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Date
Tuesday, May 5, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. ET
Call participants
- Chief Executive Officer — Mark Douglas
- Chief Financial Officer — Angie Wyrick
- Chief Operating Officer — Patrick Pohlen
- Executive Chairman — Mike Carroll
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Takeaways
- Worldwide revenue -- $141.2 million, up 14.3% on a reported basis and 12.8% on a constant currency basis.
- U.S. revenue -- $116.2 million, a 14.9% increase, driven by adoption of AtriClip Flex Mini, Pro Mini, Cryosphere Max Pro, and Encompass clamp.
- Open ablation product sales (U.S.) -- $39.1 million, up 17.3%, as Encompass clamp adoption accelerated across new and existing accounts.
- U.S. appendage management product sales -- $48.4 million, rising 14.9%, supported by increased sales of AtriClip Flex Mini and Pro Mini.
- U.S. MIS ablation sales -- $6.4 million, a decline of 25%, cited as a continuing headwind in minimally invasive ablation.
- U.S. pain management sales -- $22.4 million, up 29.5%, with Cryosphere Max Pro representing roughly 70% of segment sales.
- International revenue -- $25 million, up 11.5% on a reported basis and 3.3% on a constant currency basis; European sales $16.1 million (up 13.2%), Asia Pacific/other $8.9 million (up 8.4%).
- Gross margin -- 81%, reflecting margin expansion attributed to revenue growth, structural cost changes, and creative outsourcing; spun out Maximeffort and switched hosting providers for improved cost of goods sold.
- Adjusted EBITDA -- $17 million, nearly double the performance from the first quarter of last year, supporting improved profitability.
- Sequential revenue growth -- Approximately 1% over the fourth quarter of 2025.
- Customer growth -- 46% year-over-year increase.
- Product innovation -- QuickFrame AI version 3 launched out of beta, with management citing improved adoption, creative refresh rates, and for SMBs, significant improvements due to no approvals—create an account, create the video, go live.
- Guidance: Q2 revenue -- $81 million to $83 million, midpoint of $82 million, targeting 20% year-over-year growth.
- Guidance: fiscal year revenue -- $347 million to $357 million, midpoint 24% higher than the previous year.
- Adjusted EBITDA guidance -- $96 million to $101 million for the full fiscal year.
- BOX NOAF clinical trial -- Enrollment at approximately 300 patients out of 960, with completion now expected around year-end—one year ahead of original plans.
- Strategic hires -- Garland Hill and Peter Blacker have joined, tasked with scaling teams to move the market from early adopters to mainstream customers.
- Streaming partner relationships -- Management states "relationships with virtually every streaming network in America," viewed as a net new revenue channel by partners.
Summary
MNTN (MNTN 22.89%) delivered double-digit top-line growth and nearly doubled adjusted EBITDA, highlighting broad-based strength in performance TV software and targeted new product launches. The company confirmed accelerated trial enrollment in BOX NOAF, signaling faster-than-planned clinical milestones and positioning for regulatory and commercial leverage. International expansion advanced, with CE Mark approval for core products in Europe and multiple geographies cited for new launches later this year. Management introduced Garland Hill and Peter Blacker to drive organizational adaptation as the performance TV market transitions from early adoption to mainstream demand. Strategic commentary highlights differentiated AI-enabled creative capabilities and a multi-channel partner ecosystem as enduring competitive advantages.
- Mark Douglas said, "95% of our customers have never advertised on television before, so that is net new revenue to our partners."
- The company cited an 81% gross margin, attributed by Patrick Pohlen to revenue mix, Maximeffort's spin-out, and switching hosting providers, which together reduced cost of goods sold.
- Patrick Pohlen stated, "We did grow 46% year over year in customer growth."
- International growth was partly offset by continued uncertainty in the U.K., as well as lower distributor sales in Asia.
- Management indicated continued investment in product and sales for both direct and agency-led channels, viewing agency expansion as incremental rather than a shift away from direct-to-brand relationships.
Industry glossary
- Performance TV: Television advertising optimized for measurable direct response and audience targeting, using software-driven attribution and programmatic techniques.
- MIS ablation: Minimally invasive surgical ablation procedures for cardiac arrhythmias.
- BOX NOAF: BOX No-Atrial Fibrillation clinical trial, a randomized control study evaluating prevention of postoperative atrial fibrillation in cardiac surgery patients.
- QuickFrame AI: MNTN's generative AI creative platform, enabling automated video ad production and creative refresh.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Mike Carroll: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our call. MNTN Inc. is off to a strong start in 2026, with worldwide revenue of $140 million in the first quarter, reflecting 14% growth year-over-year. We are building on the momentum we established in 2025 from new product launches, with this quarter marking an acceleration in our worldwide growth rate from the preceding quarter and comparable quarter last year. Fueling this acceleration is our U.S. business, which drove approximately 15% growth in the quarter from expanding adoption of AtriClip Flex Mini and Pro Mini devices, Cryosphere Max Probe, and continued strength from our Encompass clamp. In addition, we generated $17 million in adjusted EBITDA, nearly double the first quarter of last year.
Our results this quarter once again demonstrate our ability to deliver durable double-digit revenue growth and expand profitability. Beyond our financial results, we have made exceptional progress in our BOX NOAF clinical trial. Since initiating trial enrollment in the fourth quarter of last year, we have enrolled approximately 300 total patients to date in this 960-patient randomized control trial. We are tracking well ahead of our original timeline and now expect to complete enrollment around the end of this year, nearly one year ahead of plan. The pace of enrollment in this trial reflects an extremely high level of engagement from surgeons who have experienced firsthand the impact postoperative AFib has on their patients.
As a reminder, up to half of cardiac surgery patients without preexisting AFib will develop postoperative AFib, which is the most common complication of cardiac surgery. Because there is no established treatment today, postoperative AFib is a substantial burden on healthcare spending, with estimates exceeding $2 billion annually in the U.S. alone. We are confident that our BOX NOAF clinical trial utilizing our Encompass clamp and AtriClip device has the potential to meaningfully change treatment outcomes for this patient population and address the significant unmet clinical need. BOX NOAF is also highly complementary to our LEAFS clinical trial studying stroke reduction benefit of left atrial appendage management in cardiac surgery patients without atrial fibrillation.
We expect both of our landmark clinical trials to generate robust clinical evidence in support of preventative treatments for cardiac surgery patients, unlocking a massive global market opportunity for MNTN Inc. while establishing new standards of care in cardiac surgery. We at MNTN Inc. are well positioned to realize these significant catalysts for our business in the coming years. Now on to updates covering franchise performance in the first quarter. Pain management once again led our portfolio growth, increasing 28% year-over-year. The Cryosphere Max Pro continues to be the primary driver of growth, contributing roughly 70% of our pain management sales this quarter.
Surgeons across both new and existing accounts recognize the significant time savings and clinical effectiveness it provides, leading to more patients having their postoperative pain managed effectively. Building on our legacy of innovation, we are also pleased that our Cryo XD Pro for amputation procedures is beginning to gain traction. We continue to receive outstanding feedback from each new surgeon that uses this device, and through our registries we are capturing clinical outcomes for this therapy. We are still in the early innings for Cryo XD therapy development and adoption; however, we remain confident in Cryo XD contributing more meaningfully as we move to the back half of 2026.
Within our cardiac ablation franchises, worldwide open ablation revenue grew 15% in the first quarter, led by steady adoption of Encompass clamp in the United States and Europe. Encompass is delivering growth from both new and existing accounts, even as we approach the four-year anniversary of our U.S. full market launch. As mentioned in our fourth quarter earnings call, our drive to treat AFib in cardiac surgery patients was validated with a recent announcement from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons annual meeting, including concomitant AFib treatment as a quality metric.
There is strong precedent for the impact of quality metrics in cardiac surgery, and we believe this change will support increased adoption for surgical AFib ablation and appendage management, serving as a durable tailwind for growth for years ahead. Our minimally invasive ablation franchise continued to face headwinds in the first quarter. We believe there is a role for hybrid therapy in the current and future treatment landscape and remain committed to providing a solution for the unmet need for patients with long-standing persistent AFib. Finally, turning to our appendage management franchise, which saw 16% growth worldwide driven by both our open and minimally invasive appendage management products.
Our open left atrial appendage management business benefited from strong adoption of AtriClip Flex Mini in the United States, where we exited the quarter with Flex Mini contributing approximately 40% of our open appendage management revenue. More importantly, we believe our Flex Mini device has been impactful in driving share gains in this market. Surgeons using or trialing competitive devices are impressed by the small form factor of AtriClip Flex Mini, along with robust clinical evidence and superior product performance of our AtriClip devices. In minimally invasive procedures, AtriClip Pro Mini is building upon that adoption in the U.S., providing a pricing uplift that offsets pressure of our hybrid AF therapy procedure volumes.
It remains clear that differentiated innovation plays an important role in maintaining our position as the leader in appendage management in cardiac surgery, and we continue to prioritize investments in this platform. In our international markets, we are growing adoption across our legacy left atrial appendage management devices. Following the first quarter, we received CE Mark under EU MDR in Europe for both AtriClip Flex Mini and Pro Mini devices and expect to launch both products in Europe later this year. New product launches in Europe, the United States, China, and Japan, coupled with the future LEAFS clinical trial outcomes, provide a long runway for growth in our appendage management franchise.
In closing, the performance we delivered this quarter underscores the power of our innovation and focus on execution, while the rapid progress in our BOX NOAF clinical trial reinforces the significant opportunity ahead. At MNTN Inc., we remain committed to advancing standards of care, scaling responsibly, and delivering durable growth with improving profitability for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Angie Wyrick, our Chief Financial Officer.
Angie Wyrick: Thanks, Mike. Worldwide revenue for the first quarter of 2026 was $141.2 million, up 14.3% on a reported basis and 12.8% on a constant currency basis versus the first quarter of 2025. Our performance reflects substantial growth driven by the continued adoption of key new products in the United States and many regions throughout the world. On a sequential basis, worldwide revenue increased approximately 1% compared to the fourth quarter of 2025. First quarter 2026 U.S. revenue was $116.2 million, a 14.9% increase from the first quarter of 2025. Open ablation product sales grew 17.3% to $39.1 million, fueled by the strong and sustained adoption of our Encompass clamp across new and existing accounts.
U.S. sales of appendage management products were $48.4 million, up 14.9% over the first quarter of 2025, driven primarily by increasing adoption of our AtriClip Flex Mini and Pro Mini devices. U.S. MIS ablation sales were $6.4 million, a decline of approximately 25% versus the first quarter of 2025. U.S. pain management sales were $22.4 million, up 29.5% year-over-year, led by the Cryosphere Max Pro, which contributed approximately 70% of pain management sales in the quarter, driving increased adoption in both thoracic and sternotomy procedures. International revenue totaled $25 million for the first quarter of 2026, up 11.5% on a reported basis and up 3.3% on a constant currency basis as compared to the first quarter of 2025.
European sales were $16.1 million, up 13.2%, and Asia Pacific and other international market sales were $8.9 million, up 8.4%. International growth was tempered by continued uncertainty in the U.K. as well as lower distributor sales in Asia. Offsetting these headwinds, we saw significant growth across franchises in other major geographies, largely driven by our direct markets. Gross margin for the first quarter of 2026 was 77.4%, up 246 basis points from the first quarter of 2025, driven primarily by favorable product and geographic mix, with strong U.S. performance propelled by our new product launches and adoption. Transitioning to operating expenses for the quarter—
Patrick Pohlen: We expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $96 million and $101 million. To wrap up, we delivered another solid quarter and believe MNTN Inc. will continue to gain market share in the massive performance television market. We are confident that our future growth initiatives and the strength of our operating model will position MNTN Inc. to drive continued growth and profitability. With that, we will open up the line for questions.
Operator: We will now open the call for questions. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please use the raise-your-hand function. If you have dialed in to today's call, please press 9 to raise your hand and 6 to unmute. Please stand by as we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Shyam Patil of Susquehanna. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Shyam Patil: Hey, guys. Congrats on the continued strong execution and results. Mark, I had one question for you. You mentioned in your script that the company has made some pretty significant hires with strong backgrounds in this space. Can you talk a little bit more about this and what you are envisioning?
Mark Douglas: Thanks for the question. We think the market we essentially created—the concept of performance TV and bringing television to the small and mid-sized business sector—is moving from early adopter to mainstream. We added Garland Hill and Peter Blacker, and they are adding people to the teams they are building out in the company, to meet that mainstream market head-on. Garland has been involved in significant build-outs in performance marketing, so his experience, knowledge, skills, and network are incredibly valuable. Same with Peter—he was there day one building out streaming at NBCUniversal and Peacock.
I am excited about these individuals, the people they will bring, and as the year unfolds and the market moves from early adopter into the mainstream segment where every company expects to be on television as part of their marketing mix.
Operator: Thanks, Shyam. Your next question comes from Ronald Josey with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Ronald Josey: Great, thanks for taking the question. Mark, on your streaming partners— with more events like March Madness and NHL playoffs, and with Peter's hire—how have partnerships evolved, and how do partners view you as an additional source of monetization? Anything changed or accelerated? And then on QuickFrame AI 3.0, now out of beta since the fall, how have sales cycles and conversion rates trended?
Mark Douglas: For performance marketing to work, you must reach the consumer where they are. You cannot just pick a single network; you need to reach everyone within the target group. We have built relationships with virtually every streaming network in America. As connected TV brings on more live sports and tentpole events like the Oscars, we think it is important to bring our customers to those events, too. Bringing Peter on—NBC has the Olympics, the World Cup—his experience and relationships help ensure MNTN Inc. gives customers access to everything. Networks view us as a growth channel—95% of our customers have never advertised on television before, so that is net new revenue to our partners.
On QuickFrame AI, the product is new and we did a long beta. Many companies used it and continue to use it. With version 3, it is fully ready for anyone to use. We are excited about the commercials people are building. Most of our younger or smaller customers are using QuickFrame AI in some way. We measure how quickly companies get live and how often they refresh creative. Those metrics are trending in the right direction.
Operator: Thank you, Ronald.
Andrew Boone: Thanks so much for taking the questions. I would like to start with guidance. The full-year guide implies an acceleration in the back half. Can you explain that or talk about your confidence to achieve it? And then, Patrick, you mentioned throttling new customers in terms of onboarding. How do you think about the pacing of onboarding customers and what is a good fit versus not? Help us understand the dynamics of customer adds.
Patrick Pohlen: I will take the first one, and Mark and I may share the second. We continue to see a lot of strength in the PTV business, indicated in both our Q2 guide and our fiscal year guide. We anticipate continued growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA and see a long runway of growth ahead. The Q2 guide is $81 million to $83 million, $82 million at the midpoint—20% year-over-year growth. The fiscal year guide is $347 million to $357 million—24% growth at the midpoint. We continue to invest strategically in initiatives that will drive revenue growth, particularly in sales and marketing, and we have initiatives to continue to improve our gross margins.
The combination of strong customer and revenue growth, gross margin strength, and disciplined investment sets us up nicely.
Mark Douglas: On onboarding and pacing: we think of small business and mid-market as distinct. Beyond size, larger companies have dedicated marketing teams with specific needs; our platform initially focused on those mid-market needs. Smaller businesses are often owner-led with less-developed marketing skill sets, so some platform needs differ. Our mid-market has consistently grown since launching performance TV. For small business, we want to ensure they come on, are successful, our acquisition costs are where we want them, and they have sustained growth. We constantly adjust how much small business we drive, product and reporting features, and marketing investment. We also control product minimums.
We will continue evolving this throughout the year to bring small businesses on at a sustainable, responsible, and profitable rate.
Patrick Pohlen: And we did grow 46% year-over-year in customer growth.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Robert Coolbrith with Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Robert Coolbrith: Hi, everybody. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions. First, on QuickFrame AI: any benefits you saw in beta that increase confidence in go-live times and creative refresh, especially for SMBs? Does that give you more confidence to invest incrementally? Second, gross margin came in better than expected—any particular levers you pulled in the quarter?
Patrick Pohlen: Mark and I will share the first. On QuickFrame AI, why is version 3 the full-production release? We watched customers use the product—rates of starting projects, getting live, and time to launch—and we are pleased with where those metrics landed.
Mark Douglas: We lowered effort required and raised go-live rates. People with fewer creative skills are increasingly successful. We invested in tech like savable characters (AI casting), savable locations, and product selection in-video. The underlying generative models have rapidly improved—we integrate with the best models, including Sora-type capabilities, Kling, Google’s Gemini, and others—and orchestrate them to produce professional-grade videos. For SMBs, we see significant improvements because there are no approvals—create an account, create the video, go live. Mid-market has more approvals and creative stakeholders, but we still see improvement. We are not quantifying yet, but we are enthusiastic about the production release and its impact.
Patrick Pohlen: On gross margin, we had a nice quarter at 81%. That reflects strong revenue growth, which drives margin improvement, plus structural cost benefits. We spun out Maximeffort, which reduces creative COGS, and we had the full benefit of switching hosting providers in Q1. We believe these benefits, combined with disciplined COGS management, support our long-term 75% to 80% gross margin target.
Operator: Your next question comes from Matt Weber with Canaccord. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Matt Weber: Thanks for taking the question, and congrats on the strong quarter. How would you describe the health of your SMB advertiser base over the past few months? Any changes in budget pacing or campaign duration reflecting tighter discretionary environments? Are large enterprise customers behaving differently?
Mark Douglas: SMBs are generally not greatly affected by macro unless conditions are extremely severe. Even in difficult environments, SMBs remain ambitious and often become more determined to grow. We are seeing essentially zero macro-driven pullback—customers focus on return on ad spend and hitting metrics. Large global brands are not really our focus, so others are better positioned to answer on enterprise trends. In our SMB market, it is full speed ahead.
Matt Weber: As a follow-up, any update on your media planning tool—timing and differentiation versus existing solutions?
Mark Douglas: You will hear more very soon. It is another exciting AI development for MNTN Inc., currently with customers and receiving very positive feedback. I tend to talk about products early, but we are close and excited to share more.
Operator: Your next question comes from Andrew Merrick with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Andrew Merrick: Two, please. First, on the recent Pinterest announcements with TVScientific—how does that affect performance TV and you in particular? Second, given events in Q1 like March Madness and the pro playoffs, how are you thinking about a World Cup boost this summer?
Mark Douglas: On Pinterest and TVScientific: Pinterest has a lot of data and is looking for ways to monetize it. We are not seeing this as competitive in our sales cycles. On the World Cup, it is a massive event, especially being in the U.S., and MNTN Inc. will make World Cup inventory available to customers. Our customers ultimately allocate spend based on return on ad spend, not specific events. Being on all available content, including the World Cup, supports performance, but it is not a separate driver in our guidance.
Operator: Your next question comes from Robert Sanderson with Loop Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Robert Sanderson: Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. On your go-to-market evolution: historically you were driven by inbound leads, but you have expanded sales and are focusing more on agency relationships. How are these efforts going, when should we see more impact, and are direct sales and agencies incremental to inbound or a mix shift? Any margin implications?
Mark Douglas: The shift reflects the market moving from early adopter to mainstream. The agencies we work with are generally independent performance agencies—built around paid search and social—now adding performance TV. More than 90% of performance TV advertisers do not use an agency, so direct remains the majority, but agencies are an important and growing channel, especially for larger mid-sized brands. With Garland as CRO, we are ensuring coverage both direct-to-brand and via agencies. We count brands as the core metric; agencies are a one-to-many path to brands, but the brand is the ultimate decision maker.
Robert Sanderson: And on direct sales expansion?
Mark Douglas: It takes time for new sellers to become fully productive, but we have no concerns. The opportunity is large, and expanding sales coverage is a low-risk investment.
Patrick Pohlen: From a margin standpoint, our model has natural leverage. We do not expect a negative margin impact from the mix.
Robert Sanderson: Lastly, on competition—larger players want to move down-market to SMBs. What are misperceptions about your differentiation, and what are the most durable elements of your moat?
Mark Douglas: We are purpose-built for SMBs. Targeting is critical—smaller businesses target smaller pools of consumers—so we built AI-driven targeting for precision. Most customers come without TV ads or budgets for production crews—QuickFrame AI addresses that. Our programmatic bidding is built to respond to performance signals and optimize media buying. We provide a single solution across nearly every streaming network with premium content to drive outcomes. Go-to-market matters: if you have an enterprise sales motion, moving down to SMB is hard; you need a different organization and technology platform. We respect others’ efforts— it validates the opportunity—but we are not standing still.
More than half of MNTN Inc. is software engineers, and we continue to advance our lead in performance for streaming TV.
Operator: Your next question comes from Laura Martin with Needham. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Laura Martin: Two topics. First, orchestration—you have said you orchestrate across multiple LLMs, which we are also hearing broadly across the industry. Any progress in being an orchestration layer? Second, on competition, many are moving to omnichannel performance by adding CTV. Is there a competitive advantage to not being omnichannel and focusing solely on performance CTV?
Mark Douglas: When I say orchestration, I primarily mean in creative. The idea is to use best-of-breed generative models for specific tasks and scenes—some models are better with products, some with multiple talking actors, etc. To get professional-quality video, you need a tech layer that knows which models to use and when, plus voiceover and music. We recognized that early and built proprietary tech to orchestrate across models. Others can and likely will do this, but it is table stakes for quality. On omnichannel, our biggest advantage is having the highest performance in TV. We have never lost a head-to-head performance test in streaming TV. Maintaining that lead is a core advantage. Whether we go omnichannel will follow customer demand.
Some in the ad market want a single wallet across channels, but it is not yet clear customers fully want that. We will keep listening and innovating.
Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mark for closing remarks.
Mark Douglas: Thank you, everyone, for your time. We are happy with this quarter and excited about the rest of the year. Stay tuned—we will keep executing. Thanks, everyone.
Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
