Education software firm Tribal sees profits rocket following end of payments to Nanyang Technological University
Sheffield-based education software company Tribal Group has announced a 323 per cent increase in profit after tax following the resolution of a contract settlement with a university in Singapore.
A contract with Nanyang Technological University was terminated in 2023 and in May 2024 a settlement agreement was reached which saw Tribal agree to pay the university £3.1m to resolve the dispute without any admission of liability.
Tribal has now published its interim results for the first six months of this year, recording a statutory profit after tax of £3.9m – up 323 per cent on the £900,000 recorded at the same point in 2024 when foreign currency impacts are excluded.
The firm said the improvement was largely driven by decreased exceptional costs, which largely related to the NTU settlement that was paid out last year.
Revenue was up 2.3 per cent to £45.3m, with adjusted EBITDA increasing by 18.4 per cent to £8.3m.
Since the period covered by the results, Tribal has signed a further £4m worth of new business, including deals with Durham and London South Bank universities.
The board said it is now “increasingly positive about delivering FY25 results ahead of current market expectations”.
Prior to the announcement, consensus market expectations for the year were for revenue of £89.9m, adjusted EBITDA of £14.6m and net debt of £4.9m. Shares in Tribal rose 22 per cent in early Tuesday trading.
Cheif executive Mark Pickett said he was pleased with the company’s progress so far this year.
"The first half of FY25 has been defined by solid trading and strong progress in our transformation into a full-service, software-as-a-service (SaaS) business, delivering across all our strategic objectives.
"This includes the rapid adoption of our new subscription licence. This shift has underpinned 12.7 per cent growth in annual recurring revenue to £64m by mid-August, as the first wave of adoption gathers pace, which alongside the launch of our next generation Tribal Cloud supports further cloud adoption in coming years.
"Tribal has entered the second half with a robust foundation of annual recurring revenue, long-term customer relationships and clear momentum in our journey towards becoming a pure-play EdTech SaaS company."
The company is working on moving universities to a subscription pricing model.
Mr Pickett said: “Strong progress was made this half with 54 universities having migrated to the new subscription-based pricing by mid-August 2025, accelerated by ramped price incentives over a three-to-five year period and the strong value proposition, as universities increasingly recognise the long-term value of the full-service offering and subsequent streamlined transition to the cloud.”