Revenue rose 105.3% but operating cash outflow worsened 72.6% to $17.0m

This matters because the same period saw net cash outflow from operating activities worsen 72.6% to -$17.0m from -$9.8m, so top-line acceleration is not yet translating into cash discipline.

Profit before tax fell 29.2% to -$19.6m and net profit after tax fell 30.1% to -$19.7m, both deeper losses than the prior half. PBT margin of -104.3% and NPAT margin of -104.9% sit at the lower edge of Serko's recent range (three-period mean around -66% to -67%), confirming the loss has widened in percentage terms even as absolute revenue scaled.

Cash on hand rose 65% to $102.9m, and total assets rose 55.1% to $153.0m, above the historical average of $119.8m, but this reflects prior capital-raise proceeds rather than operating cash generation, since the full-year anchor period included capital-raising activity that makes balance-sheet growth non-comparable to organic performance.

This matters because it means a meaningful share of reported revenue growth is sitting in unbilled or uncollected balances rather than converting to cash, even though debtor days actually improved to 32.5 days from 38.3 days and remain within Serko's normal range.

PBT and NPAT moved almost in lockstep (a 0.9 percentage-point gap), so there is no meaningful tax distortion masking the operating trend; the loss widening is a genuine operating outcome, not an accounting artefact. Capex fell 28.6% to $5.0m and capex-to-revenue dropped to 26.7% from 76.0%, showing capitalised development spend growing much slower than revenue, which is a genuine efficiency gain even as cash burn from operations worsened.

The cash balance strength ($102.9m) provides runway, but it is a balance-sheet cushion built from financing activity, not evidence that the operating model is closer to self-funding.

The result does not test that target directly: two years of scaling remain, and this half shows operating cash burn accelerating rather than narrowing, which raises the bar for the improvement required in coming periods.

Without a disclosed EBITDA figure for the current half or a second-half shape breakdown, it is not possible to judge whether the loss trajectory is improving sequentially or simply reflects heavier investment-phase spending typical of SaaS scale-up.

However, the deterioration in operating cash flow is the more important quality signal: cash burn worsened by 72.6% against a revenue base that more than doubled, driven substantially by working-capital consumption rather than by the underlying loss itself, since free cash flow to NPAT conversion held roughly stable near 111% in both periods.

That stability in the FCF/NPAT ratio suggests the incremental cash pressure this half is concentrated in receivables and contract assets rather than in a structurally worse core loss, which is a distinction investors should not read past. The lower capex intensity is a genuine positive that partially offsets the working-capital drag.

This briefing cannot assess the current-period EBITDA trend, segment-level margin composition, or the specific commercial terms of the Booking.com relationship, since those figures were not disclosed in the supplied materials.