Thank you, and thank you for joining our fiscal year 2024 earnings call. I'm pleased to discuss Arqit's financial year results. Let me start by saying that I stepped into the CEO role at an exciting time for the company. The market for better, simpler encryption, which addresses cybersecurity issues today and those posed by quantum computers is moving towards us. Previously, it had been a major governmental entity such as the White House and the NSA, evangelizing solution providers such as Arqit driving the discussion about the need for enhanced cryptography. What we saw during 2024 was the marketplace pick up the microphone and start leading the dialogue. That is a fundamental and positive development.
Before discussing the market for our products and our fiscal results, let me take a moment to introduce myself and comment on stepping into the role of CEO at Arqit. I most recently have been operating partner at Notion Capital. Notion is a leading European technology venture capital fund. It has been a long time investor in Arqit. Prior to joining Notion, I was a senior executive at leading software companies such as Ariba, Bazaarvoice, Hortonworks, SuccessFactors and Workday. I held positions, including international VP, CRO and COO. In addition, I've advised several successful private software scale-ups.
Understanding of and working with software companies at Arqit's stage of development is squarely in my expertise and experience. I was asked by the Board of Arqit early in 2024 to do a deep review of the company, its product and the market opportunity. My survey covered all aspects of the business. After a several month review, I concluded the following: Number one, Arqit's symmetric key agreement software product is unique and built for purpose. Number two, there is a significant market opportunity, which is only beginning to be addressed.
Number three, Arqit's engagement with OEMs, network operators, governments and end users is accelerating. And number four, the company needed to focus its operations and resources in line with this opportunity set and stage of development. In summary, I concluded that Arqit has a compelling product offering and significant market opportunity. That was the message which I convey to the Board.
The Board of Directors approached me in mid-summer regarding stepping into the Chief Executive role. Given the conclusions from my review of the company and my executive skill set, I believe that I could help the company focus these efforts and scale revenues. Obviously, I accepted the position. I'm excited by the opportunities in front of the company. My primary objectives are: number one, focusing the sales efforts on markets and prospects, which represent meaningful near-term revenue. We're also building our technology road map for future verticals and opportunities. That said, we do not lack for near-term sales opportunities. Number two, appropriately allocate on our personnel and expenditures in support of our sales initiatives and customer fulfillment. Sales without excellent customer fulfillment and support is not a recipe for success.
Number three, ensuring the stability of the business, that means making sure Arqit is appropriately capitalized and on firm footing from a legal and regulatory perspective. The Board is supportive of my objectives and shares my positive assessment of Arqit's prospects Members of the Board demonstrated their support for the company by investing additional capital in the company this autumn. Support from several leading stakeholders was greatly appreciated and gives the company confidence in moving forward with purpose.
Circling back to my earlier comments about the market moving toward Arqit. 2024 was the year of all things AI. It dominated headlines and was a big catalyst for the stock market. Is 2025 going to be the year of all things quantum? Difficult to say for sure, but we've seen an increase and acceleration in the dialogue around quantum computing and encryption in 2024, which should continue into 2025. And importantly, as I mentioned, the dialogue is coming from the marketplace and media previously, it has been governmental agencies and companies such as Arqit driving the narrative.
For instance, in October, Gartner named Quantum Computing and encryption as one of the major technology trends for 2025. In November, Amazon Web Services launched Quantum Embark an advisory program that aims to prepare its customers for society shift towards quantum computing, and mainstream media ran hard with the story regarding the possible cracking of RSA encryption by a quantum computer. While the merits of the story remain in doubt, it demonstrates the spotlight that is beginning to shine on all things quantum.
The spotlight shown on Arqit as well. International Data Corp., or IDC named Arqit a 2024 IDC innovator for post-quantum cryptography. Arqit is 1 of only 5 vendors recognized by IDC as providing transformative solutions, which enterprises can use to protect classical data and infrastructure with a long shelf value from the risk of a potential quantum cyber attack.
Three factors have come together to drive increased customer engagement for Arqit. The market's heightened awareness of the quantum thread, Arqit's compliance with the NSA commercial solutions for classified symmetric key management requirements, CSFC, and industry recognition for our technology by organizations such as the global mobile awards.
As a result, Arqit engaged with 8 leading telecom network providers during the fiscal year with the pace of engagements increasing over the period. To be clear, these engagements have been focused on technical and integration matters. However, these engagements represent opportunities for conversion into annual recurring licenses associated with sell-through to the network operators customers or a license for our symmetric career agreement software for use by their network operator within its own estate.
Our engagement with Sparkle is a Blueprint's success with other network operators. Sparkle is rolling out its Quantum-Safe network as a Service product offering secured by Arqit. It serves 33 countries with a network of over 600,000 kilometers of terrestrial and subsea fiber. We will generate license revenue as Sparkle signs up customers to its service. We're excited about this partnership opportunity and see additional opportunities with our partner.
Our relationship with Sparkle developed quickly. While we'd like all our engagements with other network operators to move as quickly, we must be mindful that these are large counterparties with sophisticated technological requirements. It takes time and significant interaction to reach commercial acceptance given the critical nature of our security offering. The feedback which we receive is positive as we move through the process with each prospective network operator. We are confident that future contractual revenue can be realized from this key target market for Arqit.
Another key market target for the company is the government and military markets. The company announced in May that it had been awarded a 7-figure multiyear contract, which was subject to final documentation. While finalization of documentation took longer than we expected, we are pleased to say that the contract was executed prior to the close of the fiscal year. The contract is through our Middle East distribution partner for a significant governmental agency in the region. We expect to commence booking revenue under the contract in the current fiscal year. The contract is significant in and of itself as it represents meaningful contractual annual recurring revenue.
In addition, the contract of our target with a marquee reference customer, which should result in further opportunities with other governmental agencies and significant in-country commercial enterprises. We are currently in dialogue with several parties. While we see land and expand potential in this particular country, we expect this win to have broader positive implications across all our government and military activities.
Arqit executed under 2 contracts for 2 defense contractors during the fiscal year, both for our Symmetric Key Agreement Platform as a Service. We believe that the government and military markets represent significant opportunities for Arqit. Identified prospective customers have increased. The level of dialogue is up, and we are beginning to see contract wins and revenue.
These are tough markets to break into, but we have a leg in the door. If we can set through the door, these markets are vast. Our revenue for the fiscal year was $293,000, down from $640,000 in the previous year. That's in U.S. dollars. Neither result is compelling, nor are they reflective of the market opportunity and underlying progress which the company has made. Nick will discuss the movement in revenue in a few minutes.
I want to make sure not to lose sight of the progress which we have made in fiscal year 2024. We executed on 13 contracts in 2024 versus 7 in 2023. We delivered for 13 customers in 2024 versus 6 the prior year. Arqit engaged in significant technical discussions with 11 entities, including a telecom network operators. These represent near-term opportunity for conversion into material revenue contracts. We engaged in 19 technical demonstrations across a range of end markets, including VPN service providers, edge computing, government, defense organizations and network performance monitoring and executed a significant ARR contract with a leading government organization, which should have material knock-on benefit.
It is the growing market awareness of the need for Arqit's product and the tangible evidence of progress by the company that excited me to take on the role of CEO. Yes, a lot of work is in front of us to drive revenue to scale. I have successfully done that in the past with companies at Arqit's stage of development. Importantly, the piece parts are in place to build towards success.
We've taken critical steps since I joined the company to focus our efforts and ensure stability in our business. We have undertaken additional cost-cutting initiatives, which built upon those taken earlier in the year. Budgeted monthly operating costs for fiscal 2025 have reduced to $2.15 million per month. Thus far, in fiscal year 2025, our cost savings initiatives is ahead of budget.
Headcount has been reduced to 82 employees at fiscal year-end from 147 the prior year. As part of the head count reduction process, we have reshaped our workforce to prioritize sales, engineering and customer fulfillment. It is not about doing more with less. It is about allocating resources to the most mission-critical tasks at our stage of development. It is also about driving decision-making down in the organization so we can be responsive. It is about focusing on the most important opportunities.
In the current fiscal year, we'll be focused particularly on the telecom network, government and military markets. We are also investigating financial services and IP-rich industries. Conversion of our current engagement with prospective customers to operating licenses is our top priority. Adding additional opportunities to our sales funnel is important, but not the expense of converting prospective customers with whom we are deep in discussion.
Refining our internal processes to ensure the highest quality customer fulfillment and support is imperative, we have made significant progress in this regard. While I cannot opine as to whether 2025 is the year of quantum, I do know it brings the world a year closer to a quantum computer at commercial scale. And that means the need for post-quantum encryption grows. Arqit's symmetric key agreement software addresses that need. We are focused on the hard work necessary to build upon 2024's progress and take large steps forward in 2025.
With that, let me turn the call over to Nick Pointon, our CFO, for a few remarks on our financials. Nick?
