A record year
2024 was another exciting and eventful year for Visma, where we further strengthened our position as a leading provider of mission-critical software to the private and public sectors. Once again, we demonstrated our resilience to shifting market fundamentals and business cycles, and maintained our over two-decade-long tradition of consistent, double-digit growth – both on the top and bottom line. Visma achieved record revenue of EUR 2.8 billion in 2024, a year-on-year growth of 17.3 per cent, with all-time high EBITDA of EUR 893 million, up 26.7 per cent from the year before.
Alongside these excellent business results we significantly increased our customer base, welcoming more than 521,000 new customers and reaching nearly 2 million customers in Europe and Latin America. In total, we have almost doubled our customer base in the past four years, which has been achieved through a combination of organic growth and over 140 acquisitions. Looking at how Visma is currently positioned, I’m confident that we can maintain this momentum in the years to come, and I want to share some thoughts with you about why Visma is so well placed for continued growth.
Changing market fundamentals
First and foremost, I believe we are perfectly positioned to benefit from two powerful megatrends running in parallel: the continued digitalisation of society and the ongoing shift from legacy on-premise software to cloud-delivered SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions. With nearly 90 per cent of Visma’s revenue now coming from modern SaaS and cloud services, we are primed to leverage these transformative forces and deliver the cutting-edge business tools our customers both demand and need – today and in the future.
Value creation through M&A
Additionally, what truly stands out in our growth and development is how effectively we are delivering on our strategy of international expansion. In 2024, we acquired a total of 33 new software companies, including our first in Italy (Fiscozen) and Croatia (Moj eRačun). Our approach to entering new markets is to acquire the best up-and-coming SaaS startups locally, with products that customers love. Our ability to attract so many to join Visma, despite fierce competition from other buyers, is a testament to the excellence and quality of our M&A team and the compelling value proposition we offer to software entrepreneurs.
Part of the reason entrepreneurs want to join us is all the magic that happens post-acquisition. Every year, we spend close to 20 per cent of our revenue on product development, enabling our more than 6,000 software developers to continuously deliver innovative, secure and increasingly AI-enriched value-additive solutions to our brands and customers. We help our new companies scale and grow into local champions over time, backed by Visma’s joint infrastructure and knowledge network, while always maintaining significant autonomy and go-to-market freedom. This has been the blueprint for our growth in new markets like Spain, France and Belgium in recent years, and we are seeing the results. The new markets outside the Nordics and Benelux countries generated a revenue of EUR 258 million in 2024, which is a 54.2 per cent increase.
Staying ahead of the market
Visma was born in the tech-savvy Nordics, where people started using the cloud and consuming SaaS products relatively early. That’s why we confidently say we are well equipped to anticipate where other markets outside this region are heading – because we’ve been through the process before and understand what creates value for customers.
“I believe we are perfectly positioned to benefit from two powerful megatrends running in parallel: the continued digitalisation of society and the ongoing shift from legacy on-premise software to cloud-delivered SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions. With nearly 90% of Visma’s revenue now coming from modern SaaS and cloud services, we are primed to leverage these transformative forces and deliver the cutting-edge business tools our customers both demand and need – today and in the future.”
Just look at Norway, where software innovation and access to new digital tools have completely transformed and rejuvenated the accounting industry. By automating all the manual and repetitive elements of the profession, considerable time has been freed up to provide more valuable advisory services to clients. This has, in turn, lifted the industry’s growth and profitability, and made it more attractive to young and emerging talent. We expect this trend will unfold in other markets over time, and we are positioning Visma as the go-to provider for accounting offices on their digital journey. Our progress in France, where we are gradually building a comprehensive suite of modern and user-friendly SaaS products for accounting firms and other professional services, is a good example.
It’s not only accountants we empower through our technology. Our SaaS solutions for accounting, payroll and invoicing have become so intuitive, automated and easily connectable that many small businesses and entrepreneurs can now manage these previously outsourced tasks themselves, at lower cost and with minimum fuss.
Visma has become one of the world’s leading providers of business software to SMEs, and we are proud to support close to 2 million of them with solutions that free up time and resources and enable them to focus on their own core business. As they grow and scale into companies with more complex needs, we are ready to provide them with more comprehensive ERP and HRM offerings.
Meanwhile, we continue to develop and expand our offerings to the public sector. The Nordic countries have led the way in leveraging new technology to deliver better, more efficient services to citizens. With Europe set to face the economic challenges of an ageing population in the coming decades, many countries will be forced to make tough choices to balance their budgets. We expect technology to play a central role in enabling governments to get more value and quality out of public spending. Visma has the required infrastructure, long-term perspective and innovation capacity to remain a leading player in this segment.
Outlook
Taking all these factors into consideration, I firmly believe that Visma’s outlook is stronger than ever. Despite the remarkable growth and progress we’ve achieved over the past decades, our international journey is just getting started. We continue to be the partner of choice for the best software entrepreneurs, with our employee engagement ranking among the highest in the industry. Our efforts to promote an inclusive and diverse working environment are also being noticed outside the company. In November, the Financial Times and Statista recognised Visma as one of Europe’s “Diversity Leaders”, based on a survey where companies were rated by employees for their inclusion and equality policies. This is a position we want to maintain and improve on, safe in the knowledge that Visma’s people are by far its most valuable asset.
I want to say a huge thanks to everyone at Visma for their fantastic efforts in 2024 and look forward to a new year together where we shape the future of society through technology!
Merete Hverven
CEO of Visma
