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The addition of digital city guides site Concrete Playground and a marketing push for musician-focused social media platform Vampr have helped lift quarterly sales at Melbourne-headquartered Vinyl Group (ASX: VNL), which has also turned the tide on operating cash outflows after a cost blowout at the start of 2025.
Chief executive officer and co-founder Josh Simons says net operating cash outflows of almost $1.76 million for the June quarter represent a 47 per cent quarter-on-quarter improvement, "driven by a trending mix towards higher margin media deals and improved receivables collections".
This has resulted in an almost tripling of annualised cash receipts which have grown 184 per cent to $14.3 million, with the company now targeting a cash-flow breakeven point by the end of the year amidst "consistent revenue growth, operating efficiencies, and a reduction in one-off costs".
"In FY24, we set out to tell a revenue story. In FY25, we focused on growth through acquisitions. As we head into FY26 our narrative attention has switched to one of scalable profitability," says Simons, who won the Digital Disruptor category at last year's Australian Young Entrepreneur Awards - an initiative that has opened up nominations for the 2025 instalment.
"Across the past two years, our business has changed shape. What began as a fast-scaling music-tech platform has matured into a diversified, multi-division media, music and technology group. Our operational footprint, revenue base, and customer reach have expanded significantly."
As a former indie rocker, Simons initially co-founded Vampr with Barry Palmer as a swipe-discovery social network for musicians which grew to become the largest platform of its kind worldwide.
In 2023 his company was acquired by ASX-listed music credits company Jaxsta, and that year he became CEO and the company's name was changed to Vinyl Group to reflect its more diversified offering, which continued to expand over time as it snapped up such businesses as The Brag Media, Mediaweek, Funkified and Concrete Playground.
"Since the current management team got started in June 2023, Vinyl Group’s quarterly cash receipts have increased from a starting base of $58,000 to $3,786,000, representing a 59 per cent compound quarterly growth rate (CQGR) across nine full quarters. Over that time, receipts have grown by a multiple of 65x," adds Simons, who is also an Australia's Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs lister.
"This growth has not followed a straight line. Quarterly performance has fluctuated as expected while scaling and accounting for seasonality, but the broader trend remains clear.
"For example, the March 2025 quarter recorded $3.24 million in receipts, representing a 39 per cent reduction from the December 2024 holiday peak, however a 91 per cent increase on the prior corresponding period."
He says the latest results reflect a execution across multiple business units and a scaling go-to-market capability.
"We remain focused on sustainable growth, operating leverage, and disciplined capital allocation while progressing toward sustained cash flow positivity," the executive adds.
The company's staff costs rose $648,000 for the quarter due to the integration of the Concrete Playground team, but an improved media sales mix meant product and platform operating costs declined by a greater amount of $680,000.
Meanwhile, general and administrative costs were slashed by almost $1 million while sales and marketing costs were down $274,000 because of a shift in campaigns and more on customer-driven advertising spend.
Vinyl Group's investors include WiseTech (ASX: WTC) founder Richard White, Washington H. Soul Pattinson (ASX: SOL) chairman Robert Millner, and Australian-founded global business-to-business (B2B) music licensing platform Songtradr.
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