Liftoff Mobile Q2 Earnings Call Highlights

Liftoff Mobile NASDAQ: LFTO reported second-quarter revenue growth and expanded adjusted EBITDA margins in its first earnings call as a public company, citing demand across the app economy, continued machine-learning improvements and activity tied to the FIFA World Cup. Revenue rose 7% sequentially and 35% year over year to $220 million, marking the company’s 11th consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Core advertising revenue, which Liftoff defines as revenue from its current advertising platforms predominantly powered by its Cortex technology, totaled $219 million. Adjusted EBITDA reached $132 million, producing a 60% margin. The margin expanded by about 2 percentage points from the first quarter and 8 percentage points from a year earlier. The company said its cost base grew more slowly than revenue, generating 82% incremental adjusted EBITDA margin on a year-over-year basis.

Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Bondy said the company benefited from elevated activity during the FIFA World Cup, particularly among sports-betting, live-scoring and prediction-market applications. He said adjacent categories, including finance apps with embedded markets, also participated in the event-driven demand. Bondy emphasized that Liftoff is not reliant on a single seasonal event or app category. The company operates across gaming, shopping, finance, productivity and other verticals, and he described its business as resembling an index of activity across the mobile app economy. “We don’t target a specific mix,” Bondy said in response to an analyst question about the company’s revenue composition. “We really benefit from and appreciate having this diversified portfolio of advertisers and publishers across all these different verticals, inclusive of gaming.” Liftoff said more than half of its demand comes from advertisers outside gaming, while more than one-third of its supply is non-gaming. Bondy said the company expects to participate in other high-attention periods, including the NFL season, back-to-school spending and holiday commerce activity. The company said gaming remained healthy in the second quarter, with its gaming business growing year over year alongside other verticals. Bondy said third-party market data may not fully capture gaming activity because hybrid monetization and off-store purchases are not always reflected in headline metrics.

Liftoff’s platform combines demand-side and supply-side advertising capabilities, supported by an SDK integrated into nearly 170,000 apps globally. At the center of the platform is Cortex, the company’s proprietary AI-powered prediction engine, which estimates the likelihood and value of conversions for advertising opportunities. Bondy said Cortex now makes more than 1 billion predictions per second.