Cuộc họp báo cáo kết quả kinh doanh quý 4 và năm tài chính 2026 của Zedge (ZDGE): Chiến lược tăng trưởng DataSeeds

Thông tin chính

• Doanh thu quý 4 tăng 4% so với cùng kỳ năm trước lên 7,8 triệu USD. Doanh thu thuê bao tăng 25,6% lên 1,8 triệu USD, trong khi doanh thu quảng cáo giảm 1,9% xuống 5,1 triệu USD.
• Doanh thu năm tài chính 2026 tăng 7,6% lên 31,6 triệu USD. EBITDA điều chỉnh tăng 134,2% lên 4,1 triệu USD và dòng tiền tự do tăng 46,6% lên 4,2 triệu USD.
• Số lượng thuê bao hoạt động trên Zedge Marketplace tăng 35,3% lên khoảng 1,3 triệu. Doanh thu bình quân trên một người dùng hoạt động hàng tháng tăng 30,5% lên 0,121 USD, bù đắp tác động đến doanh thu từ việc số lượng người dùng hoạt động hàng tháng giảm 17%.
• DataSeeds đã giành được các đơn hàng lặp lại, hợp đồng đầu tiên trị giá sáu chữ số và dự án đánh giá mô hình thương mại đầu tiên. Ban lãnh đạo xác định dữ liệu đa thức chuyên dụng, đánh giá mô hình và dữ liệu robot là các lĩnh vực tăng trưởng trọng tâm.
• Zedge kết thúc năm tài chính 2026 với 20,3 triệu USD tiền mặt và không có nợ. Một đợt huy động vốn do cổ đông nội bộ dẫn dắt hoàn tất sau khi kết thúc năm tài chính đã huy động được khoảng 7,7 triệu USD, nâng số tiền mặt ước tính lên khoảng 28 triệu USD.
• Ban lãnh đạo dự kiến doanh thu của DataSeeds sẽ tiếp tục không đồng đều trong năm tài chính 2027 do quy mô và thời điểm thực hiện dự án có thể biến động đáng kể. Khoản đầu tư sẽ tập trung vào các năng lực bán hàng, tiếp thị, kỹ thuật và sản xuất.

Kết quả tài chính chính

Zedge đã mua lại khoảng 686.000 cổ phiếu trong năm tài chính 2026 và hoàn trả khoảng 2,7 triệu USD cho các cổ đông thông qua việc mua lại cổ phiếu và chi trả cổ tức. Công ty đã tạm dừng việc mua lại cổ phiếu sau đợt huy động vốn nhưng dự kiến sẽ tiếp tục duy trì cổ tức hàng quý.

Tình hình kinh doanh và hoạt động

DataSeeds

DataSeeds vẫn là sáng kiến tăng trưởng chính của Zedge. Trong năm tài chính 2026, công ty đã cung cấp các bộ dữ liệu chuyên dụng cho các khách hàng công nghệ, nhận được các đơn hàng lặp lại và giành được dự án đầu tiên trị giá sáu chữ số.

Mảng kinh doanh này đã mở rộng vượt ra ngoài các bộ dữ liệu hình ảnh đã được cấp bản quyền sang âm thanh, video, chú thích, làm giàu dữ liệu và đánh giá mô hình. Hợp đồng đánh giá thương mại đầu tiên với Bria đã sử dụng các nhiếp ảnh gia giàu kinh nghiệm của GuruShots để đánh giá những khác biệt tinh tế về chất lượng hình ảnh do AI tạo ra.

Zedge cũng đang phát triển các năng lực thu thập dữ liệu cho AI vật lý và robot. Sản phẩm của công ty có thể kết hợp video góc nhìn thứ nhất (egocentric) hoặc góc nhìn thứ ba (exocentric) với dữ liệu cảm biến được đồng bộ hóa, bao gồm thông tin độ sâu, con quay hồi chuyển và đo lường quán tính. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết công ty đã bắt đầu bàn giao sản phẩm trong thị trường robot và đang nhận được sự quan tâm đến các hợp đồng tiềm năng trị giá sáu chữ số hoặc lớn hơn.

Zedge Marketplace

Zedge Marketplace tiếp tục là nguồn lợi nhuận và dòng tiền chính của công ty. Số lượng thuê bao hoạt động đạt khoảng 1,3 triệu, tăng 35,3%, trong khi doanh thu bình quân trên một người dùng hoạt động hàng tháng tăng 30,5% lên 0,121 USD.

Tuy nhiên, số lượng người dùng hoạt động hàng tháng đã giảm 17%. Ban lãnh đạo đang giải quyết vấn đề này thông qua việc cải tiến sản phẩm và các kênh thu hút người dùng trả phí mang lại lợi nhuận trên chi tiêu quảng cáo (ROAS) dương. Các tính năng mới được bổ sung gần đây bao gồm báo thức, hoạt động nhận thưởng, mặt đồng hồ, hình nền động và màn hình sạc pin.

Emojipedia, GuruShots và các sản phẩm mới

Doanh thu của Emojipedia tiếp tục giảm, gây áp lực lên mức tăng trưởng hợp nhất. Mảng kinh doanh này vẫn tạo ra biên lợi nhuận cao do chi phí cố định và chi phí biến đổi hạn chế. Ban lãnh đạo có kế hoạch duy trì hoạt động để tạo dòng tiền, đồng thời đánh giá các phương án đầu tư thấp nhằm làm chậm đà sụt giảm.

GuruShots và DataSeeds hiện được quản lý như một mảng kinh doanh hợp nhất. GuruShots cung cấp một cộng đồng nhiếp ảnh, danh mục hình ảnh và đội ngũ đóng góp nội dung hình ảnh giàu kinh nghiệm cho việc thu thập, chú thích và đánh giá dữ liệu.

Zedge đã ra mắt toàn bộ sáu sản phẩm được phát triển thông qua chương trình đổi mới sáng tạo của mình. Công ty tiếp tục đầu tư nguồn lực phát triển và tiếp thị vào hai trong số các sản phẩm đó và dự kiến sẽ có định hướng rõ ràng hơn về triển vọng của chúng trong ba tháng tới.

Tapedeck vẫn đang trong quá trình phát triển, với công việc hiện tại tập trung vào phân khúc nhạc reggae cũng như các giải pháp tiềm năng trực tiếp tới người tiêu dùng (D2C) và doanh nghiệp với doanh nghiệp (B2B) dành cho các hãng đĩa nhạc. Ban lãnh đạo dự kiến sẽ có định hướng rõ ràng hơn trong nửa đầu năm tài chính 2027.

Triển vọng từ ban lãnh đạo

Ban lãnh đạo cho biết doanh thu của DataSeeds nhiều khả năng sẽ tiếp tục không đồng đều trong năm tài chính 2027 do các nhiệm vụ có quy mô, phạm vi và thời điểm khác nhau. Các ưu tiên bao gồm mở rộng năng lực kỹ thuật và sản xuất, thắt chặt quan hệ khách hàng, mở rộng mạng lưới cơ hội kinh doanh và xây dựng các quy trình cho các hợp đồng lớn hơn.

Đợt huy động vốn trị giá khoảng 7,7 triệu USD sẽ hỗ trợ việc tuyển dụng trong các bộ phận bán hàng, tiếp thị, kỹ thuật và quản lý tài khoản. Ban lãnh đạo có kế hoạch giải ngân nguồn vốn này trong nhiều quý thay vì sử dụng toàn bộ trong năm tài chính 2027, đồng thời mong muốn duy trì khoảng 20 triệu USD tiền mặt trên bảng cân đối kế toán.

Zedge cũng dự kiến kiểm soát chặt chẽ hơn chi phí thu hút người dùng trên Marketplace dựa trên lợi nhuận thu được từ chi tiêu quảng cáo. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết điều này có thể tạo ra tốc độ tăng trưởng vừa phải hơn trong khi vẫn duy trì kỷ luật đầu tư và khả năng tạo dòng tiền.

Rủi ro và các yếu tố cần theo dõi

• Số lượng người dùng hoạt động hàng tháng trên Marketplace đã giảm 17%, khiến việc ổn định lượng người dùng tiếp tục là ưu tiên hàng đầu.
• Sự sụt giảm doanh thu của Emojipedia tiếp tục gây áp lực lên mức tăng trưởng hợp nhất.
• DataSeeds vẫn đang ở giai đoạn đầu và doanh thu có thể biến động đáng kể theo quy mô và thời điểm thực hiện dự án.
• Khách hàng có thể từ chối các sản phẩm bàn giao của DataSeeds nếu không đạt các tiêu chuẩn nội dung yêu cầu, làm tăng tầm quan trọng của công tác đảm bảo chất lượng và kiểm soát sản xuất.
• Hoạt động thu thập dữ liệu robot vẫn đang trong quá trình phát triển và có thể yêu cầu thêm các năng lực về kỹ thuật, sản xuất và quản lý người đóng góp nội dung.
• Tăng trưởng của Marketplace có thể chậm lại khi Zedge điều chỉnh chi phí thu hút người dùng trả phí để đảm bảo mang lại lợi nhuận dương.

Các điểm chính trong phần Hỏi & Đáp với chuyên gia phân tích

Ban lãnh đạo cho biết kế hoạch đầu tư vào DataSeeds tập trung vào việc tuyển dụng nhân sự bán hàng và tiếp thị giàu kinh nghiệm có sẵn các mối quan hệ trong ngành, cùng với các kỹ sư có khả năng hỗ trợ các nền tảng đánh giá, chú thích video và kiểm soát chất lượng.

Mạng lưới dự án tiềm năng bao gồm các công ty công nghệ và AI đã thành danh cũng như các tân binh được đầu tư bởi các quỹ mạo hiểm. Ban lãnh đạo ghi nhận quy mô đơn hàng gia tăng, các giao dịch lặp lại và một số khách hàng tiềm năng đang thảo luận về các hợp đồng trị giá sáu chữ số hoặc lớn hơn.

Trong lĩnh vực robot, Zedge đã phát triển một ứng dụng thu thập dữ liệu từ góc nhìn thứ nhất có thể tạo ra bộ dữ liệu thống nhất kết hợp video và thông tin từ cảm biến của thiết bị di động. Công ty có kế hoạch cung cấp các bộ dữ liệu này thông qua mạng lưới người đóng góp được quản lý hoặc nền tảng DataSeeds Production Cloud, tùy thuộc vào độ phức tạp của dự án.

Ban lãnh đạo nhấn mạnh rằng DataSeeds và Zedge Marketplace hỗ trợ bổ sung cho nhau. Marketplace cung cấp khả năng tiếp cận các nhà sáng tạo nội dung cùng chuyên môn trong việc thu hút, hướng dẫn người dùng mới, quản lý sự đồng ý, đảm bảo chất lượng và thanh toán vi mô, trong khi DataSeeds áp dụng những năng lực đó vào các đơn hàng doanh nghiệp có giá trị cao hơn.

Toàn văn biên bản cuộc họp báo cáo kết quả kinh doanh

Toàn văn cuộc gọi công bố kết quả kinh doanh

Phần trình bày của ban lãnh đạo

Operator

Good day, and welcome to Zedge's earnings conference call for the fourth quarter and end of fiscal year 2026. [Operator Instructions]

I will now turn the call over to Brian Siegel.

Brian Siegel

Thank you, operator. During today's call, Morris Berger, that is newly appointed CEO, Jonathan Reich, CEG's President and Chief Operating Officer; and Yi Tsai, Zedge's Chief Financial Officer, will discuss Zedge's financial and operational results that we reported today.

Any forward-looking statements made during this conference call during their prepared remarks or in the question-and-answer session, whether general or specific in nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results in the future to differ materially from those discussed on today's call. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, specific risks and uncertainties disclosed in Zedge's periodic SEC filings. Zedge assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or to update the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that they forecast.

Please note that our earnings release is available on the Investor Relations page of the Zedge website and has also been filed on Form 8-K with the SEC. Finally, on this call, we will use non-GAAP measures. Examples include non-GAAP EPS, non-GAAP net income free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA. Please see our earnings release for an explanation of our use of these non-GAAP measures.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Morris.

Morris Berger

Thank you, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. I am happy to be back at Zedge. For those who may not know my background, I was involved with Zedge very early in its history. In fact, I was the person who found the company in Norway when it only had 2 employees, and I served as CEO for over 4 years. I've spent much of my career building and operating businesses across media and technology, including IDT Entertainment and Zeno Media.

When Howard approached me about returning, what caught my attention was the opportunity for Zedge as a whole and specifically what Jonathan and the team had identified and begun developing with DataSeeds.AI. Zedge has an established business that generate cash, a strong balance sheet and a collection of assets and capabilities that can be applied to various growing markets. Through DataSeeds, we have already demonstrated an ability to turn some of those capabilities into a commercial offering, securing repeat business and expanding into new services.

What I find particularly compelling is that we are building on a foundation that already exists within Zedge, we're not starting from scratch. We have established creator communities, experience developing and operating digital platforms and an infrastructure that can support specialized data production. Of course, DataSeeds is still early in its development, and there's considerable work ahead. My initial focus has been on getting to know the team and the business understanding our customers and identifying where additional investment can have the greatest impact.

Howard's increased involvement and the recent capital investment give us additional resources to pursue the opportunity. I've worked with Howard before with much success and I'm looking forward to working closely with him, Mishi, Jonathan and the rest of the multinational team. I believe we have an opportunity to build DataSeeds into a substantial business over time with high enterprise value, and I am looking forward to helping make that happen again.

With that, I'll turn it over to Jonathan.

Jonathan Reich

Thank you, Morris. It's great to be working together again, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll begin with a DataSeeds update, then review our fiscal 2026 performance and then more about the opportunities we see across the company and our priorities for fiscal 2027. DataSeeds is our primary growth initiative and the area where we see the largest opportunity to create additional value for Zedge stockholders over time.

AI developers increasingly need specialized purpose-built data tailored to particular models, applications and edge cases. Much of that data cannot be scraped from the Internet or acquired from an existing library, we must be produced subject to a detailed technical brief. Zedge entered this market with meaningful advantages, including creator communities, content libraries and extensive experience building technology that can attract, engage and mobilize contributors.

During fiscal 2026, we combined these assets with new production capabilities and enterprise workflows, enabling us to deliver data sets to leading technology companies. That foundation produced meaningful commercial traction, including repeat orders from existing customers, our first 6-figure engagement and an expansion into model evaluation. Revenue will likely remain uneven in fiscal 2027 because assignments vary in size and timing, and we are still in the early stages of this endeavor, but the early progress reinforces our conviction in the opportunity.

Our ability to invest in DataSeeds is supported by the performance and cash generation of our established businesses. So let me turn to our fiscal 2026 results. Fiscal 2026 was a year of meaningful financial improvement following last year's restructuring activities. Consolidated revenue increased approximately 8%, subscription revenue grew nearly 30%, and we delivered substantial gains in profitability and free cash flow. Yi will provide a more detailed review of our financial results shortly. The Zedge Marketplace remains our principal source of profitability and cash flow.

It also contributes a scaled creator community and by nature of operating that business, we have developed expertise in user acquisition, creator onboarding, engagement, consent management and payments that are critical for DataSeeds growth. In the fourth quarter, marketplace average revenue per monthly active user increased year-over-year by more than 30% to $0.121 and active subscriptions increased 35% and to approximately 1.3 million. Those gains more than offset the revenue impact of a 17% decline in monthly active users. Reversing the MAU downward trend remains a priority while improving monetization across the audience we retained.

Zedge Marketplace on iOS continues to perform well supported by strong product acceptance, effective marketing and subscription growth. Looking ahead, we expect to more tightly calibrate paid user acquisition spend with return on advertising spend or ROAS. This may result in a more measured rate of marketplace growth while maintaining our disciplined approach to investment and user growth. We continue to believe in the Zedge marketplace and are investing in product development.

Over the past year, we introduced features designed to improve retention and engagement, including alarms and task-driven reward activities and introduced new content verticals, including watch faces, dynamic wallpapers and battery charge screens. Marketplace is a valuable asset both on a stand-alone basis and as a driver for DataSeeds and maintaining its profitability and cash generation remains paramount. At Emojipedia revenue continued to decline and weighed on our consolidated growth rate, the business nevertheless continues to generate very high margins because it has minimal fixed and variable operating costs.

We will continue to manage Emojipedia for cash generation while evaluating opportunities to slow the decline without significant investment. GuruShots and DataSeeds are now being managed as 1 business. GuruShots contributes an established photography community, an extensive image catalog and experienced visual contributors who can support DataSeeds collection, annotation and evaluation work. We are also designing new consumer products with technology that can connect to DataSeeds, and we have redirected an innovation team to DataSeeds initiatives.

These efforts create reusable technology and capabilities for the enterprise business. I will close by returning to DataSeeds and explaining how we plan to build on the foundation established during fiscal 2026. Depending on a customer's needs, we can use existing content, mobilize contributors through our communities, develop mission-specific data collection applications or deploy professional resources through our DataSeeds production cloud. We manage rights, consent, metadata, compliance and quality assurance throughout the workflow.

Combining these sourcing and production methods gives us flexibility to meet highly specific customer requirements without building every capability from scratch. The opportunity now extends beyond training data. DataSeeds began with rights cleared image data sets and has expanded into multimodal data, including audio and video. We are also building services across annotation, enrichment and model evaluation. Our first commercial model evaluation engagement with Bria demonstrates that expansion.

Bria needed to assess subtle quality differences in AI-generated images that automated systems could not evaluate reliably through GuruShots we mobilized experienced photographers who routinely evaluate and vote on images. Multiple evaluators independently reviewed the content using a process designed around Bria's requirements, demonstrating how expert human judgment can complement automated evaluation methods. Our model evaluation offering combines an established community of visual evaluators with the workflow and quality controls required to produce consistent, usable enterprise results.

On a demo for another client, we tested our evaluation capabilities on a customer's AI-generated images and found that our solution was able to provide value-added insights regarding the image quality of their model, particularly when judging for nuanced variables like dim lighting conditions. That result illustrates how DataSeeds can expand existing customer relationships and the synergies between GuruShots and DataSeeds.

Physical AI and robotics are another promising area. These applications require specialized video data sets that capture how people interact with physical environments. That can include egocentric video recorded from a participant's perspective, exocentric video recorded from external viewpoints and the associated synchronized sensor data. Much of this content must be collected specifically for the task being modeled. Our experience developing mobile applications and managing distributed contributors gives us a strong foundation.

We are developing collection capabilities now, although this business remains early. In fiscal 2027, our priorities are to expand our technical and production capabilities, deepened customer relationships, broaden and grow the pipeline and add the people and processes needed to manage larger more complex engagements, all while remaining disciplined as we invest. Individual projects can vary considerably in size, scope and timing, and our objective is to turn the early traction into a larger more diversified and more consistent business.

The investment Morris referenced gives us the flexibility to move faster and not miss out due to resource scarcity. Our focus now is to deploy those resources with discipline and align customer technical and organizational priorities that can build a durable business and deliver outsized value. Our established businesses provide the cash flow, communities, content and operating expertise behind this strategy. DataSeeds converts those advantages into an enterprise growth platform that we believe can become a meaningful growth driver for Zedge.

We entered fiscal 2027 with commercial validation, expanding capabilities and additional resources. We now need to execute deliver for customers, convert the pipeline and build the organization required to scale.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Yi for a detailed review of our financial results.

Yi?

Yi Tsai

Thank you, Jonathan, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll begin with our fourth quarter results, followed by our full year performance and our balance sheet. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $7.8 million, an increase of 4% from the prior year. Advertising revenue declined 1.9% to $5.1 million primarily reflecting the continued decline at Emojipedia. Subscription revenue increased 25.6% to $1.8 million, continuing the strong growth we've seen throughout fiscal 2026.

Active subscriptions increased 35.3% year-over-year to approximately 1.3 million, while average revenue per monthly active user increased 30.5% to $0.121. Digital goods and services revenue, which combines DataSeeds and GuruShots, was down approximately 2% to $0.4 million compared to approximately $0.5 million in the prior year quarter, as the decline in traditional GuruShots gaming revenue was mostly offset by DataSeeds revenue. Other revenue increased 11.6% to $0.5 million.

Turning to profitability. GAAP operating income was $0.3 million compared to an operating loss of $0.7 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. GAAP net income was $0.4 million or $0.03 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $0.6 million or a loss of $0.04 per share in the prior year quarter. Non-GAAP net income was $0.5 million or $0.04 per diluted share compared to $0.1 million or approximately breakeven per share last year. Adjusted EBITDA increased 75.6% to $0.5 million compared to $0.3 million in the prior year quarter.

Turning to our full year results. Total revenue increased 7.6% to $31.6 million. Subscription revenue increased 29.5% to $6.6 million while advertising revenue grew [ 41% ] to $21.2 million despite the declines at Emojipedia. Digital goods and services revenue was $2.0 million compared to $2.2 million in fiscal 2025, and other revenue increased 6.5% to $1.9 million.

For the full year, our GAAP operating loss narrowed to $0.6 million from $3.2 million in fiscal 2025. Our GAAP net loss narrowed to $0.1 million compared to a net loss of $2.4 million last year. On a per share basis, the loss was $0.02 compared to $0.17 in fiscal 2025. Non-GAAP net income increased to $3.1 million or $0.24 per diluted share compared to $0.7 million or $0.05 per diluted share in fiscal 2025. Adjusted EBITDA increased 134.2% to $4.1 million compared to $1.8 million last year.

Turning to cash flow and liquidity. We Fourth quarter cash flow from operations increased to $1.7 million from $0.7 million in the prior year period. Free cash flow increased to $1.6 million from $0.5 million. For the full year, cash flow from operations increased to $4.6 million from $3.4 million while free cash flow increased 46.6% to $4.2 million from $2.9 million. We ended fiscal 2026 with $20.3 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt.

During fiscal 2026, we repurchased approximately 686,000 shares and returned an aggregate of approximately $2.7 million to stockholders through share repurchases and dividends. Subsequent to fiscal year-end, we completed the approximately $7.7 million insider-led financing discussed earlier in the call. That capital is not reflected in our July 31 cash balance, which, on a pro forma basis, stands at around $28 million.

As previously disclosed, we suspended share repurchases in connection with the financing and expect to continue our quarterly dividend. That concludes my financial review.

Operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from Allen Klee from Maxim Group.

Phần hỏi đáp

Allen Klee

I was going to kind of let Derek ask some questions on DataSeeds, and I was going to ask some other questions. But even though I know tests your focus. So I'll try to be more brief. In terms of I'm sorry, just share with me 1 second. just in general, for monthly active users, what are you actually trying to do now to stabilize it?

Jonathan Reich

Allen, it's Jonathan. So we have 2 parallel tracks that we're pursuing. One is around product. Allen, it's Jonathan. So we have 2 parallel tracks that we're pursuing. One is around produ features, enhancements, development and so on and so forth. And then the other is around expanding paid user acquisition channels, focusing on channels that are going to deliver positive ROAS, monthly active users.

And there have been some changes in our marketing team that we believe will translate into stabilizing the monthly active user base. And on the product enhancements and feature development side, that is a core part of what we do on a day in and day out basis in terms of trying to unlock new growth opportunities accordingly.

Allen Klee

Okay. your SG&A jumped up this quarter. Is that kind of -- what was behind that? And is that kind of a good run rate going forward?

Jonathan Reich

Yi, do you want to take that?

Yi Tsai

Yes. Sorry, I was on mute. The SG&A went up primarily because the net compensation when you may not have a U.S. dollar depreciate gain is really sharp quite a bit with how of the common expenses in GuruShots and some of our employees and -- does that answer your question?

Allen Klee

Okay. And where -- can you tell me where the share count is today or your expected to come out of?

Yi Tsai

Yes. [indiscernible] Wednesday night. We have about 15 million indiscernible] and 0.5 million in cost.

Allen Klee

Okay. And when you talked about for the equity raise you're looking to put that towards DataSeeds. Is there anything more detailed about what you're going to be doing to grow that? I mean to build it out?

Jonathan Reich

I'm sorry, Alan, repeat the question. I didn't hear.

Allen Klee

You have more money to invest in DataSeeds. So like what is the priorities of how you're going to use that money?

Jonathan Reich

Sure. So I'll focus on a couple of different areas. One is sales talent to sales, account executives, SPRs that have an existing book of business are deep in place. The other is the marketing talent and then technology/engineering talent. And to give you a little bit of color when we receive orders, the customer can choose to refuse if we do not meet the content standards that they expect.

So we've built a whole set of capabilities to ensure that we have a very high acceptance rate that we meet the quality standards. In addition to that, we built the eval platform that we described earlier in the call, we're beginning to focus on video annotations. Those are all areas which require engineering support.

And obviously, on the sales and marketing side, we've been running the business really on a shoestring budget, and we believe that bringing on some industry veterans that have played in the space and have existing relationships will help us accelerate the pace by which we grow.

Allen Klee

Okay. I'll pass it along to Derek.

Operator

Our next question is coming from Derek Greenberg from Maxim Group.

Derek Greenberg

Okay. Great. Just following up on Allen's questions. I guess, could you help us think through maybe the pace of investment in terms of -- I think you'll have like a little south of $30 million on the balance sheet and cash how can we think about maybe the size of investment in fiscal '27 and how that will impact the expense base for the business?

Jonathan Reich

Yes. So let's frame it as the following, that we believe that we're going to put some of that money to work, no question of a doubt. Conceptually, we'd like to see to it that we keep a cushion of, give or take, $20 million of cash on the balance sheet. We're not going to consume that $7.5 million all up front, if there's some incredible opportunity to be secure and it requires us to spend more quickly, we have that flexibility.

But the intention here is to scale responsibly and see it with that. We are able to use that investment over the course of multiple quarters as opposed to just say, "Boom, we're going to use that all up over the course of the next fiscal year."

Derek Greenberg

Okay. That's very helpful. And then I was wondering if you could maybe provide color maybe talk about how the pipeline is progressing, maybe in terms of the number of opportunities you see sizing or whatever data you have that you can share?

Jonathan Reich

Sure. So we have seen the pipeline continue to fill in. Both with well-known technology and AI leaders, companies that you and our investors would all recognize as well as new entrants in the space that are venture funded and have ample capital reserves to invest, whether it be in multimodal, egocentric or exocentric data as well as pursue evals, which we rolled out around 1.5 weeks ago.

And we are beginning to see as well order sizes increasing. We've got a couple of -- we've got a couple of prospects in the pipeline now that are speaking to us about 6-digit plus orders. We have started to deliver in the robotics space and the opportunity coming out of the robotics space is significant because that data does not exist for the most part. It's not version 1.0 of AI, where many developers were able to scrape information off of the web to begin to populate their models.

In the world of robotics, that data does not exist. Generally speaking, what we see is that the prospects really want to have dedicated data sets that they can own soup to nuts without leaving the door open for that data to be used by their competition. And we're excited about where we can go with this. We've developed our own egocentric data capture app. And let me explain a little bit more about that. So egocentric data is data that is used between robots. Typically, the way that, that's collected is that a human subjects will wear a camera on their forehead or will wear a camera and some sort of a necklace and begin filming themselves doing any number of tasks.

Those could be residential items like doing a laundry or washing the dishes or those can be activity is in a factory or in some sort of commercial setting, and it's not simply capturing video but it's a matter of capturing the video and in parallel, capturing the various sensor data that exists on a phone, so that can be the IMU, it can be depth sensors, it could be gyroscope, et cetera. In order to see with it the robot is calibrating not only its movement but everything else that's needed in order to ultimately deliver on the service.

So one can imagine if 1 is working with a robot model that is being trained to wash the dishes if the pressure that's applied to a dish is too strong. They're going to crack the dish. If when putting the addition to the closet, the velocity of the arm is not calibrated properly, they'll break vision, so on and so forth. We now have the ability of delivering 1 unified and converge data set that has the video, along with all of the sensor data, which we believe bodes well for our ability to provide robotics customers, what sort of data that they are looking for through both our managed crowd offering as well as DataSeeds Production Cloud depending on the level of complexity involved in capturing that data.

Derek Greenberg

Right. Great. That was super helpful color. I'm curious just in terms of on the pipeline still or just general interest. If you're seeing like more interest in specific areas, say, like in robotics and developing out that capability evaluation kind of see it like broadly across most use cases?

Jonathan Reich

Yes. So we are definitely seeing a lot of interest coming out of the robotics space, and going back, as I said earlier, that really relates to the fact that data just doesn't exist. So there's a tremendous demand as the robotics space is accelerating. And the only way that robots will be effective is that they've got the data. But severing apart from that in the space that we've played up until now in multimodal, we're also seeing a lot of very needs from technology companies that we are really well positioned to deliver on.

And we -- as I said earlier, are seeing that there are orders coming in for 6-digit or 6-digit plus type of engagements. And what we have also seen is that we are getting repeat orders from existing customers the ability to deliver consistently at scale with the quality requirements that a customer has really puts us in a unique class where these customers know that if they give an order to us, we can deliver on spec at time and meet their needs. And that really is something which is proving to be very valuable in terms of establishing our beachhead, if you will, in the space overall.

Derek Greenberg

Yes, that makes sense. And then, obviously, it's still early stages, but I was wondering if we go out 3 to 5 years, I was wondering how you think about the opportunity from DataSeeds versus the legacy business just in terms of maybe the size this segment could scale to how you view that split?

Jonathan Reich

As we've said, DataSeeds is a major growth focus of ours. There's a -- as you know, significant difference between what a customer order can be on DataSeeds versus what a customer generates for us in the Zedge Marketplace. So in Zedge Marketplace, lots of users, but relatively small amounts of revenue in the DataSeeds market, B2B customers that can have very significant orders.

And what we believe is that the 2 really feed off of each other, our ability to deliver well on DataSeeds is partially dependent on our Zedge Marketplace, having access to this massive creator community and all of the experience that we have in terms of the consumer mobile app space, whether it be knowing how to do effective user acquisition, onboarding, consent management. Consent is really important. As we know, there are a lot of lawsuits going on right now with content owners saying, "Hey, content was acquired without proper rights. Our offering has built into it, all of the consent that can provide for prominence and quarter ability and the like so that our customers are protected."

And then we've got all the QA pieces that we've built in to the experience set that we're delivering the content to the customers at spec and the creators are able to get paid. So we've got micro payments down. We know how to deliver them. We know how to keep people incentivized. We know how to see to it that there is gamification of many of the creation paths. So we think that there will be significant growth coming out of DataSeeds. But that's not to say that we are going to forego the focus that we have on the Zedge Marketplace because that focus has put us in the place where we are right now in order to capitalize on this incredible opportunity.

Derek Greenberg

Okay. Got it. And then just a couple of quick ones on the legacy business. It sounds like the innovation team has been moved to data seeds to focus more on that opportunity. But I was wondering just with the goal of 6 Alpha products this year, you had last mentioned that you had launched for those. I was wondering if the other 2 were launched and you could maybe talk about the performance of those alpha products and if you see any potential there?

Jonathan Reich

Sure. So we've launched all 6 products, and let me just slightly modify what you've said. What we are looking to do with the innovation team is we've got 2 innovation groups, if you will, or pods. One, we're going to set loose on delivering innovation products that will help us in terms of building out our [indiscernible], as well as capturing data and like for DataSeeds and then the other is going to continue to focus on building maybe -- well, consumer products, but maybe products that are not simply what we describe internally as being AI wrapper is using AI in order to deliver some sort of content.

Of the 6 that were delivered. We have 2 bits we are still investing in both resource, meaning a developer perspective as well as marketing perspective, and I think that over the course of the next 3 months or so, we'll have some clarity as to whether those go to the next stage. I want to sort of provide a little bit of color to what we accomplished with the innovation track this year. Basically, a year ago, we didn't have anything. We started from scratch.

We built a very scalable harness that allows for us to spin up apps in a relatively short period of time benefiting from the world of AI and being able to repurpose certain elements and expertise that we have in order to test the new ideas. And then if those ideas are working as well, we take them to the next level. We, as I said earlier, had delivered 6 apps. And one of the things that we're looking at for this year is it may not be volume as much as it will be around building a more filled expanded product by benefiting from the skill set that we have mastered over the course of the last year.

Derek Greenberg

Okay. Great. And then last 1 for me just on Tapedeck as well. If you could maybe give us an update on that?

Morris Berger

I'll take that, sure. So we have continued investing in Tapedeck. We have been doing a lot of work in the [ Rega ] vertical, both in terms of building out our customer base. The [ Rega ] vertical is being used almost as a test case/proof of concept, how this can scale and it turns out that the [ Rega ] vertical is interesting because there is a critical mass of users, both in Jamaica as well as the expat Jamaican population, both here in the United States and the U.K. that make this very relevant.

We've got a very, very strong brand ambassador with a well-known [ Rega ] star, and that is definitely catching the interest of people in the music space. And then we are also pitching to various music labels, and that is both a combination of direct-to-consumer opportunity, where we can partner with them, expand our catalog, generate more revenue for them, more sales of record and music downloads and things of that sort as well as a B2B offering where we can offer labels solutions that they would be able to plug into a suite of services that it will allow for them to monetize both from streaming as well as other mechanisms by which they can monetize artists.

Whether it be merchandise, whether it be unique ticket sales and a whole slew of other [indiscernible] that are focused on the super fan base that is to our belief, a very, very critical part of music growth, and we've got the best of both worlds in terms of take back. And we expect that we'll have much more clarity about this in the first half of 2027.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Thank you. This concludes our question-and-answer session and conference call. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.