDR spans both business segments in terms of Commercial, Hire and things like that. But just help us understand, was that taking all the VDR out? Or is there still some VDR base in the back half of the year?

Ryan Steelberg

I would say it comprises the combination of bulk, not removing VDR entirely by no stretch, but bringing down I'd say the contributions or expected contributions from primarily DOW Fed and the elements of VDR. VDR, obviously, we remain extremely bullish on. Again, some of these deals are -- we felt just with some of the timing that we're seeing in the delays of some of the VDR deals despite the size of magnitude of them, we did feel it was prudent to bring down that guide to, let's say, better coincide with our visibility, however limited that may be, to a more appropriate level. Hence, why we remain extremely disciplined, right, to continue to advance on our cost-cutting and reorganization initiatives. But again, the main drivers for that pullback or reduction in the year end guide is a combination of primarily Department of War Fed and bringing down slightly contributions from VDR in 2026.

Kevin McVeigh

Yes. And to be clear, there will be revenue for VDR in the back half of the year?

Ryan Steelberg

Correct. Correct. Correct.

Kevin McVeigh

So is it -- if you were to think about those three buckets, is it -- VDR is 20% of it, and then the other two are 80% in terms of the adjustment? Or if you can't get too specific, that's fine.

Ryan Steelberg

No, we can't break that out.

Kevin McVeigh

Okay. Helpful. And then I guess on the $46 million, Mike, is there any way to think about like timing on that? I don't know if you can give just a little bit tighter on the timing of when we should expect the update? And any thoughts as to how you approach that?

Michael Zemetra

Yes. I mean, as we mentioned, we're in active discussions with the debt holders, and hopefully, we'll have some news here over the coming months, if not months. So it's top of mind. We're focused on it. Yes.

Kevin McVeigh

And then it seems like you've got nice momentum on the expense side given the revenue reduction relative to the net loss, it looks like the revenue is about $30 million, but only the net loss, $10 million, give or take. Is that the cost [ actions ] fully seasoned? Anything else in there we should think about? Just because it really -- nice progress there.

Michael Zemetra

Yes, I think it's a combination of the cost reductions. And there'll be some more coming, coupled with, you recall, VDR from a margin perspective is not as good as some of our SaaS product. So that it's not necessarily a one-to-one correlation, yes, when you're taking that down.

Operator

The next question is from Pat McCann with D. Boral Capital.

Patrick McCann

I was wondering with the recent public sector wins, if that's driven an uptick in additional interest from other public sector organizations around the country? You mentioned, of course, the importance of CHP and the scale of it. How does -- how has that helped the discussions and the pipeline in the public sector business? Have you noticed a particular uptick as you've won some of these important and notable accounts?

Ryan Steelberg

Yes, absolutely. It's a relatively small industry, obviously, and when you're able to land some of these more material agencies, whether they're state local or at the federal level, of course, that has a ripple and referral effect across the organization, across the ecosystem, somewhat akin to any business.

And so that -- so despite, I'd say, some short-term delays -- and I want to really stress short -- I'm incredibly bullish on over the overreaching public sector business, both domestically here in the United States and internationally. So getting deals done, getting them publicly announced and frankly, and most importantly, getting happy customers who are using your mission-critical software repeat business, it is absolutely a catalyst.

So investors should take note of these material agencies and brands that we're signing. We're not happy with sort of the short term, some negative impacts in the ways that we've incurred, but it's important for people to listen to the brands and the names that we have been able to disclose. And some of the pending deals. Some of the stuff is public record. When we get the rights and approvals to more clearly promote and explain some of these big wins and award selections, we will do it and we will publicize those appropriately.

But I would say one more final point is it's -- there is definitely a crossover between, at times, state and local with the Department of Justice, obviously, as it relates to certain initiatives, with Border Patrol in other areas. So every win is important. Every material agency, whether it's state, local or Fed is important. But it's equally important for Veritone to be able to and appropriately be able to announce and market those effectively.

So again, these names are important. You are touching on a very important point, that this is real exciting momentum that. As Mike touched on, we do expect to see very material contributions to bookings and revenues in 2027 from a lot of these awards that have just recently been awarded.

Patrick McCann

And then my other question had to do with the guidance of moving towards breakeven in the early stage of 2027. I was wondering if you could kind of handicap your confidence around that based on the dynamic of revenue growth and the cost cutting, obviously, the cost cutting being more squarely within your control? So based on those two factors that would come together to drive the move towards breakeven, what is your confidence level? Is enough of that coming from the cost-cutting activities that, that becomes a very, very achievable goal? Just wondering maybe kind of the thoughts that went into that guidance.

Ryan Steelberg

Mike, I think you touched on a little bit, speaking to 2027. So why don't you reiterate that buffer range? And for those who are trying to build the models, it's going to take performance on both sides, and some are more in our control than others. But Mike, why don't you kind of reiterate what you talked about for 2027?

Michael Zemetra

Yes. So I think we said with some modest growth of $125 million to $130 million and provided that we execute on sort of the remaining $3.5 million to $8.5 million of cost reductions in the back half of the year, that should be plenty sufficient to get us to what I'll call breakeven for the entirety through the year. Now some of that does depend on execution and reengagement, particularly with the Department of War.

And we do have some newer deals that hopefully will start bearing revenue as early as the first half. So there are things in there that have a little bit of risk. But from a growth perspective, I think the $125 million, if you take the midpoint of the $125 million to $130 million, it's about 11% growth at the high end of our guide.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ryan Steelberg for any closing remarks.

Ryan Steelberg

Thank you again for joining today. Obviously, we're very excited and bullish on many areas of the business, despite some of the tough decisions we had to make in terms of continuing to reduce cost. And obviously, these are impacting a lot of souls at Veritone. But again, where I think we're doing a very -- the best job we can.

This is obviously a great leadership team effort. And I want to be very clear, and I want to acknowledge the entire Veritone team for, frankly, great execution for the first half. We were able to still drive revenue growth. We were still able to drive pipeline expansion and real product innovation. Let's not forget that at the end of the day, these are killer products and services that we're innovating and developing and selling while simultaneously cutting costs and making major material reorganizations.

Would we like to be able to have done it faster and early in the year? Sure. But as an international body where we obviously have rules and regulations on reorgs and downsizing, again, strong marks across the board for our team on pulling this off.

Second, I would like to say is, despite, again, some of what absolutely are going to be delays, not binary negative outcomes with certain partners and clients in the Department of War, where, obviously, a lot of appropriations are being moved to acute munitions and active warfighting. We remain incredibly bullish about public safety not spanning U.S. state and local U.S. Fed and also international. Our market penetration and growth and relationship build-out with the U.K. and other markets specifically, should -- is very exciting, and that should make investors very excited as well.

And then obviously, VDR. VDR -- and again, it's just something I'll say generally is our business in this last quarter, a very material portion of our revenue came from over 2,500 smaller customers. And then you shift over Department of War and VDR, and you see a few customers that have the ability to contribute millions, multimillion dollars of revenue and high-margin revenue in a single quarter. And that's something that we, as an organization, have to adjust to, which we are, right? That's part of the reorganization and the efforts we're doing.

So again, let me reiterate that is, again, in the last quarter, well over 2,000 customers contributed to the super majority of our revenue, and then we have these exciting new lines of businesses that can have -- that at times are hard to forecast, but very -- in a very exciting opportunity, have the ability to generate substantial revenue growth with only a few contracts or orders, as both Mike and I communicated in our prepared remarks. So again, the excitement in the art form here is let's continue to be disciplined and rightsize and structure organization so we have better visibility on, I'd say, a baseline, but make sure we do not make the mistakes.

And that's why we are going to be very methodical on when we're making these reorganizations and these cuts too that we do not impair our ability for these hyper growth areas, including the public sector and VDR. So again, I think, again, we would score ourselves to pipe despite some short-term negative news today and reducing the guide. But we hope that we are effectively communicating the real underlying asset value and pipeline expansion that we continue to add to this business.

Again, with some of the biggest names in the space, like CHP, the U.K. Department of Work and Pensions, et cetera, Department of War, these are real, they're big, they're contracts. And frankly, we put our opportunity up against any company out there.

And then lastly, Mike touched on one. Please check on our investor website. We are attending a slew of different financial and technology conferences through the balance of the year. BMO, UBS, Needham, we mentioned Craig-Hallum, AlphaSelect and others. Look forward to meeting with both current and new prospective investors. And hopefully, people will continue to find excitement in a very -- in a killer business that has created a lot at servicing thousands of customers, and again, is executing against the plans that we laid out, right, despite some short-term hiccups. Thank you for your time today, and have a good evening.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.