Exasol AG, a global technology company providing a high-performance analytics engine, reported significantly improved financial results for the 2025 financial year, with key profitability metrics reaching or exceeding expectations. The company's strategic transformation toward focus industries delivered concrete results, as evidenced by a more than doubling of EBITDA to EUR 4.1 million from EUR 2.0 million in the prior year, placing it at the upper end of its guidance range of EUR 3.5 million to EUR 4.0 million. Revenue grew by 5.6% to EUR 41.8 million, aligning with expectations for mid-single-digit percentage growth.
The strong operational performance had a pronounced positive impact on the bottom line, with group net income rising substantially to EUR 3.1 million from EUR 0.2 million the previous year. This improvement bolstered the company's financial stability, increasing the equity ratio to 34.2% from 23.8% at the end of 2024. Cash and cash equivalents also grew to EUR 18.7 million. A key driver of the company's performance was the sustained growth within its defined focus industries. Annual Recurring Revenue from these sectors increased by 10.1% to EUR 26.7 million, raising their share of total ARR to 68%, up from 57% at the end of 2024.
This strategic shift, however, involved a planned reduction in non-focus business. Total ARR declined by 8.0% to EUR 39.1 million, as contract terminations and downsizing originally anticipated for 2026 were pulled forward into 2025. For the 2026 financial year, Exasol expects this churn to reduce substantially. The company's strategic realignment included restructuring its European sales organization to operate along industry lines rather than across them, a move designed to increase sales effectiveness through deeper industry expertise and more targeted customer engagement.
Technological advancement remained a core priority. Exasol made progress on its cloud-based Lakehouse Turbo solution, which connects its analytics engine to the Databricks database platform. Currently in testing with a reference customer, the solution aims to reduce data analytics costs, accelerate the delivery of analytics results, and allow continued use of existing Databricks environments. Furthermore, the company successfully brought to market a solution for integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning applications into its analytics engine. This strategic milestone has already attracted a double-digit number of customers who can now perform AI-based data analytics and training models via Exasol.
Looking ahead to 2026, Exasol expects mid-single-digit percentage ARR growth, driven by a significant reduction in churn and an acceleration in new customer acquisition. Strategic partnerships formed in 2025 with MariaDB, Stackit, and Exoscale are anticipated to contribute to this growth. Revenue is projected to decline in the mid-single-digit percentage range, primarily due to lagging effects from the 2025 ARR decline and lower expected one-time hardware and services revenue. Considering these factors and planned investments in innovation, the company forecasts EBITDA in the range of EUR 3 million to EUR 4 million for 2026. Exasol invited interested investors and media to a virtual webcast to discuss these results, with registration available at https://www.appairtime.com/de/event/94fe37a3-8f7c-4877-8728-060d21f8b292.
